The Tribune

BAHAMAS Power and Light may just be the albatross around the neck of this government.

The revelation that BPL can now charge late fees on customers will not win the Davis administration any favours.

BPL’s chief executive, Shevonn Cambridge, yesterday told an accountancy seminar – and please note the venue of such an announcement instead of addressing customers directly – that the company has received regulatory go-ahead to impose the levy.

The levy is $5 per month on customers who pay their bill late. It should be noted that is most of BPL’s customers – 80 percent, in fact.

It does not help BPL’s case that their online payment system can often be frustrating at best and impossible at worst.

In recent months, a member of The Tribune’s staff was told – after trying repeatedly to pay online and ending up calling the company up – that the website was down for payments, and to try again when the website was less busy.

Does a customer get charged if BPL’s website isn’t up to the job?

Plenty of customers will be angry that a company that frequently has power outages leaving people in the dark or incur extra costs running generators to keep going has the temerity to now charge even more money.

This comes at a time when bills are soaring – and the government has found itself in a tangle trying to justify why it did not go ahead with more fuel hedging that could have saved people significant amounts of money as oil prices rocketed.

The FNM has attempted to call the government to account on the issue of fuel hedging – while the Speaker of the House announced that she was tired of hearing about the issue, even though it goes directly to the pocket of every Bahamian.

Mr Cambridge said of the plan to impose late fees that BPL “depends on consistent and timely payments to better manage cash flow and adequately fund projects”.

He pointed to other companies, saying: “A $5 monthly late fee is already in use by many other utilities in The Bahamas. It can be a deterrent to late payments and, at the same time, based on our numbers, it could generate funds to offset the carrying costs associated with those late payments.”

Rather than offer an incentive programme – why not a $5 discount for paying early? – BPL has gone straight to punishment instead.

If four out of five people are not paying on time, who is the extra charge going to hurt the most? The ones who struggle to pay at all, of course. This will be an extra burden on those who can least bear it.

Now of course you might say it is only $5. But $5 a month soon adds up for those who cannot afford it.

And at a time when bills have doubled and more, it seems like it is rubbing salt in the wounds of customers.

If BPL wants to go down this path, then what do customers get out of it? Do they get to claim compensation when brownouts cause equipment to burn out? Do customers get a rebate for the days when there is an outage in their area? Or does it just go to pay off BPL’s own debts?

Meanwhile, MR Cambridge is also talking about an increase in the base rates too, while saying it will “not increase electricity bills significantly”. He said those funds will be used to improve efficiency and eventually lower fuel costs. Eventually.

As politicians hit the election trail for the West Grand Bahama and Bimini vote, we hope people will press them on the question of whether they support an extra charge being added on top of the already high BPL bills. As they ask for your votes, we suggest you ask for straight answers.