‘SMELL IS ROTTEN’ ON BPL’S WARTSILA PURCHASE

were left in place, the bills would not be this is high.”

THE PRIME Minister yesterday blasted that “the smell is rotten” as he and his predecessor resumed House of Assembly battle over whose administration is responsible for Bahamas Power & Light’s (BPL) dire state.

Philip Davis KC attacked the former Minnis administration’s $90m acquisition of the seven Wartsila generation engines, whose combined 132 Mega Watt (MW) capacity was designed to end New Providence load shedding from a generation perspective, by arguing that they have not lived up to their multi-fuel billing and have cost the cash-strapped utility $3m in excess maintenance costs.

The altercation with Dr Hubert Minnis was sparked during debate on

PHILIP DAVIS KC HUBERT MINNIS

the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Bill when the former prime minister blamed soaring electricity costs on the Davis administration’s failure to execute trades that would have secured further cut-price oil to support the hedging strategy his government left in place.

Dr Minnis said Bahamians are now paying a “Davis BPL tax” on their electricity bills and that

“reckless, irresponsible mistakes” by the Government were behind a 71 percent increase in electricity rates in just nine months.

He argued: “The failure of the Prime Minister to continue with the hedge system the FNM left in place has led to sky high prices. Bahamians are seeing what amounts to a Davis BPL tax on their bills. If the FNM processes

“Why are our electricity bills going up while the cost of oil continues to go down? It is because, in my opinion, of reckless, irresponsible mistakes made by the Government. I want the Bahamian people to listen to me carefully. Light bills are not just going up because it’s summer. Bahamians are paying more because the PLP did not execute a programme we had in place to buy oil cheaper and keep light bills lower.”

Mr Davis interjected and refuted his assertions, throwing the blame for BPL’s shortcomings “directly at the feet” of the previous administration. He claimed that the Wartsila engines are not working and that there was “a lot of smoke” around their purchase.

He said: “The state of affairs at BPL and what it is today lies directly at the feet of the FNM’s previous administration. They started off with the Wartsila plant. They are not working. They have never worked properly. I will be bringing in due course, because of this constant refrain that the state of BPL today is as a result of what we are doing.”

“I don’t like looking backward…I don’t.. but I have to in this instance, because there’s a lot of smoke that surrounds that transaction with Wartsila engines. They’re not working.” Mr Davis then questioned why the engines were advertised as tri-fuel, able to run liquefied natural gas (LNG), heavy fuel oil and diesel, and maintained that his administration is working to correct the issue but it has delayed plans he intended to implement.

He said” “In fact, we want to understand why… I will bring the documents as well….I want to understand why it was presented that those engines were tri-fuel. If you look on BPL’s website now it is saying tri-fuel, and we wanted understanding in the last week when we are doing things to correct what’s going on.... I will in due course point to where it is, and let me tell you the smell is rotten. The smell is rotten”

Dr Minnis then suggested they continue the debate at a later time with the maintenance records for the Wartsila engines tabled for discussion.

He said: “I will entertain the Prime Minister and discuss with BPL, but not at this time as I do not have the time. But I ask the Prime Minister to bring to this Parliament the log for the maintenance programme for Wartsila so that we can see and, as a matter of fact, bring to this