NASSAU, The Bahamas — Opposition Leader Michael Pintard yesterday warned that the Davis Administration’s energy reform strategy is faltering, after Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) CEO Toni Seymour confirmed that no workers have agreed to transfer to the new Bahamas Grid Company (BGC).
“The admission yesterday by BPL CEO, Toni Seymour, that none of the BPL workers are interested in transferring over to the new power transmission and distribution company, Bahamas Grid Company (BGC), is yet another sad indictment of the Davis Administration’s botched attempts to privatize the nation’s energy infrastructure,” Pintard said in a statement.
He charged that the government should have engaged in “transparent consultation with BPL unions and workers and the Bahamian people on the privatization of the Bahamian people’s asset.” According to Pintard, “Such privatization should have ensured that the state retained some portion and the average citizen could also invest along with private investors.”
Pintard said the plan to second BPL employees to BGC was “doomed from the start.” He argued: “Because under this plan, after a BPL employee would have been seconded for 12 months, there was no guarantee that they would be able to return to their BPL position with existing pay and benefits, as their job would now be in fact outsourced to BGC. Given this reality, there is no surprise that BPL employees have not joined BGC.”
With no workers volunteering, he questioned the government’s next steps. “Where will this new company get the skilled and experienced Bahamian staff to do the work? Will they bring in foreign labour? What will the government do with these skilled and talented Bahamian electrical workers who will now have little to do? Will they be transferred over to the civil service? Will the Bahamian taxpayers be required to pick up the payroll costs for these soon to be idled workers, due solely to the ineptitude of the Davis Administration?”
Seymour, joined by Energy and Transport Minister JoBeth Coleby-Davis and BPL Chairman Christina Alston on Guardian Radio, confirmed that while BGC has begun grid work, no BPL staff have joined the company.
Alston added that the government’s long-discussed deal with U.S.-based Pike Corporation, through Island Grid Solutions, has been finalized. The agreement grants Pike a 60 percent stake in BGC, with the government holding 40 percent, under a 25-year contract to modernize BPL’s transmission and distribution network.
Pintard also criticized soaring fuel surcharges, which he said have reached “nearly 22 cents per kWh even as the price of oil has dropped around the world.” He pressed the government to explain “why with the declining oil prices has BPL not actively pursued a fuel hedge programme as was done by the previous FNM administration that locked in a fuel surcharge rate that is less than half the top rate now being charged to BPL customers.”
He concluded by demanding full disclosure of the Pike agreement. “There could now be no possible acceptable excuse why the BGC deal has not been made public,” he said. “The government refusal to make public the agreement shows a pattern of hiding details on matters that the public has a right to know about.”
