Mitchell Says Bannister’s Defence On BPL Laughable

Statement From The Chairman Of The PLP

On Minister Of Works Latest Excuse For Power Failure

For Immediate Release
27th June 2019

If the matter of the power blackouts in New Providence by the Bahamas Power and Light Company were not so serious, you would laugh at the sheer incompetence of this FNM government.

The latest bit of comedy was from the Minister responsible for BPL. While the Bahamian people were sweating away in the heat from BPL’s load shedding, the Minister’s best defence was that it was worse under the PLP. This is so tiresome now. The fact that people have no power today has nothing to do with the PLP.

This is entirely the doing of the FNM.

We remind the public and the Minister of these immutable facts:
The PLP left in place a plan for power in The Bahamas which would have been working had it not been stopped, reviewed and cancelled by the FNM.

Even after the FNM decided to put in place its own plan, they botched it again when a dispute arose with its board appointees and the Minister, resulting in the dismissal of those first FNM appointees on the Board who were fighting corruption and those who were defended by the Minister.

That just happened last year, in case Minister Desmond Bannister has forgotten. This is now the subject of a multimillion dollar lawsuit together with allegations of corrupt conduct under the FNM administration.

We remind the FNM about the fact that a former BEC (now BPL) board member was convicted of bribery charges in 2016 arising out of the acquisition of generators from a French company called Alstom. It is a matter of public record that the Board preferred another company, and rejected Alstom, but the Ingraham government overturned that decision in favour of Alstom. Alstom was later fined by the US Justice Department for corrupt practices. Those generators never performed well. Yet Desmond Bannister, the minister for BPL, has the nerve to blame the PLP when it was his party that corruptly threw BEC/BPL into failure!

The dishonesty of this government is breathtaking – identical to the Prime Minister attacking Sir Lynden in the worst terms, after naming him a national hero.

So a BEC/BPL decision taken under the FNM and the bribe of hundreds of thousands of dollars are costing Bahamian businesses and homes millions of dollars as BPL totters on the verge of collapse.

You cannot trust the FNM.
End