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Why the people of Green Turtle Cay feel neglected

EDITOR, The Tribune.

Today makes Day 304 without power at my residence on Green Turtle Cay. My residence has been repaired and is ready for reconnection to the BPL power grid. We were promised, again last week, that Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) would be coming to do hook-ups this week.

What makes our dilemma worse is that the Green Turtle Cay Foundation and Water Mission purchased a generator to provide electricity capable of providing power to the entire Cay in December 2019. This, after the government refused the Groups’ offer to build a power station on GTC and turn ownership over to BPL.

This past week BPL moved that generator from the GTC ferry dock to Coopers Town on mainland Abaco. In exchange, a much smaller generator that does not have the capacity to run all of GTC, was sent to the Cay. This has now caused load shedding on GTC.

Residents of GTC feel used and abused by our government.

Even when we get power, we still have to run our generators and spend additional monies purchasing gas to operate them. Right now, we are spending as much as $50 a day; that sum multiplied by 30 days each month amounts to a hefty monthly electricity bill. That is all money that could be helping to repair our homes or replace a vehicle.

When is it going to stop? Years ago, the Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) took our generator to run Treasure Cay.

A few years ago, also, home owners purchased a new Jeep for our police. The jeep was also taken to Treasure Cay.

International homeowners are getting so discouraged and Bahamians are daily getting more embarrassed.

Several foreign homeowners were finally scheduled for electrical inspections this week, after they signed-up on-line. Many are still overseas in the USA, Canada and elsewhere.

Now they have learned that they are not on the BPL work order for this week because they still need to come into the BPL office in Marsh Harbour, in person, to give final directions including the colour of their houses before being included on work orders for this week.

Some of the homes excluded from this week’s work order are supposed to house volunteer groups that have returned to the Cay to assist in the rebuilding of damaged houses.

One such group is Water Mission. They have been providing potable water to GTC since the 4th of September.

Sometimes we just feel like Nassau has no understanding of what people are facing here in GTC, trying to do it all on our own.

LET DOWN & FRUSTRATED

Green Turtle Cay

July 1, 2020

Comments

themessenger 4 years, 4 months ago

People of GTC I feel for you, the way this government has handled the hurricane recovery efforts is deplorable. Good samaritan groups donate equipment, generators etc, and instead of benefiting the people to whom it was donated it ends up in some third party's 'tiefin hands. There are still warehouses full of hurricane relief supplies that almost a year later have still not reached the intended recipients, disgraceful!!! Seems that regardless of who the government is, FNM, PLP, they're no different, still way too many 'tiefin people in government and the state run corporations and BPL/BEC, RBPF & RBDF personnel are some of the worst.

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