The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune News Editor

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE Davis administration has pushed back hard against warnings from the Grand Bahama Chamber of Commerce over plans to acquire the Grand Bahama Power Company, arguing that energy reform is a public-interest necessity and not a narrow business exercise driven solely by cost recovery.

In a statement yesterday, the Office of the Prime Minister said the Chamber’s intervention risked mischaracterising both the purpose and urgency of reform, warning that leaving its claims unanswered could distort public understanding of what is at stake for Grand Bahama and the wider country.

The statement said electricity must be treated as essential national infrastructure, not merely a commercial service, describing it as a public safety issue, a cost-of-living issue and a determinant of economic competitiveness. It said government policy cannot accept a framework in which reliability and affordability are deferred until demand grows.

“Reliable and affordable power is a precondition for investment and population growth, not a reward for achieving them,” the statement said, adding that serious investors and families alike make long-term decisions based on present conditions, not future promises.

The government rejected the Chamber’s reliance on economies of scale to argue that national comparisons are invalid, saying scale limitations across an archipelago are precisely why a coordinated national approach is required. It warned that fragmented planning and isolated pricing would entrench inequality and weaken national competitiveness.

The statement also dismissed claims that national rate structures are artificial, saying they reflect a deliberate governance choice to prevent deepening disparities between islands. It said equity in access to essential services is not an accounting trick but a core responsibility of government.

Responding to suggestions that acquisition would simply shift losses to taxpayers without improving service, the statement said modern energy reform is driven by engineering and system design, not ownership labels. It pointed to storm-hardened infrastructure, redundancy, automation and disciplined capital planning as the real determinants of reliability.

Citing recent experience in New Providence, the government said the $130 million Foundational Grid Upgrade Project delivered independently verified reductions of 45 percent in outage frequency and 35 percent in outage duration by the end of 2025, with reliability on normal operating days improving by nearly 50 percent. It said wider reform through public-private partnerships and power purchase agreements has unlocked commitments to invest $1 billion across the archipelago.

The statement said the challenges acknowledged by the Chamber — hurricane exposure, reliance on costly rental generation and the need for major upgrades — argue for decisive action rather than delay.

“The issues acknowledged by the Chamber are not an argument for delay,” it said. “They are an argument for decisive, technically grounded action with clear accountability and a defined pathway to modernisation.”

While stressing it remains open to engagement, the government said the national discussion cannot drift toward accepting high electricity costs as inevitable, deferring reform until demand increases, or treating equity across islands as optional.