The Tribune

By SANCHESKA DORSETT

Tribune Staff Reporter

sdorsett@tribunemedia.net

PAMELA HILL being fired as the CEO of Bahamas Power and Light  was “long overdue and necessary,” according to the electricity company’s former Executive Chairman Leslie Miller, who claimed that “Ms Hill did not know what the hell she was doing.”

In an interview with The Tribune, Mr Miller praised BPL’s new board executives for “doing the right thing” and said he hopes they take it a step further and terminate PowerSecure’s management contract of BPL.

Mr Miller served as executive chairman of the Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC), now called BPL, until late 2015. He was removed from his post at the utility provider shortly after the government announced that a transition services agreement had been signed with PowerSecure.

Since taking over the management aspects of BPL, PowerSecure has grappled with technical issues resulting in several extended blackouts.

On Monday, Ms Hill was given notice of her termination with immediate effect.

The announcement came less than a week after the company fired three junior employees in connection with a more than $2m fraud scheme uncovered earlier this year.

“Please, someone show me tangibly what Ms Hill and that company did for BEC,” Mr Miller said. “When the old board left, electricity was 31 cents per kilowatt hour and now it is 43 cents.

“When we left, Clifton was running at full capacity and now it is operating at less than half. Let’s be honest, Ms Hill never had the capacity to run that company and they put her there because she was black and PowerSecure was dealing with black people. She was their token black person. This woman had little to no experience, they sent her here and she did not know what the hell she was doing,” he claimed.

Mr Miller congratulated the new board and said, “so far they (are) on the right track.”

“I want to thank them for their efforts and what they are attempting to do and hopefully they will implement a new generating system and they can get the light bills lower,” Mr Miller said.

“Now I just need them to get rid of PowerSecure. Why would you keep a company that allowed BEC to get ripped off? Okay, so the senior person is gone but why keep the company? All of them should have gone one time. Should they not suffer the same fate? They need to send everyone packing. Good riddance to Ms Hill, the sooner all of them get on a flight, the better the Bahamas will be.”

Ms Hill was named chief executive officer in May 2016.

She replaced Jeff Wallace, who resigned citing “personal reasons” weeks after the government finalised its deal with PowerSecure.

PowerSecure’s five-year management services agreement, reportedly worth as much as $25m, was promoted by the former Christie administration as being the answer to sub-par electricity service and high electricity bills.