The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

THE protracted management transition at the Bahamas Electricity Corporation has hampered the government’s ability to lock in a good rate for consumers, according to a source close to the process.

Officials were reportedly close to securing a rate of 28 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) for the first two years but were unable to finalise the deal, The Tribune was told.

According to the source, negotiators were now hopeful to lock in a rate of 25 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh), given the drop in international fuel costs, but that window of opportunity was said to be rapidly closing.

The cost of electricity for consumers is roughly 40 cents per kWh.

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 yesterday, Mr Davis acknowledged that delays had “slowed up personnel” from undertaking the necessary infrastructure upgrades at the troubled corporation.

He confirmed that PowerSecure presented their business plan to the government’s task force last week.

“We are supposed to be meeting with the task force this week to go through what was presented,” Mr Davis said yesterday. “So hopefully we will be able to make a presentation on those findings to Cabinet.”

“I’d hoped that this would have been completed some time ago. We are working assiduously to get it done, and I hope to be able to make recommendations before the end of September.

“It’s critical for us to address all these issues,” he said, “a lot of the (power) outages are due to fault beyond the control of the corporation at this time because the state of the infrastructure, which is in dying need of upgrades to meet increasing demands.”

Just four of the six members appointed by the government for the new BEC board as part of the corporation’s transition process had been selected up to last week, the source added.

The new members were said to include: Nathaniel Beneby, RBC Royal Bank managing director for the Bahamas, Cayman and Turks & Caicos; Andrew Rogers, Bahamas Aluminum 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.

While he would not confirm the new board members, Mr Davis said Prime Minister Perry Christie was expected to make a formal announcement on the matter this month. He also confirmed that BEC Executive Chairman Leslie Miller was also expected to demit office this month.

According to sources, Mr Miller is expected to be transferred to the board at the Water and Sewerage Corporation but there has been some reported pushback from its present chairman, Lester Cox.

Yesterday, Mr Miller confirmed reports that only four new BEC board members had been selected.

“They are still trying to find these other two persons,” he said, “until that is done the (current) board is intact. We just had a board meeting week before last, and we have scheduled one for this week.”

Mr Miller maintained that his last job as chairman would be the renaming of BEC’s main building after former general manager Peter Bethel.