The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune News Editor

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

OPPOSITION Leader Michael Pintard last night accused Prime Minister Philip Davis of trying to distract Bahamians from the electricity crisis with revelations about extraordinary overtime payments at Bahamas Power and Light, saying the administration itself must answer for who authorised the spending.

Responding to Mr Davis’s national address on Monday, Mr Pintard dismissed the Prime Minister’s focus on BPL’s nearly $20m annual overtime bill as a “despicable distraction” and challenged him to account for persistent outages after almost five years in office.

Mr Davis had highlighted three employees in one BPL department who collectively received more than $600,000 in overtime over 12 months, including one record showing an employee claiming 18 hours on Christmas Day and 24 hours on each of the following three days. He announced tighter overtime controls, including greater scrutiny when a technical employee’s overtime exceeds 30 percent of base salary.

But Mr Pintard said management, the BPL board and executives appointed under the Davis administration were ultimately responsible for approving overtime.

“The question is: if there are problems with scheduling, whose responsibility is it,” Mr Pintard said, “and what penalties are going to be put in place to make sure that they do their job? Who will be held accountable?”

He said the overtime controversy was being used to divert attention from unreliable electricity supplies, the cost of living, wages and other issues.

“Even the overtime complaint — it’s framed like a crisis by the Prime Minister,” Mr Pintard said. “This is a despicable distraction.”

Mr Davis used Monday’s address to defend his administration’s energy reforms and lay out a timetable for generation and grid improvements. He said BPL’s system had been inherited in severe financial and physical distress and warned that outages would not disappear immediately while ageing infrastructure is replaced. He also outlined plans to reduce dependence on rental generation, bring liquefied natural gas into the energy mix and strengthen oversight of BPL spending.

Mr Pintard said Bahamians instead needed firm answers about when service would improve and who would be responsible for delivering those improvements.

“What exactly will Bahamians see at the end of this energy reform?” he asked. “Because right now, what they are seeing are promises of improved service, but extended blackouts.”

He pointed to outages in Grand Cay, Abaco, Eleuthera, New Providence and other islands and said the consequences extended beyond inconvenience for people who rely on refrigeration for medication or electricity-powered medical equipment.

Mr Pintard also questioned the results of what he described as more than $430m spent on electrical infrastructure over the past three years.

“Where has the money gone,” he asked, “and why are the results worse, not better?”

The Opposition leader seized on Mr Davis’s declaration that “the buck stops with me”, arguing that it also meant accepting responsibility for BPL’s condition.

Mr Pintard said Mr Davis had held direct responsibility connected to BPL either as prime minister or deputy prime minister for close to 14 years.

“If the buck truly stops with him,” he said, “so does the responsibility for the mess that BPL is in.”

Mr Pintard also ridiculed the timing of an outage during the Prime Minister’s address, saying the lights went out before Mr Davis finished speaking about energy reform.

“That moment captures what so many Bahamians feel every single day,” he said, “the frustration, the helplessness, and the loss of confidence across our country.”

Mr Davis had said the reforms represented the most difficult infrastructure challenge The Bahamas had confronted in 50 years of independence and argued that the objective was a more reliable and less expensive electricity system capable of supporting economic growth.

Mr Pintard rejected the administration’s assurances.

“You are in the chair,” he said. “Fix it.”