The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

Bahamas Power & Light (BPL) yesterday unveiled a process that will enable it to supply electricity services to “hundreds” of Family Island customers who lack clear title ownership of their properties/land.

Dr Donovan Moxey, the utility’s chairman, hailed the introduction of an indemnity agreement with effect from today. It is focused on potential customers living on Crown land, commonage property and so-called “generation” property, or any situation in which they do not have clear documentary ownership or clear title.

In return for BPL connecting these customers to its grid, they will be required to indemnify the utility for the cost of any installed infrastructure or power consumed should a dispute over land ownership arise.

Dr Moxey said: “We’re excited to announce the fact that, for our customers in the Family Islands mostly, and also in New Providence, we’ve included a new agreement as part of the onboarding process. That’s an indemnity agreement.

“One of the challenges that many of our customers have faced is they did not have clear ownership or title to their properties, and so as such, BPL, under its existing policies, had a very difficult time in providing them electricity services.”

The indemnity agreement will enable BPL to provide its services to “hundreds” of Family Island customers while eliminating, for example, the possibility that it will be held liable for any damages done to other generation property owners living on shared land.

“What this does is this allows that particular customer to connect to our services, and in the event that there’s any dispute regarding the land matter, they’ve agreed through that agreement to essentially indemnify BPL,” said Dr Moxey.

“We recognise that there are challenges with respect to land ownership, and with respect to commonage property, generation property, leases of Crown land and with respect to establishing ownership or title. Many persons were building on this type of land but had a very difficult time getting electricity from BPL.

“What we’ve done is created an indemnity agreement which allows the customers in those circumstances to connect to our services and, in the event that there is any dispute regarding the land, they have agreed to indemnify BPL for the infrastructure put in and any electricity usage,” Dr Moxey continued.

“This is a significant issue that we’ve experienced in the Family Islands over the years, and we thought it best to try to figure out the best possible way to resolve this situation for our customers.

“So with this announcement, beginning this week, many customers who have called us, you will find that you will have customer service personnel either reaching out to you or you calling us, and that you will now be able to apply for electricity from BPL if you are part of this particular customer category.”

BPL said it has beefed up customer service capacity. “Over the last year, we’ve seen our inbound calls from our call centre go from about 4,000 calls in the month of November of last year to now over 11,400 calls for the month of July,” Dr Moxey said.

BPL will also launch a mobile app that will allow customers to check their bills and make payments online.