The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL 

Tribune Business Editor 

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

HARBOUR Island’s latest electricity woes are “cruel” to residents and “insulting” to wealthy investors who have sunk millions of dollars into acquiring high-end homes in a destination with inadequate infrastructure.

James Malcolm, a former Ministry of Tourism executive who is a realtor, and now runs a vacation rental/property management business on Briland, told Tribune Business it was “ludicrous” that one “of the most coveted tourism destinations” in The Bahamas faces at least a four-hour load shedding rotation until this coming weekend.

Speaking out after Bahamas Power & Light (BPL) itself admitted that Briland likely faces “an untenable situation” for the whole week, he confirmed that diesel supplies on the island were exhausted by Friday to raise the prospect that many homes and businesses might run out of fuel for their generators before an anticipated fresh shipment arrived yesterday.

Mr Malcolm, estimating that Harbour Island real estate activity has generated around $40m in combined VAT and real property tax revenues post-COVID for the Public Treasury, told this newspaper that home purchasers are getting little to no return on this investment as few if any of these tax dollars are being reinvested in the community, its utilities and infrastructure.

Affirming that he was “sweating it out like everyone else”, Mr Malcolm said of BPL’s latest Briland woe: “It’s ludicrous. Two hotels are closed, the Dunmore and Coral Sands. The marinas are fairly empty. There’s not a lot of activity. It’s almost like the off-season and they cannot power the island. We’re coming into August, there’s not a lot of tourism. The island is in very low occupancy, and they still have to shed power.

“I calculated that in the last four years of real estate activity here, of which I’ve been part, just from the 10 percent VAT on the conveyance of property and real property tax, which has gone up significantly after they took the cap off and did the reassessments, conservatively $40m has gone into the Public Treasury from these two things alone.”

Mr Malcolm said he cares for one homeowner’s property where more than $100,000 in real property tax is paid annually. “What are they getting in return?” he asked. “It’s embarrassing that you’re asking the foreign second homeowners to pay exorbitant real property taxes and there’s no power on the island. Come on. After they paid a huge transfer tax to buy the property?

“Where’s our infrastructure.... our water, our power? I’m getting fed up with it. It’s embarrassing to look at second homeowners being asked to pay $100,000 in real property tax and I’ve got to tell them the generator is without diesel because the power has been on and off, on and off. There was no diesel as of Friday.

“It’s inexcusable in this day and age for the amount of revenue this island puts into the Public Treasury. Where is the return on investment? Give us a proper power plant please. You’re making residents pay property tax but the money is not going to improve our infrastructure. There is nothing in exchange. The money is not coming back to the island.”

Mr Malcolm said it was “insulting” to second homeowners that they have received no return on their tax payments, while describing the power outages as “quasi-cruel” for Briland residents and those who work on the island.

“It’s impacting one of the most popular and coveted destinations in The Bahamas,” he added. “This is a destination where wealthy people from all over the world pay millions of dollars to buy property here and there’s no power, there’s no water.”

BPL, in a statement to Harbour Island residents and customers, apologised for both the load shedding and lack of transparency and information provided to customers. It blamed the problems on Briland’s increased energy demand which coupled with the absence of spare generation capacity due to “sudden failures”, has left it unable to meet the destination’s electricity load.

“BPL presently has six one mega watt (MW) rental generation units installed on Harbour Island. This is an increase from 5 MW, and was necessary to provide redundancy if any of these units failed or maintenance was necessary,” the state-owned energy supplier said.

“Harbour Island’s load demand now well exceeds 5 MW, which means that all the units must be online continuously. This has created various challenges in recent months as maintenance and sudden failures have resulted in lost generation and subsequent outages.

“BPL works closely with its rental generation partner to complete maintenance or carry out repairs expeditiously as we realise that having all units fully operable is essential. From time to time, these repairs require parts that need to be shipped or flown in from other countries, and that extends the time that a unit is unavailable,” BPL added.

“This is precisely where we find ourselves now as one of the units is down for repairs and we are awaiting the shipment of necessary parts. In the interim we are load managing. This means customers may experience daily power outages in three to four-hour intervals, especially during peak periods.

“This time may be extended during days when the island sees increased visitor arrivals, particularly the current Emancipation Day weekend.” BPL then admitted that the necessary repairs may only be completed by this Saturday, August 10, leaving Harbour Island with several more days of intermittent power cuts.

“We realise that this is an untenable situation for residents and businesses on the island, and we are working with our rental partner to procure the necessary parts as soon as possible. Their estimated timeline to have the parts on island and complete repairs is the end of this week, August 10, 2024,” BPL said.

“While every measure is being undertaken to expedite this process, we will improve our communication with residents. A load management schedule will be shared with the community daily. We do want to advise that based on system demands at any given time, the schedule may be adjusted in duration and areas impacted.

“Simultaneous with the repairs to the rental unit, we are also working to install 5 MW of BPL-owned generation on Harbour Island in the next six to eight weeks. While it will not fully meet the island’s load demands, we are confident that BPL-owned generation serving as a back-up to the reestablishment of the subsea cable providing power from the Hatchet Bay power station will provide long-term stability.”

Going into apology mode, BPL added: “BPL... sincerely apologises for the lack of transparency regarding this present challenge on Harbour Island. BPL sincerely apologises to its customers in Harbour Island who have been experiencing intermittent outages since July 30, 2024, and gives our assurance that we are working to stabilise your supply on the island.

“More importantly, we sincerely apologise that customers were not advised of the current generation challenges and its impact on the Harbour Island community.”