THE POWER SITUATION GETS MORE RIDICULOUS BY THE HOUR
The President of the Electrical Workers Union, representing its line staff is Paul Maynard. Paul Maynard is the spitting image of his pa Andrew Dud Maynard and is just as frank. When he tells you something, you better believe it. He was in full flight on Thursday 8th August 2019 when he told the country that the Bahamas Power and Light Company, responsible for the electricity supply in The Bahamas, and these days the lack of electricity, was not telling the truth to the country about the state of BPL and its ability to supply power to New Providence.
Mr. Maynard was angry because the management of the company was blaming the employees and the cost of overtime for the problem which they now face. Throughout the island of New Providence each day large swaths of the island are off the grid for three hours at a time as the company rations power across the island.
It is so bad that each week prominent people are on their Facebook pages calling for the heads of the technical people and the political directorate for their abysmal failures and their inability to show us the way forward out of this mess. Last week the Head of the Bahamas Hotel Association complained that the worst part in addition to the expenses which they did not foresee was that there was no end in sight.
Up to last week, the company was saying that relief would be on the way by the end of the year. The workers union says it is more likely not solved until March of next year. The Minister Desmond Bannister is only able to mount one ridiculous defence after the next. First he said, the summers were worse than this under the PLP. That is a lie but even if it were true what has that got to do with now. Then he said his power is off too. That helps as well. Silly.
In the meantime, Leader of the Opposition Philip Davis who left as Minister of Works the plan in place to solve this, is saying that the company is in crisis and on the verge of collapse.
That would seem to be so. The Prime Minister is silent even as the fate of his government hangs in the balance over its inability to deal with the power supply for New Providence.
Guess what these smart asses plan to do next. They are calling a press conference today, the Lord’s day. You would think that the press conference is being called to tell us how to get out of this mess. No. They are calling a press conference to tell us a long story about when Al Jarret was the Chairman and how he lowered the prices for power and what that did allegedly to sink BPL. Then they are going to attack one of their own Michael Moss, a former General Manager. Then they are gonna say it’s the fault of Kevin Basden, another former General Manager. Then they are going to blame Mr. Davis and Power Secure the company that won the bid to run the company just before the FNM took over.
What they will no doubt omit is that one FNM Board member was convicted for taking a bribe to get the Cabinet of the FNM to buy some engines that were not suitable and they are the problem today. We also know that when the first FNM Board was fired, the outgoing Board accused the company of engaging in corrupt practices which the Minister covered up. That’s in court today. The Prime Minister promised an investigation. We are still holding our breaths.
All of that is irrelevant in a sense though. That’s old story time. All of it has to do with making excuses. This is not about public relations. The power is off. We need the power back on. If you can’t get the power back on, then carry your behind. It is as simple as that. We don’t want to hear about the cow dead and the horse is fat. We simply want the power back on.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday, 10th August, 2019 up to midnight: 104,974;
Number of hits for the month of August up to Saturday, 10th August, 2019 up to midnight: 168,124;
Number of hits for the year 2019 up to Saturday, 10th August, 2019 up to midnight: 5,885,929