The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas’ energy crisis is “turning off” both local and foreign investment in this economy, the Democratic National Alliance’s (DNA) leader charging yesterday that consumers were being “kept in the dark” on changes.

Branville McCartney called for Bahamas Power & Light (BPL), the successor operator to BEC, and its manager, PowerSecure, to divulge the business plan for reforming the troubled energy monopoly so that Bahamians could have some hope of improvement.

“PowerSecure have come on stream, and they’re not telling us what the plan is,” Mr McCartney told Tribune Business. “We’re still looking and asking, and no one is telling us what the plan is for BPL and PowerSecure.

“We are left in the dark, just like when the current goes off on a continuous basis. The Bahamian people are left in the dark. We want to know what the plan is.”

PowerSecure signed a five-year contract for BPL’s management with the Christie administration in early February 2016. However, following its $431 million purchase by Southern Company, it is only now - following the appointment of Pam Hill as BPL’s chief executive - that moves are being made to execute on its business plan.

That document’s contents, though, have yet to be made public, with a press conference to discuss it cancelled by BPL. Mr McCartney said it had to involve lower energy costs, and greater supply reliability and security, together with a focus on renewable energies and switch to cleaner fuels.

A reliable, consistent power supply is likely to be among PowerSecure’s first objectives but, with the expectations of Bahamians already raised by the Government following the PowerSecure deal, the Carolinas-based firm may have little time in which to effect improvements before public sentiment becomes negative.

Mr McCartney suggested yesterday that PowerSecure may have run out of time before it had even begun, saying: ‘These woes should have been fixed a long time ago before they came in.

“We don’t have time for them to fix it. We should know, as a people, what they plan to do, and the determine whether they have time to do it. Right now, we’re literally in the dark as to what their plans are, so we can’t tell whether they need more time.

“We as a country don’t have time. In 2016, we should not be where we are. I cry shame on the current and previous administrations for that. It’s ridiculous. I’m fed up and continue to be fed up, and the Bahamian people ought to be fed up.”

New Providence last week suffered rolling blackouts, induced by a generation capacity shortfall, and then an island-wide outage that many hoped would become a thing of the past once BEC’s operating assets were taken over by a private sector manager.

“What that does to businesses is tremendous,” Mr McCartney said of last week’s power outages.

“The losses that businesses incur as a result of these blackouts, and the inconvenience for some businesses, having to let staff go home. There were a number of businesses that could not do business because of the blackout, and it causes tremendous strain on the private sector.”

Mr McCartney said reliable energy supply was vital to the Bahamas’ “future existence”, and pointed to the ramifications of last weekend’s events for business and investor confidence.

“Many persons are turned off from coming to this country, investing in this country, by high energy cost and lack of reliability,” he told Tribune Business.

“Local businessmen are turned off from investing further in their own country by high energy costs. It is literally a turn-off to persons investing in this country, Bahamians and foreigners alike.

“You would have thought a more progressive government would have taken that in hand from the beginning, but we are experiencing the same Bahamas we experienced four-and-a-half years ago; the same thing this government complained about and said they were going to fox. It’s the same thing, the same old.”