By NATARIO McKENZIE
Tribune Business Reporter
nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net
The DNA’s former leader has called for the political blame game over Bahamas Power & Light’s (BPL) generation woes to cease, branding the crisis as an “economic disruptor”.
Branville McCartney told Tribune Business that the load shedding and power outages, which appeared to lessen in severity over the weekend as the 25 Aggreko-supplied rental generation units came online, had caused “significant” losses for New Providence residents and businesses in recent weeks.
“It’s really unfortunate. Its shows a lack of planning on behalf of BPL,” he said. “They knew that new generators were coming in and there would have been disruptions, but they ran into other issues which has only increased the level of discomfort.
“Businesses are losing money because many who are without back-up generators have to close up shop when the power goes off. Apart from that people are still paying a high cost for an unreliable service.”
Mr McCartney added: “This is a complete disruption and will have an adverse effect on the economy. The economy is bad now; we don’t need this type of disruption to cause the economy to be in disarray.
This is no time to speak about whether or not electricity went off under the PLP or FNM. The bottom line is it’s been going on for years under successive governments and it is the people who suffer.”
Dr Donovan Moxey, BPL’s chairman, last week apologised to the company’s consumers for what he described as “unacceptable power conditions” experienced over the weekend before last, together with the “gross inconvenience” caused by widespread and extended power outages.
He added that what occurred over the “unexpected difficult weekend” was an “anomaly” for the state-owned utility.
Desmond Bannister received heavy Opposition criticism last week when he said that despite several consecutive days of load shedding by the energy monopoly, BPL’s performance so far this summer has been better than any of the years under the former Christie administration.
Comments
Use the comment form below to begin a discussion about this content.
Sign in to comment
Or login with:
OpenID