The Tribune

IT WAS one of the founding fathers of the US, Benjamin Franklin, who famously wrote that “in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes”. In The Bahamas, we are tempted to say that you can add BPL outages to that.

Recently, there has been yet another political spat over the electricity provider. One party blames the other, the other blames right back, and so it goes back and forth until the lights go out and we cannot see who is blaming who any more.

Under the last administration, we were told there would be no more load shedding. Under this administration, it’s back to load shedding. Former Minister of Works Desmond Bannister says that BPL terminated a contract for Wartsila to maintain the engines it supplied – and that BPL turned to less capable personnel. Current BPL CEO Shevonn Cambridge says the government has hired the same people to do the maintenance. So why the problem? Do those same people have the same resources that Wartsila had?

Whatever the reason, as our political leaders argue and point fingers, those caught in the middle are the citizens of The Bahamas, left wondering when the lights will go out.

In Andros, after a fire damaged a power station there, generators were brought in – but then contaminated oil caused problems with those. It was said that 90 percent of Andros was being supplied with power again – but calls to The Tribune from frustrated Andros residents suggested otherwise.

Now the Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (URCA) has weighed in, highlighting recent significant outages in Abaco, Acklins, North Andros, Cat Island, Exuma, Mayaguana and New Providence.

BPL’s leadership can argue over the Wartsila engines when it comes to New Providence – but that list of islands shows there are widespread problems over power supply.

A failure to adequately provide consistent electricity is of course not a new problem – BPL and its predecessor BEC have had issues year in, year out.

That failure is a frustration for residents – but it is also holding our nation back. How do we sell investors on the idea of bringing their money here, setting up businesses, hiring Bahamians, backing Bahamian companies and more if we cannot even keep the lights on?

And what about the struggle for Bahamians themselves – especially those whose health may suffer in prolonged heat, the very young and the very old? This latest heatwave we have been experiencing has been taking its toll on all of us – but some are more vulnerable still and a lack of power to help cool off could be very serious indeed.

URCA is investigating the issues at BPL – and that is welcome. But perhaps a bigger inquiry still is what is needed.

The problems at BPL seem to occur time and time again – and political finger-pointing gets us nowhere.

A full inquiry to publicly disclose what the problems are, how they have come about and what it has cost us is the least our long-suffering citizens deserve.

Whatever the incumbent government wants to say in regards to blame, things appear to be worse now than under their predecessor. Quite how that came to be deserves to be fully explored and revealed to everyone.

The seriousness of the blame game that has gone on of late can be judged by how little actual action has been taken to hold anyone to account for supposed previous failings.

The public does not need to hear any more politicians blaming the other side of the House for the situation – rather the public needs a clear investigation of what has gone wrong, when it is going to be put right, and how much money it has cost so far, and what it will cost in the future.

Until all of that is laid out, the rest is just so much political gamesmanship. The time to resolve this problem once and for all was long ago – the next best time to do so is right away.