The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

All Bahamas Power & Light (BPL) staff “must know the customer is king”, a union leader has charged, arguing: “We’ve got to make this utility a lean, mean, fighting machine.”

Paul Maynard, the Bahamas Electrical Workers Union’s (BEWU) president, told Tribune Business that BPL’s plans to invest in staff training were “spot on” but he questioned why it had taken the board and management so long “to come to this epiphany”.

Responding after Dr Donovan Moxey, BPL’s chairman, branded the utility’s customer service as “terrible” at last week’s Bahamas Business Outlook conference while admitting that it had lost the trust of most customers, Mr Maynard backed his comments but warned: “Talk is cheap.”

Disclosing that he had warned Dr Moxey and his Board that they were facing their “worst nightmare” when they took over at BPL, he urged them to stop playing the “blame game” by pinning the utility’s problems on past administrations. He argued that Bahamians did not want to hear this, and were concerned only that someone can “fix” BPL’s high costs and unreliable supply .

“We’ve got to change the way we do business,” the line staff union chief told this newspaper. “We’ve got to intensify staff training because we lost a lot of the more experienced staff during the voluntary separation exercise. We’ve got to get everyone to know the customer is king, and if the meter is not spinning BPL earns no dollars.

“We’ve got to go on an intensive staff retraining programme. We have to invest in equipment and bring staff morale up. It’s low, and we have to do what we can to bring morale up. He’s [Dr Moxey] spot on. It’s taken them a long time to come to this epiphany, and I told them that from the start.

“They’ve got to stop blaming. He has to stop blaming what happened in the past. I met with them and told them: ‘This is your worst nightmare, and you’ve got to fix it’. Bahamians aren’t into this blame game. They have to fix it. Talk is cheap and they’ve got to get it done. BPL has to be developed into a lean, mean fighting machine.”

Mr Maynard’s “blame game” reference alludes to Dr Moxey pinning the fault for BPL’s near-bankruptcy on the 2003 decision by the then-PLP administration to cut the utility’s base tariff, which is the portion of customer bills that covers all its operating costs, below the cost of producing electricity.

He added that the two areas needing greatest focus in terms of training were customer service and transmission and distribution (T&D). “In T&D, a lot of the staff are inexperienced and they need intensive training to make sure they carry on that work safely without anything happening to them,” Mr Maynard told Tribune Business.

“Then, in customer service, you’ve got to call people back and let them know their bill is overdue. That’s a big frustration for consumers. They don’t have the manpower they used to. If you are cut-off and pay the bill that day, your electricity should be restored within an hour of paying. That’s what we have got to do.

“I have been saying since 2014 that we needed to change the fuel, upgrade the T&D system and then we’ll be fine. I’ve been saying that aging equipment in T&D, the stuff is obsolete and is dangerous for us doing it. I’ve been saying that for years.”

Asked how optimistic he was that BPL’s upcoming $580m refinancing and turnaround strategy will produce the promised results, Mr Maynard replied: “Hopeful. Once can only hope.”

Dr Moxey told last week’s Business Outlook conference: “Our customer service quality is terrible. It needs to be improved. We recognise this, we’re owning this. All the executives that stood up [during the conference] are owning this. One of the most important things is to take responsibility and solve it.

“We have to keep employees trained. We’ve had no money to do that. As a result of that, the kind of development we needed to do over the last 15 years we didn’t do. We’re committed to righting the ship. We’re also changing our culture around safety at BPL, making sure employees are safe and customers are safe.

“I’ve stood on the line to understand the consumer’s pain and frustration. Sometimes you just call the number and it rings and rings and rings. We’re going to build a state-of-the-art customer service centre by the second quarter that will be open 24/7 and 365 days a year.

“We will take responsibility, fix and own that. Every employee who goes in front of the customer will be trained in how to talk to, and empathise with, the customer. More important, we will build a culture that is customer focused and customer centric. We’re doing business like everyone else, albeit we’re a monopoly, but that should not stop us providing the best service and best product.”