The Tribune

By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sbrown@tribunemedia.net

OUTGOING BEC Executive Chairman Leslie Miller said yesterday he expects to receive an official letter this week transferring him from the Bahamas Electricity Corporation to the Water and Sewerage Corporation.

However, Mr Miller said he “fully expects” to be back at BEC after the next general election because there is “so much more that needs to be done.”

Speaking with The Tribune, he said this was his last week as executive chairman of BEC as the new board has already been appointed and began working on Monday.

“They met with PowerSecure yesterday (Tuesday) for a presentation and the old board will be having our last board meeting today. We will be out next week because there is no sense having two boards,” Mr Miller said.

“I will be moving to the Water and Sewerage (Corporation) and will be getting my letters by today, Friday the latest,” he said yesterday.

“I am happy for the appointment but my time at BEC is not over. There is so much more that we could have done, we saved millions of dollars in money for Bahamians and stopped double dipping for the first time in the history of the Bahamas. It is my intention to go back to BEC to finish the job because overtime and wastage is still a problem.”

The Tribune understands that the new BEC board members were said to include: Nathaniel Beneby, RBC Royal Bank managing director for the Bahamas, Cayman and Turks & Caicos; Andrew Rodgers, Bahamas Aluminium Manufacturing and Nassau Glass principal and a member of the government’s VAT Education Task Force; Patricia Hermanns, Resolve Bahamas board member, and former president of FamGuard Corporation; and Daphne Simmons, human resources consultant and former senior manager at BEC.

The government began negotiations with the American company PowerSecure International over the five-year BEC management contract in May, and signed a transition services agreement in late July.

PowerSecure was expected to finalise its business plan – with specific recommendations for the management of BEC – over the next 60 days, after which a management contract would be signed, once the plan was approved by the Cabinet.

At that time, Deputy Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis said he was hopeful that the new board of directors would be named the following week.

When contacted in September, Mr Davis acknowledged that delays in this process had “slowed up personnel” from undertaking the necessary infrastructure upgrades at the troubled corporation.

While he would not confirm the new board members, Mr Davis previously said Prime Minister Perry Christie was expected to make a formal announcement on the matter soon.