PLP leader Philip 'Brave' Davis.
By RICARDO WELLS
Tribune Staff Reporter
rwells@tribunemedia.net
IN the face of Bahamas Power and Light’s continued generation instabilities, Opposition Leader Philip ‘Brave’ Davis on Friday criticised the Minnis administration’s decision to “go away from all” the plans left by the Progressive Liberal Party.
Speaking on the issue on the sidelines of the swearing-in ceremony of Stephen Isaacs as the country’s newest Chief Justice, Mr Davis insisted the government’s decision to gut critical units at BPL and “torch” sustainability plans introduced by the Christie administration, has led to “mass systematic failures.”
Residents in several areas of New Providence were plunged into darkness on Wednesday night after an engine at the Clifton Pier power plant malfunctioned, resulting in a load shedding exercise – with further power outage throughout Thursday.
According to BPL there were challenges with the generation plant resulting in an interruption to power supply for customers in Stapleton, portions of Thompson Blvd, portions of Oakes Field, Mackey Street, East Bay Street east of the bridge, Blair Estates, portions of Coral Harbour, Boatswain Hill and Lyford Cay.
At the time, it was estimated that some customers would be without electricity for two hours. However, there were some residents outside of the mentioned areas who complained of power disruptions for more than the stated time frame.
Last night, BPL reported a “system disturbance” at about 7.40pm which led to outages in some areas across New Providence. At about 10pm, BPL said that power was restored to all customers - although some people reported that they were still without power.
Addressing these failures Friday, Mr Davis did not hold back, outright accusing the government of “playing politics with national progress.”
“They went in like a bull in a china closet; gutted all of what we had plans to do,” he told The Tribune.
“If this government had continued on with our plans, what we see today, this would not occur.
“This is clearly a situation where they went into this without a plan and wanted to do away with all the progress we made.
“They cleared the deck,” Mr Davis asserted, referring to BPL’s layoff exercises and cutbacks, “that didn’t help much.”
“I spent the weekend in Cat Island at a resort that was about 40 per cent visitors and there were all sorts of issues with the service. It was Cat island’s busiest weekend because of the regatta, but they couldn’t keep the power on. For the entire weekend, everyday, for about six hours; outages. In one instance, it was off for 12 hours. It was despicable.
“They can tell you how (the plans we left) did not service what they are attempting to do. What they can’t say or will not say is how what we did steadily improved BPL’s output,” Mr Davis added.
He continued: “What I can tell you is the plans we left in place were designed to cut the cost for electricity for our people, were designed to ensure that there was a reliable service and were designed to ensure that it will be an added value for economic growth.”
“That was the plan we left.
“It was the plan we started.
“They did not understand the plan or did not care to do so.
“Instead of taking a look and building off of what we had, they opted to dismantle everything we did,” he contended.
In recent weeks, a foreign expert has carried out assessments of BPL’s electrical service system for potential instabilities.
In addition to that, the corporation has internally executed several strategies geared toward improving its output and productivity.
Additionally, there have been discussions, both internally and externally, about the immediate need for updated equipment.
Nonetheless, Mr Davis maintained that all the recent acts have been for nothing and implored the government to get serious about its promises to fix BPL.
“They are now standing behind the old equipment, that is nothing new. They’re not the first administration who discovered our need for new equipment,” he said.
Mr Davis added: “This is known, the point is working towards new equipment in a financially prudent manner all while sustaining as reliable a service as possible.”
“What they are doing is telling us one thing, when we can see the problem is getting worse.
“You can’t say to us everyday that you are fixing the problem and everyday we can see it getting more and more severe.
“Go and look at the record of the PLP, the bills were starting to come down, the supply was improving; we did that as we implemented those same plans this government sidestepped and walked-over.”
Comments
rawbahamian 6 years, 3 months ago
This man really needs a bowel movement because fecal matter is spewing forth from his mouth. Him and his band of happy clowns did zip, zero, zilch, nada, nothing during their tenure at governence to correct BEC/BPL power issues except talk and now here he is again with more flatulent gibberish about BPL !!!
Well_mudda_take_sic 6 years, 3 months ago
Fully agree - well said!
BMW 6 years, 3 months ago
Could not have said it better.
proudloudandfnm 6 years, 3 months ago
Is Brave on meth?????
Wow. Talk about lies. Holy crap. The PLP did absolutely nothing but gice foreigners huge paychecks while bec continued to fall apart.
What an amazingly unrealistic statement...
realfreethinker 6 years, 3 months ago
Let me apologise for breaking my promise not to read anything he says. I am totallu embarassed by my actions. Please forgive me
joeblow 6 years, 3 months ago
There has to be a legal way to remove him from the public view!
BaronInvest 6 years, 3 months ago
In a country that has the strongest and longest sunhours on this planet you don't have enough electricity... ridiculous...
CaptainCoon 6 years, 3 months ago
When I see headlines such as this one, I can't help but think of Brave and the PLP as a bunch of knuckle dragging gorillas. You morons did nothing to fix this problem and simply hired another company to manage without fixing the core issues of power generation. You let the old man get off on that bribe case too. Bunch of freaking baboons running this place.
Damifiknow 6 years, 3 months ago
That 10 million plus estate you bilked the Cuban lady out of ,you could donate part of the I’ll gotten bootie towards a new generator? Ha now that’s funny
Porcupine 6 years, 3 months ago
IN the face of Bahamas Power and Light’s continued generation instabilities “torch” sustainability plans introduced by the Christie administration, has led to “mass systematic failures.” resulting in a load shedding exercise – with further power outage throughout Thursday. Last night, BPL reported a “system disturbance” at about 7.40pm They went in like a bull in a china closet; gutted all of what we had plans to do,” he told The Tribune. “If this government had continued on with our plans, what we see today, this would not occur. “This is clearly a situation where they went into this without a plan and wanted to do away with all the progress we made. We here in The Bahamas, have taken the art of using words to say exactly the opposite of the truth. Language has gone from being used to explain things, to being used as it is now to completely obfuscate the truth and to shift blame to the other guy. This seems to be the highest priority of a good deal of our population. Always an excuse for poor performance. Always. I used to think it was just the lawyers and politicians, but it seems to have affected the entire country.
JohnDoes 6 years, 3 months ago
Ill say it now. Its cheaper that you invest in your own Solar Initiatives for your own home to cut costs on your electric bill to compensate for times of power outage as well. You will be waiting until Kingdom Come if you plan to wait until the Government implements this into the grid. That will take very long and many problems will arise as they try to do it. It is a shame that Governments present & prior talk so much of the future, but not one has taken advantage of the Sun's energy that blasts this poor country on a daily basis all throughout the year and implemented a much needed Solar Energy plant that could supply many islands especially the ones still reliant on Kerosene lanterns. This can save millions spent on fuel per year. We could have been the leaders in this industry within Atlantic Ocean/Caribbean realm. Yet we squabble for years over BEC/BPL & executive teams mumbo jumbo. Perry Christie powers his home with it, and many others throughout New Providence and outer islands are privately taking advantage of this. From the generator to the solar panel, I have notice a rise in its implementation throughout the Bahamas, & many of the ignorant are still investing in the pitbull to keep the BEC man from coming into their yard. Save your money power your own home, with little dependence on BEC or else you will continue to experience these problems year after year with the same old talks from each government blaming the other.
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