BAHAMAS Electrical Workers Union President Paul Maynard yesterday blasted the “coordinators” at Bahamas Power and Light for being “inefficient” and organising the “worst hurricane recovery effort” he has ever seen.

In an interview with The Tribune, Mr Maynard said if certain BPL officials had “listened to advice from the union” more areas of New Providence would have been restored and BPL’s restoration timeline would be significantly shorter.

In a statement on Monday, BPL said it could not give an exact time for full restoration, but the company expects most customers to be back on supply by the end of the week. However, Mr Maynard said “two to three weeks” is more realistic.

“They have these people up there, these coordinators, who do not know what they are doing,” Mr Maynard said.

“We should have been working from day one instead of doing assessment. The people should have been working and we wasted that entire day. We have a bunch of people that are now retired who are linesmen that could assist and we have people who have equipment who could have helped.

“We should have engaged all of them and coordinated it properly. If we did, we would have been further than this. This is the worst coordination I have ever seen. Those coordinators are off base and a lot of it is arrogance. They don’t want to listen to anyone and they believe they know everything.”

Mr Maynard said going forward, “once the coordinators are changed” and “protocol is followed,” power should be restore in about two or three weeks. He said he is meeting with management at BPL today, to see if any “adjustments” will be made.

On Monday, BPL said electricity was restored to just over 50 per cent of its customers in New Providence and restoration in the Family Islands was “substantially” complete.

BPL also said it expects restoration efforts to ramp up significantly when assistance from international partners arrives on the island. BPL has sourced help from the Caribbean Association of Electric Utilities, which is sending at least three teams to the island.

The first team will arrive on Wednesday, BPL said.

Many residents in New Providence have been without power supply for a week, as a result of Hurricane Matthew.

BPL has said its teams are working 16-hour shifts and will not stop until power is fully restored.

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