The Tribune

By DENISE MAYCOCK

Tribune Freeport Reporter

dmaycock@tribunemedia.net

A local civic group believes that URCA’s need to finally hold town meetings this week in Grand Bahama has come 10 years too late, claiming that power rates on the island are at their lowest since 2009.

Troy Garvey, founder of Determined for Absolute Change, is questioning why the Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority is now finally coming to Grand Bahama when calls for their intervention in Grand Bahama were ignored for so many years.

He asked: “Where were you [URCA] in in 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012 when things were high with power rate when they [Grand Bahama Power Company] were cutting power off on Friday and people can’t turn it on until Monday? Where were you when rates were high and we were demanding the power company to bring on hedging? URCA you never showed up, and now you coming to GB, for what? Why now?”

URCA is set to hold three meetings on Grand Bahama as part of its ongoing public consultation process. The regulator, which oversees the electronic communications and energy sectors, held a town hall meetings yesterday in Eight Mile Rock with one planned for today in Freeport and another in East End on Thursday.

Mr Garvey claims that power rates on Grand Bahama are fine now and is skeptical about the town meetings that are being held by URCA. He stressed that URCA needs to first take care of the issues in New Providence with the blackouts caused by Bahamas Power and Light.

“We already have a system that is running in place with the power company, and our power company has less than 10 percent of the people being cut off or outages. In Nassau, they have 30 percent of consumers who have black-outs, so take care of home base first. “Don’t come and mess up nothing for us in GB that you can’t fix,” he warned.