“Blackouts could be human error – PM ‘distressed’ by BPL issues” – The Nassau Guardian

Excerpt from this article; “ Prime Minister Perry Christie said yesterday he has been unofficially advised that recent challenges at Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) which led to island-wide power outages could have been the result of ‘human error’.

However, BPL CEO Pamela Hill said she was ‘not actually familiar’ with the prime minister’s explanation.

Last Tuesday, a cable fault at the Clifton Pier plant led to a black out.

On Sunday, there was another blackout on New Providence, which lasted for hours.  BPL blamed ‘generator challenges coupled with transmission issues.’

Speaking to a reporter at the opening ceremony for the ninth International Civil Aviation Organization Air Services Negotiations Conference, the prime minister addressed the matter.

‘I am distressed about this as is every Bahamian,” Christie said.

‘I spent yesterday between church services and public functions talking to all the persons I could with respect to the cause of it.’

‘…….I know they’re troubling shooting now to determine [it].  I’ve been advised that this could be human error.”

Something sinister is going on at Bahamas Power and Light (BPL), formerly The Bahamas Electricity Cooperation (BEC), after the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) government made the big deal over the fact that BPL will remain Bahamian owned and controlled, as it would only be managed by the foreign entity PowerSecure.  The prime minister now lays the blame for the power outages at the feet of Ms. Pamela Hill CEO of Bahamas Power and Light and asks her to report to him saying; “That is too catastrophic [two island wide black outs in one week] and its deserving of the highest investigation.”

While the Prime Minister demands answers of BPL that now manages power distribution for the country as the infrastructure still belong to the government i.e. us, we ask what is PowerSecures motivation to actually to ‘give a damn’ and what is the government currently doing to aid in updating the infrastructure? What are the details of this deal? ;beside the Management Service Agreement (MSA) whose terms has the PoswerSecure team receiving a baseline annual payment fee of $2 million, also has them only if they can achieve the pre-defined performance indicators (KPIS) related to cost reductions, reliability improvements and customer service enhancement, receiving potential additional performance-based compensation of up to 150 percent of the management fee per year; so far we have yet to see reliability improvement and cost reductions is being argued even as I speak, so will they get their yearly bonus?

Has the new power company even began to ‘repair’ the power grid that keeps failing, as it has been outdated for quite some time, most of us knew this before they were even heard of.

“Yesterday, Hill held a press conference at BPL headquarters to address the blackout issue.

Asked if the outages were a result of ‘human error’ as stated by the prime minister, she said, ‘I wasn’t actually familiar with that.”

She also seemed unclear as to what the prime minister meant by ‘an investigation’; amazingly she sounds just about as ‘enlightened as our Prime Minister actually she should better at it than him.

This ger be long, buy candles!

The Progressive Liberal Party fails for one reason, it is their nature.

END