Amid frequent power outages that continue to impact communities across New Providence and the Family Islands, Free National Movement (FNM) Chairman Duane Sands said yesterday that the electricity issues are posing grave issues for residents and businesses.
“Things were supposed to get better, this isn’t supposed to be happening,” Sands said.
“The energy was going to be more readily available, more reliable, and cheaper. None of that has happened. It ain’t no cheaper. It certainly is not more reliable and it is oftentimes not available.
“…And for those people who are trying to rely on generators, I don’t know how reliable this information is, but we’re getting close to $9, $10 for a gallon of fuel.
“So the implications of this patchy, sketchy power supply is serious as it relates to businesses trying to survive, as it relates to families trying to survive.”
He said, “When my stuff goes bad in the fridge, who is going to pay me for it? Sorry don’t ease no pain.
“It’s a very challenging time for people.”
This week, areas across New Providence endured extended electricity loss and load shedding exercises last week that Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) attributed to high demand, equipment damage, and circuit overloads.
Those areas included West Bay Street, Grove West Bay Street, Marlin Drive, Highland Terrace, Eastwood, Coral Drive, Marine Drive, Charlottesville, Lyford Hills, Bamboo Boulevard, Nautica and Cable Beach.
These outages followed weekend blackouts in areas including Lake Cunningham Estates and Baha Mar Boulevard.
The electricity issues, which worsened at the beginning of summer, have been impacting both New Providence and the Family Islands, including Cat Island, which suffered an outage during its annual Rake and Scrape Festival, resulting in the last day of the festival being cancelled.
Minister of Energy, Utilities and Aviation JoBeth Coleby-Davis advised residents to expect interruptions as part of the “growing pains” of the Davis administration’s heavily touted energy reform.
Coleby-Davis said last week that major transmission and distribution projects on New Providence were 95 percent complete, revealing that the work was previously scheduled to be completed at the end of May.
However, the upgrades were delayed as a result of a shooting in March that left a Pike Electric worker dead, the minister said.
Despite officials confirming that only five percent of the work remains, Sands said yesterday that he is unsure of whether the power cuts will soon end.
“Mouth could say anything,” Sands said yesterday.
“The government promised a fulsome discussion, revelation, description of what was happening at BPL.
“So did the prime minister. We’re still waiting on it.”
Sands said, “A sign of a civil society is you should at least be able to keep the lights on, after you done give away the patrimony or sell it.”
“You don’t think you could keep the power on? After you done talk about ‘we got this, we’ve been in office four and a half years and this is progress.’ But you can’t even keep the power on. Every night is a different excuse. ‘Oh, we had an accident. Oh, we blew a transformer. Oh, we had a fire.’
“What have you been fixing?”
