The Tribune

By FARRAH JOHNSON

fjohnson@tribunemedia.net

MANY customers voiced frustration Friday on Facebook over an electricity failure by Bahamas Power and Light Company leaving them without service.

Customers in eastern and western areas of New Providence were left without power during the morning hours of the day.

In a statement published on the company’s Facebook page, it advised the public that technicians had been dispatched to “investigate” and address technical difficulties which resulted in a disruption in service.

The outage affected more than a dozen areas including Cable Bahamas, Golden Gates #1, ZNS Tower, portions of the Prince Charles Shopping Centre, Gleniston Gardens, Hillside Park, Sea Breeze, Prince Charles Drive, Pepsi Co., East Park Estate, Williams Lane, Kemp Road, Pyfrom Road, Uriah McPhee School, Blair, Mount Vernon and West Bay Street off Blake Road.

During the outage, disgruntled customers in these affected areas took to the comment section of the company’s statement to voice their complaints.

One customer said: “Turn this light on! Y’all want charge more and doing foolishness and not deduct for poor service! No one can be understanding about your difficulties because y'all aren't understanding to our plight from your lack of competency!”

“South Beach isn’t listed but lights are off also no time is listed for lights to be back on some of us work from home and this is a huge inconvenience to me and my customers,” another Facebook user added.

Other customers accused BPL of using technical difficulties as an excuse to cover up load shedding.

“Load shedding is now technical difficulties,” one user quipped. "Technical difficulties...that's a weird way of spelling gross incompetence,” another one added.

Still, when asked to respond to the speculations, Quincy Parker, BPL’s director of communications, told The Tribune that the company stands by its original release.

“If we have put out a statement that is the statement that we stand by,” he told The Tribune when contacted.

Shortly after 12 noon Friday the company released another statement advising the public that power had been restored to the affected areas.

The company also apologised for any inconvenience caused.

“The Bahamas Power and Light Company Limited (BPL) wishes to report to customers in New Providence that all feeders were closed at 12.13pm restoring power to all customers in the affected areas,” the statement read.

“Technical difficulties at our Clifton Pier plant resulted in manual load shedding commencement at 10.02am.”