The Tribune

The Government urged the Grand Bahama Power Company and its regulator not to proceed with imposing an additional charge on electricity bills, a minister has confirmed.

Senator Kwasi Thompson, minister of state for Grand Bahama, said he was grateful that GB Power had "heard the cry of the community" as well as the Government's views in deciding to delay implementation of its Storm Recovery and Stabilization charge beyond October 1, 2021.

While acknowledging that GB Power had performed well in rebuilding Grand Bahama's electricity infrastructure following Hurricane Dorian's passage, Mr Thompson said the Government's view was "now is not the best time" for the utility to seek to recover $15.6m worth of those restoration costs from its customers.

“After having dealt with the first wave of COVID-19, they were asked to delay it, which they did,” Mr Thompson said of GB Power and the extra charge that is to be added to consumer bills.

“We’ve just gone through a second wave of COVID-19, and we sent a letter to the Grand Bahama Port Authority indicating that after canvassing the Members of Parliament and taking note of what was happening on the ground among residents, now would not be the best time to implement the additional fee.

“So, we are very pleased that the Port Authority agreed with us - and the Power Company accepted this position - and have delayed the charge. We are thankful that the Power Company has heard the cry of the community and heard the views of the Government. Our office expressed our views that this should not be implemented at this time and that it should be delayed.”

Mr Thompson said everyone who lives on the island understands how Grand Bahamians feel about the proposed additional fee, especially since they have experienced additional hardships - notably COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns - post-Dorian. “So we accepted what the public was saying that now was not the best time to carry out the proposed increase," he added.

Activists last week pledged to keep fighting GB Power's bid to recover $15.6m spent on restoring its uninsured transmission and distribution network as the new charge's implementation has only been delayed until New Year's Day 2021.

This was confirmed by the Grand Bahama Port Authority (GBPA), the utility's regulator, which said the delay was an attempt to "balance the need for a healthy electric utility with upgraded technology and infrastructure" against the "unprecedented" blow delivered to businesses and households.

GB Power and the GBPA have consistently argued that the new charge, which will be a separate line item in customer bills, will represent an increase of less than $7 per month for the "average" residential customer, and $24 for the "average" business customer, in a bid to soften the upcoming blow and any consumer push back/fall-out.

The charge for the three customer categories was initially set at:

• Residential - $0.013 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) or 1.3 cents

• Commercial - $0.008 per kWh or 0.8 cents

• GSL (industrials) - $0.010 per kWh or one cent

The amount consumers will ultimately pay depends on their consumption. GB Power, in its own statement, said the Storm Recovery and Stabilisation charge was standard global electricity practice for recovering costs associated with post-hurricane restoration.