Gov’t and Opposition in Bahamas trade blame over islandwide blackout

NASSAU, Bahamas, CMC – Government and the Opposition in the Bahamas have traded blame over Thursday’s islandwide power outage, which the government said was due to a suspected underground cable fault and an explosion at the Blue Hill Power Station.

Prime Minister Philip Davis, who toured the Blue Hill Power Station with officials from the Bahamas Power and Light (BPL), apologised to the country, saying, “We understand how disruptive and frustrating these outages are, especially in this heat,” adding that the islandwide blackout was the result of “acts beyond our control”.

He said incidents like these remind the population of the state of BPL, adding, “We inherited a very archaic and, in most cases, end-of-life system.

“The only way to repair it is to replace much of what we are dealing with. Hence, the replacement of our grid and the other components as necessary to ensure safe and reliable electricity transmission and distribution.

“As I’ve indicated, it is incidents like this that demonstrate what we have inherited, and we are fixing it. It is not a complaint by us; it is simply that we have to fix what we have,” he said, urging Bahamians to be patient with the government.

“I’m frustrated as well. There will be growing pains to get to where we need to be because of what we inherited,” said Davis, whose administration has promised a far-reaching energy reform plan involving a series of power purchase agreements (PPAs), as well as arrangements to upgrade the transmission and distribution (T&D) system.

Davis said he remains frustrated because the cause of the outages was not a lack of maintenance or the transformative work being carried out, but rather factors beyond the government’s control.

“For example, the heat that we are experiencing. If you do your investigative reporting and understand what’s happening around the world, you will see that The Bahamas is not unique in what is happening.

“Look at what caused the blackout. It wasn’t because of a lack of effort on the part of BPL or the implementation of initiatives that were started under our transformative agenda. It was because of acts beyond our control.

“You have a transformer that blew up because of the overheating of underground cables. Was that man’s fault? The excessive heat, the record heat that we have been experiencing over the last several weeks. The month of May was the hottest in history. Heat places an enormous strain on our transmission and distribution system.”

But the main opposition Free National Movement (FNM) said the blame rests squarely with the government.

FNM leader Michael Pintard said that when the party left office in September 2021, Station A at BPL was online, providing 150 MW of power.

“We had an additional 35 MW of power from the GE generators. Furthermore, we brought assets that were already offline back into service. So, generation was not an issue under the Minnis administration. During the summers of 2020 and 2021, there was no load-shedding as we are now seeing.”

He said New Providence residents have been experiencing frequent and often prolonged power outages for weeks, despite government assurances that BPL was prepared to meet summer demand.

The islandwide outage on Thursday was the second in less than a month, and Pintard said the PLP government was responsible for the current state of affairs.

“They cancelled the Wärtsilä deal. That contract for Station A was ended by them. Then, of course, they took the GE generators offline. We stabilised the transmission and distribution network. Was there more work to be done? Of course. We never denied that. In fact, we had planned a US$50 million upgrade.

“That upgrade to the system was going to happen through the rate reduction bond, the same rate reduction bond that the Davis administration came in and cancelled,” he said, accusing the government of pursuing a different approach to solving what it said amounted to US$1 billion in challenges at BPL.

The Opposition leader said the ruling Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) was to blame for the “chaos” now being experienced at BPL, adding, “They have had carte blanche.

“In other words, nobody has been able to interrupt what they have done in terms of privatising BPL, and yet they have not been able to provide cleaner power, more affordable power or, worst of all, consistent power for the Bahamian people,” Pintard said.

Follow The Gleaner on X, formerly Twitter, and Instagram @JamaicaGleaner and on Facebook @GleanerJamaica. Send us a message on WhatsApp at 1-876-499-0169 or email us at onlinefeedback@gleanerjm.com or editors@gleanerjm.com.