The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Electricity Corporation’s (BEC) line worker union yesterday said it would not support its restructuring until the Government removed Leslie Miller as chairman, slamming his decision to blame staff for last week’s outage as “absolute foolishness”.

Bahamas Electrical Workers Union (BEWU) president, Paul Maynard, said: “It’s not our problem, it’s not out fault. It is not so. What he [Mr Miller] is saying is totally and absolutely untrue.

“It is very annoying that we have to put up with this foolishness. I have talked with the manager’s union president, and neither of us will deal with him any more. Any meeting he is in we’re walking out, it’s that simple.

“I’m going to let the Prime Minister know that as long as Mr Miller is there the process at BEC isn’t going through. We have had our fill with him.”

Mr Miller told The Tribune that last Friday’s massive island-wide blackout will cost taxpayers $500,000, adding that the incident could have easily been prevented if employees had done their job.

A “fire in the trenches” at the Blue Hills power station caused the island-wide outage on Friday, which forced the company to conduct load-shedding activities throughout New Providence over the weekend.

Mr Miller explained that the fire erupted after an “overloaded wire” came into contract with oil that had dripped into the trenches at the power plant.

He then claimed this resulted from preventative maintenance not being done, and blamed the problem on the people – the management and staff – who work at Blue Hills. Yet he expressed doubt that anyone would be held responsible .

    Mr Maynard said it was his belief that within “a week or so” there will be a conclusion to the BEC reform process. “I will let the Prime Minister know, as long as Mr Miller is there, he isn’t getting our cooperation. Once he is gone he can get my 120 per cent. I will get behind him on this thing once it is done right,” said Mr Maynard.

   “I have always been saying that we need equipment change. Once that happens we will be fine. Generation is a major part of BEC’s problem. Once that is dealt with situations like this will be a distant nightmare.

“I want to thank the Deputy Prime Minister for coming out despite the fact that his mother died and he was in mourning. He came out and thanked the guys for going through and working. Guys were working for 48 hours with no sleep just to get this situation resolved. We have an understanding that once there is a problem we work until it is finished.”