THE BPL RATES TO GO UP: WHAT A PITY

Shevon Cambridge, CEO of BPL, announcing the rate changes 7 October 2022

The Free National Movement is in a feeding frenzy led by Michael Pintard, their leader , now that the rates for BPL have to go up.  The Prime Minister Philip Davis in announcing the decision of the Government BPL’s shareholder, said that he had resisted as long as he could but the economics have dictated that the charges must rise.  URCA, the regulator, has to sign off on it but it appears that there will be significant rises for people for the use of electricity, gradually rising.  This is unfortunate but we in this column do not believe that we ought to have resisted BPL when they first came to the government to ask for the price increases. The society has to understand pay as you go. That’s simply it. Of course, the FNM cannot be forgiven for the mess that they created at BPL.  The plan to rescue the corporation was left in place by Brave Davis, the Minister of Works as he then was.  They came along and scrapped it and brought in a management crew that had no idea what they were doing.  Michael Pintard keeps running on about the hedge that they left in place to protect against fuel increases but forgot to tell us that when the catastrophic fire happened in 2018, the fuel that the hedge covered could not be used in the machines left to carry the load.  So the hedge was useless.  Then you have Duane Sands who claims that the government is distracted by travel. His singular preoccupation with this theme makes him sound not very intelligent. The government is preoccupied with saving us from drowning in the sea. That requires the government to engage with the international community.  Meanwhile,  the ceiling has been raised from 300 dollars to 400 dollars: bills below 400 will attract no Vat. The Government will speed up its solar programme for renewable energy.  The Government will move to pre-paid meters for power, so you can top up just like you do for telephones. Let’s hope that these measures will contain the damage on the poor. But let’s learn a lesson: this idea that you can kick the can down the road forever should be abandoned. Next thing to tackle is the taxes owed by Albany to The Bahamas government;