The Tribune

By KEILE CAMPBELL


Tribune Staff Reporter


kcampbell@tribunemedia.net

FORMER Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis branded Bahamas Power and Light’s energy conservation advice “insulting” yesterday, accusing the utility of being detached from the realities of ordinary Bahamians enduring prolonged outages.

Dr Minnis said BPL’s focus on swimming pool pumps, electric vehicle charging and large televisions reflected the lifestyles of wealthier residents rather than people struggling through repeated power cuts.

“It was insulting for them to talk about pools, electrical vehicles, TV size,” Dr Minnis said. “They have to be joking. It shows that they are out of touch with reality, because those in the inner city, they have no pool. They’re trying to get a vehicle to move around. They just want the cheapest vehicle they can get.”

His comments followed a press conference on Tuesday at which BPL executives appealed for customers to reduce electricity use during peak periods as the utility sought to manage an overstretched grid.

BPL urged customers to limit the use of high-consumption equipment, including swimming pool pumps and electric vehicle chargers. Executives also said the growing number of larger televisions and other household electronics had contributed to increased demand.

Dr Minnis said the message amounted to asking Bahamians to restrict basic household activities.

“They’re basically asking us indirectly: ‘Don’t turn your TV on, Don’t increase the size of your TV, Don’t charge your cell, Don’t drive electrical vehicle,’” he said.

He was particularly critical of the reference to swimming pools, arguing that only a small proportion of Bahamians owned them.

“How many people in the city have any pool to talk about monitoring the pump house?” Dr Minnis asked. “Growing up in Bain Town, we never had any pool. Growing up in The Grove, we never had any pool. Farm Road, no pool. Then you talk about Centerville or Mason’s Addition, no pool. You go in Fort Charlotte, no pool. Englerston, no pool. So who are they talking to? Obviously not to the common man.”

Dr Minnis also argued that successive governments had encouraged the adoption of electric vehicles and said BPL should have prepared the grid for the additional demand.

“They knew for years that government was leaning towards electrical vehicles, so you didn’t prepare,” Dr Minnis said.

Dr Minnis said BPL should conduct audits across the company to identify and address its problems instead of asking customers to inconvenience themselves.

He recalled that when his administration took office in 2017, it encountered load shedding and later ordered additional generators.

“When you walked into the generator rooms, I mean, I could not believe it,” Dr Minnis said. “There was at least one to two inches of oil thick on the floors, and those were the conditions those individuals were working.”

He said he was surprised BPL engineers had not complained about the conditions and claimed the generators had not been properly maintained.

“There’s usually a manufacturer’s guideline that states when generators should be maintained,” Dr Minnis said. “What they should be producing, showing us the maintenance guideline, then showing us that you’ve been following that.”

Dr Minnis said BPL should explain how it would compensate customers for spoiled food, damaged appliances and the loss of other household necessities during outages.

He dismissed the proposed $8.50 rebate as inadequate, saying the amount “can only buy two pack of peanuts”.

“Tell the Bahamian people what they’re gonna do in terms of compensation for the spoilage, the food loss, the refrigerator destruction, the stove, the TV, the microwave, etc. That’s what people want to hear, and what’s important to me,” Dr Minnis said.