The Tribune

By Fay Simmons

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

North Andros businesses and residents feel Bahamas Power & Light (BPL) "could have offered more to ease their burden" even though the utility alleged the area's consumers owe it a collective $500,000 in arrears.

Darin Bethel, the North Andros Chamber of Commerce president, speaking after BPL representatives met the North Andros community to address its electricity woes following the fire that destroyed the local generation plant, said: “They are still dissatisfied. They feel as if BPL could have offered more to ease their burden.

“I know that their [BPL] time is valuable, and I really appreciate them taking the time out of the day to accommodate us. It says a lot, but I would think that they would have been willing to work with the community in more ways. I realise that BPL has a lot on their plate but North Andros residents do as well, and we’re still battling with that.”

While BPL said it will suspend disconnections in North Andros for an indefinite period, Mr Bethel voiced concern that this will encourage residents to not pay their obligations and run up large, accumulated bills they are ultimately unable to pay. And, while the possibility of renewable energy solutions was discussed, no timeframe was given on when these may be executed or implemented.

An early morning last month caused catastrophic damage to the infrastructure and generation equipment at BPL's North Andros plant. The state-owned utility was forced to bring in replacement generation capacity but, since then, the area has been plagued with frequent power outages causing a loss of business, goods and appliances for both companies and residents.

Mr Bethel explained that BPL agreed to speed-up the claims process for individuals seeking compensation for appliances damaged or lost due to the outages. He added that some businesses are still not satisfied, as the claims process can be tedious and is not guaranteed to provide compensation.

“BPL said that they would try to find ways to expedite the process of claims. Basically, individuals who would have lost appliances can make complaints to the complaints department. And they said what they could do is send somebody down here to help expedite that process a little bit for us," the Chamber president said. “That wasn't satisfying for them [business owners] because it's still a lot of red tape and it’s not assured.”

Companies have also incurred losses that will not be covered by any compensation provided by BPL. Mr Bethel gave examples such as a grocer which lost its entire meat inventory, a seamstress that lost income due to difficulties fulfilling orders, and the large sums of money multiple businesses spent on fuel to run their generators.

He added: "A business owner that has a meat depot, her freezer went bad with the power going on and off and she lost a lot of her meat. And they said there wasn’t anything they can do because their insurance doesn’t cover that.

“Another seamstress said she lost revenue because, with the power outages, she is having difficulties completing uniforms ahead of the new school year. She has had to begin cancelling orders and giving people their money back so that they can look into other options.”

Mr Bethel said BPL officials revealed the utility is operating at a loss in North Andros with over $500,000 in accumulated arrears owed collectively by customers in the area. He added: “They were saying that, on average, they make about $198,000 a month and these are active accounts. That is what their average bill is. And they say that they are in arrears by some $500,000 on those accounts. And so what they were saying is that they are operating at a loss in North Andros.”

While BPL agreed to not perform any disconnections in the area for the "foreseeable future", he fears some residents will allow their bills to pile up during this grace period.

“They did say that they were going to not do any disconnections for the foreseeable future. They didn’t give a timeframe but they said they won’t do any disconnections in the area. But I think that's dangerous because disconnections keep clients accountable," Mr Bethel said.

“Not having the disconnections can benefit the business community because business owners can put that money back into their business, so that they can recover short-term. I’m scared that some individuals will allow their bill to accumulate but, hopefully, they will be careful about that because the light bills are very high and that can accumulate very fast.”

Mr Bethel said the meeting discussed plans for bringing renewable energy to North Andros, which he is confident will improve electricity service. A timeline for this, though, was not revealed.

He added: “They did mention that they are looking into putting a hybrid plant in the area of BAMSI that will cover north and central Andros, something like they are doing in Inagua. They said that is the way forward and that is what they intend to do so, once that comes along, I guess service will hopefully get better but we don’t know when that’s going to be.”

North Andros residents also previously lodged complaints about the lack of reliable information shared with them by BPL. Mr Bethel said the utility agreed to improve communications by forming What's App groups to keep the community up to date, including timelines on future releases so that business owners and residents can plan ahead.

He added: "We discussed a lot of the false information that we were getting on the ground by way of their publications compared to what was actually happening on the ground. And so we talked about ways of trying to connect their public relations officer to directly to the community by setting up What's App groups and maybe having two heads of department for the group so that, once they share information, it can be disseminated quickly.

“We also talked about changing the format of their press release because things change fast. They will probably put time timelines on their press releases.”