The Tribune

By SANCHESKA DORSETT

Tribune Staff Reporter

sdorsett@tribunemedia.net

BAHAMAS Power and Light has temporarily suspended disconnections on overdue accounts in an effort to provide relief to customers after the passage of Hurricane Matthew, according to Corporate Communications Manager Arnette Ingraham.

However, the company is encouraging customers to “pay their bills by the due date” to avoid an interruption in supply when disconnection activities resume.

Mrs Ingraham told The Tribune that BPL has extended the payment deadline for this billing cycle to give customers “more time to pay”.

Bills will now be due in December rather than October. She also explained that this month’s bill is an estimate “using the average consumption” because employees were not able to read meters during the first few days of October, as is customary, because of the passage of Matthew.

“Our next bill will be an actual meter reading that will reflect your usage for the period when power was off as a result of the storm. All that means is that, if your consumption pattern hasn’t changed, then your next monthly bill should be lower, depending on the days you did not have power,” she said.

“Additionally, we have suspended disconnections for this period but encourage our customers to ensure they pay their bills by the due date to avoid an interruption in supply when we resume disconnection activities. We also encourage any customer who may have difficulty paying their bill to come in to one of our customer service centres to speak to a BPL representative.”

In a video on BPL’s Facebook page last week, CEO Pamela Hill said the company realises this time is frustrating for many Bahamians and BPL will do all it can to ease the hardship.

“Our work is great but our commitment to you, our customers, is greater,” Ms Hill said last week. “Just as you did for Hurricane Joaquin and the hurricanes before, I know that we will rebuild a stronger Bahamas after hurricane Matthew.”