Policy changes at the Bahamas Electricity Corporation have enabled BEC to reduce customers' bills, Executive Chairman Leslie Miller said yesterday.
During a press conference at BEC's headquarters, Miller said the corporation was able to cut overtime pay last year by 35 percent or $4.2 million, over the year before.
He said BEC has cut overtime pay by a further $2.2 million for the year so far, and projects it will reduce overtime pay in the next quarter by a "substantial margin".
Miller said "double-dipping" -- the practice of employees receiving 100 percent of their salaries and national insurance pay when sick -- has been discontinued.
As a result, he said, the corporation will save $1.8 million this year.
He said those savings resulted in significantly reduced maintenance and operational costs.
"Your maintenance and operational costs, we have decreased those by 24 percent and you have now seen a reduction in your fuel surcharge of 24 percent for 2014 versus 2013," Miller said.
"We are getting there, but we have a long way to go because there is still a lot of wastage in BEC that we need to deal with."
Miller said limiting overtime pay of employees on the Family Islands, namely in Abaco, Eleuthera and Bimini, remains a challenge.
"But we are doing our best," he said.
"We just ask the public that you work with us, bear with us a little longer, and we are going to do the best we can."
Miller also announced that the corporation's electricity assistance program, which was scheduled to end this month after a previous extension, could continue indefinitely.
"The minister has told us he wants every light on in this country, the Honorable Philip Brave Davis," he said.
"And we have done everything possible to do so even when management raises hell and says, 'Listen we are not getting in enough funds to enable us to pay our bills.
"And we still say, if the man pays 20 percent of his bill turn him on."
According to Miller, there are around 4,700 residential customers without power.
Asked when the program will be discontinued, Miller said, "I guess until we have all 5,000 of them on, so as long as it takes."
He was unable to say how many people signed onto the program since it was implemented June 2013.
At the time, Miller estimated there were around 7,000 delinquent residential customers without power.

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