The Tribune

By RICARDO WELLS

Tribune Staff Reporter

rwells@tribunemedia.net

FREE National Movement Leader Dr Hubert Minnis yesterday said the continued failures of Bahamas Power and Light cannot be forgiven or overlooked, stressing that scores of Bahamians are being forced to endure the company’s “terrible job” performance.

Dr Minnis’ critique came as residents in parts of New Providence suffered extended power cuts for periods up to 12 hours in some cases over the last two days.

One male resident of Delaporte stated: “Four hundred dollars, I just spent $400 on groceries on Saturday, gone. Fish, and everything, just bought and gone. This company needs to get out of town. From 8.30 in the morning to 8.30pm, this is ridiculous. Everybody cannot afford a generator.

“This has to go beyond sending out a press release about some failure, no that’s not going to cut it.”

In response to the outages, BPL said on Tuesday that it was battling “substantial” problems at its Windsor Field substation.

BPL’s Corporate Communication’s Manager Arnette Ingraham said teams were troubleshooting all day Tuesday, without success, to reconnect the entire portion of the island.

Despite the effort, however, extended blackouts were reported in the South Beach area Wednesday.

“We said that BPL is doing a terrible job. We are continuously experiencing blackouts within our nation,” said Dr Minnis on Wednesday. “Many individuals because of the blackouts and the surges are losing their equipment, be it refrigerators, be it computers, be it washing machines, dryers, etc.

“But there is no recourse. These are individuals who have worked all of their lives to accumulate these things to improve the quality of their lives. BPL and the government destroys such equipment with the blackouts and the surges and refuses to pay these individuals back for what was damaged.”

Dr Minnis said these ongoing problems prove that it is time for the country to move away from energy generated by fossil fuels.

He added that The Bahamas was in a position to completely sustain itself through renewable forms of energy.

“(This) points out why it is so essential for this government to be removed, look at today, all of this beautiful sunlight, oh my Lord, it is a natural economy. Should we not move to solar?

“(BPL) needs a lot to be done. We need to look at the machines they are using. We need to look at the service of the machine, the equipment.

“But all and all, we need to upgrade; ensure that it is running properly, cut down on the carbon emission and we must move towards alternative energy, we have been blessed,” said the Killarney MP.

He added: “We have come through a series of revolutionary processes, we have come through the coal revolution, we have gone through the communications revolution; we are now in the internet revolution.

“We will move into what we call the energy internet revolution and it is essential that we prepare ourselves for that.

“And that is what an FNM government would do, we would prepare you for the energy internet revolution. Utilising our solar and other forms of alternative energy,” he added.

Last December, Prime Minister Perry Christie criticised BPL for its inability to provide uninterrupted electricity supply to the island, telling The Tribune he was not only “distressed” by the outages, but that he ordered a probe to uncover the root cause of an island-wide power cut.

Mr Christie said at the time that constant disruption in energy services had brought the government embarrassment as it took place the day before the opening ceremony of an international civil aviation conference.

To date, the prime minister has not provided any further information on that investigation and what was uncovered.