The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

A Cabinet minister yesterday said the Government was not “dragging its feet” over whether to approve a $250 million ‘Floating Power Plant’ investment proposal that aims to reduce electricity costs by 30-50 per cent.

Khaalis Rolle, minister of state for investments, said yesterday that the Government was in the process of evaluating all energy proposals before it, and looking to reduce the cost of energy in the Bahamas in “absolute terms”.

As reported in Tribune Business on Monday, investors behind the SGI Global Holdings project are “at a total loss” as to why the Government has yet to approve it, describing their proposal’s potential economic impact as “phenomenal”.

Attorney and FNM Senator, John Bostwick, who is acting as Bahamian legal counsel for the SGI Global Holdings consortium, told Tribune Business its ‘Floating Power Plant’ would bring “more than five times” New Providence’s average daily demand for electricity, and could be operational within 120 days of receiving all necessary approvals – including the signing of a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with the Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC).

Despite encouraging noises from government officials to SGI about its proposal, praising it as a viable solution, the consortium is no nearer to obtaining full government approval.

Mr Rolle told Tribune Business: “I saw the complaints that we are dragging our feet and it’s quite the opposite. That proposal was one of the latest proposals that came in. There were proposals that came in before that. We are reviewing all of the proposals; we haven’t completed the technical review.

“There is a process for evaluating all of the proposals. No one proposal has priority over the other group of proposals. What the Government is doing currently is reviewing and updating the infrastructure to be able to accommodate alternative energy.

“We only have once chance to do this right, and we are going to do it right the first time so we don’t have to go back and try to figure out the mechanism after the fact. Our goal is to reduce the cost of energy in absolute terms. There are some things that have to happen before this is done,” he added.

“We are providing a total solution for the Commonwealth of the Bahamas and not just New Providence, so we have to solve the problem and it has to be solved at the root. When I was head of the Chamber I launched the draft national energy plan with the former governmen,t which was more than five years ago. Some real technical work has to take place so that we have the right infrastructure in place and deliver something that is meaningful and will solve the entire problem; not just pieces of it.”