The Tribune

By ANNELIA NIXON

TRIBUNE Business Reporter

anixon@tribunemedia.net

A WELL-KNOWN downtown Nassau restaurant yesterday said it lost thousands of dollars in potential sales after a weekend power outage left it without electricity for most of Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

Pargan Pawar, proprietor of the Taj Mahal Indian eatery, told Tribune Business that the latest disruption - which followed another multi-day outage that impacted Bay Street and downtown Nassau businesses in August - underscores the growing difficulty of operating a business without a reliable power supply.

“It was out for a couple of days,” he said. “It went out Saturday night from about 2am until 6am in the morning. Then it came back at 6am, and it went out from 9.30am Sunday, all day Monday, all day. Monday night at 10pm, it came back.” 

Mr Pawar said the lack of a firm restoration time from Bahamas Power & Light (BPL) also made it difficult to determine whether the restaurant should remain open or send employees home.

“We had to be here to see if it would come back on,” he said. “There was no given time when light would be restored. They just said: ‘We are working, we are working’ and that’s it. So 10pm last night [Monday], the power came back on.” 

Mr Pawar said employees remained at the restaurant waiting for electricity to return despite the business being unable to operate. “The staff was here just in case the light came back, but if there’s no light we can’t open,” Mr Pawar said.

The timing of the outage was particularly damaging because Saturday and Sunday are important trading days for the restaurant, which draws business from cruise passengers visiting downtown Nassau.

“Usually Saturdays we open all day, and Sundays we open in the evenings for dinner because the boat cruise [passengers] usually come for Indian meals,” he added.

Mr Pawar said he was still calculating the full financial impact but estimated the restaurant lost about $5,000 to $6,000 in revenue over the weekend.

“I’m trying to get the paperwork together but I haven’t calculated it all,” he said. “But whatever the revenue income that’s gone for Saturday and Sunday; Saturday we do about $3,000, $4,000, and Sunday we do about $2,000.”

The restaurant also incurred labour costs because employees reported for work despite being unable to serve customers. “On top of that, we still got to pay the staff for being here. They came to work as far as they are concerned, and if we don’t have no light, that’s not… They’re very accommodating,” Mr Pawar said.

He added that employees waited for hours in the hope that electricity would be restored, eventually leaving when it became clear the outage would continue.

“They sat around as long as they could,” Mr Pawar said. “They play dominoes and play cards. But then it comes around about 6pm. And it’s like ‘OK boys, it ain’t going to come back. Time to go home, and it’s dark anyway’.”

The latest outage echoes concerns Mr Pawar raised following a lengthy BPL disruption in August, when Taj Mahal and other downtown businesses reported lost sales, spoiled food and additional expenses.

At the time, Mr Pawar said the restaurant’s normal daily sales could reach between $3,500 and $5,000, and he questioned how companies could effectively operate when they were not given reliable information about restoration times.

He now says the frequency and duration of outages have changed the nature of the risk businesses face.

“We don’t have a generator,” he said. “We never had the need for a generator. I’ve been here 20 years, and when the light used to go out in the old days, it’ll probably go out for half an hour, 40 minutes, and it’s back on. And now it’s not 40 minutes, half an hour. It’s days.”

Mr Pawar argued that reliable electricity should be treated as a fundamental requirement for economic activity, particularly for businesses operating in The Bahamas main tourist districts.

“Power supply is a very serious matter,” he said. “You cannot excel if you don’t have the source of supply. We need energy to do business. We need energy to run businesses. If the energy is not there, you can’t do nothing.”

He also criticised what he described as inadequate maintenance and questioned the structure of responsibility for power generation and distribution.

“BPL changed hands three times already… And then they know where the money is to be made,” he said. “The money is not in transmitting the power. Transmission lines need to be 24/7 taken care of. Maintenance, maintenance, maintenance. It’s not happening.” 

Mr Pawar said prolonged outages suggest problems with maintenance, equipment, materials and technical capacity. “Power lines are breaking down, and either they ain’t got the right tools, right equipment, right educated people, or they don’t have the material,” he added.

“If I know I need 20 bottles of water a week, soon as I’m on the 10th bottle, I call for water, for refill. I don’t want to run out. Why should I wait for the last one to reorder? Suppose the truck break down, they can’t get here? So I’m going to suffer.” 

He said businesses should not be expected to absorb the costs created by infrastructure failures or be forced to make major capital investments simply to maintain operations during outages.

Mr Pawar estimated that purchasing a suitable generator for Taj Mahal could cost thousands of dollars, while upgrading the building’s ageing electrical infrastructure could require hundreds of thousands of dollars.

For Mr Pawar, the issue extends beyond Taj Mahal’s immediate losses to the wider ability of Bahamian businesses to operate, serve visitors and generate revenue.

“Why would I be out of power all day Saturday from two till six,” he said. “We sleep, went out, came back on, and went off again at 9 o’clock. All day Saturday, nine till nine in the evening, all day Sunday nine in the morning, nine in the evening. Monday, 10 o’clock at night time, the light came back on. Tell me something is not wrong.”