The modern Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) has no credibility when it comes to Bahamas Power and Light (BPL).

The Free National Movement (FNM) has but a shred left.

To hear members of both parties blaming each other for the many, many failures of BPL yesterday was remarkable.

Yesterday in the House of Assembly, Minister of Education Glenys Hanna-Martin charged that the Minnis administration created chaos with its total mismanagement of BPL.

She was pushing back against claims made by former Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis and FNM Deputy Leader Shanendon Cartwright in the House that BPL has taken a turn for the worst under the Davis administration.

Though Minnis and Cartwright are absolutely correct that the Davis administration has been bad for BPL, the Minnis administration was a poor steward of our largest state-owned enterprise.

However, the FNM can at least claim that after a period of disastrous decisions and reckless management in its last term in office, it was able to bring stability to the power grid and electricity prices.

It is chiefly because of former BPL Executive Chairman Dr. Donovan Moxey that BPL was able to end load shedding on New Providence and lock in a low fuel charge for as long as it did.

Moxey was appointed chairman after the board that came before him was fired in 2018 while then-Minister of Works Desmond Bannister was minister responsible.

In September of 2018, a massive fire at the Clifton Pier Power Plant caused damage to station C, destroying one of BPL's largest generators and badly damaging another.

Moxey and the board then took $95 million that was earmarked for transmission and distribution upgrades, among other things, and spent it on a 132-megawatt power plant at Clifton that was built by Wartsila.

The following summer, BPL experienced some of the worst load shedding in its history, with load shedding exercises occurring for up to four hours on New Providence.

The then-government blamed the PLP for not properly maintaining and upgrading generation equipment and took umbrage at what was going on being described as a crisis.

In response, then-opposition leader Philip Davis said Minnis should consider asking Bannister to resign.

BPL announced that Finnish technology group Wartsila will install a new 132-megawatt engine power plant at Clifton at a cost of $95 million to increase the generation capacity on New Providence.

The board's gamble ultimately paid off.

The new plant and a new turbine at Blue Hills ended load shedding on New Providence.

The board also took advantage of the Inter-American Development Bank's offer to enter into a fuel hedging program with the backing of the government.

Moxey became an expert study at BPL and helped the corporation lock in a 10.5 cents per kWh fuel charge, bringing down consumers' bills and providing economic certainty with regard to electricity bills amid the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The PLP is in a state of cognitive dissonance when it comes to BPL.

Minnis and Bannister covered themselves in shame in countless ways with their oversight of BPL, but they did manage to oversee the most significant wins for the beleaguered company's consumers in quite some time.

But the PLP's terrible mismanagement of BPL took all the good Moxey managed to do in his tenure and squander it.

BPL was created under Davis' watch as the former minister of public works.

And the Davis administration has been particularly bad for BPL with Minister of Public Works Alfred Sears mounting an unconvincing defense of the government's poor handling of BPL.

Yet, when it comes to Sears, Davis appears to have refused to take the advice he offered Minnis on Bannister.

Here is what is true.

The FNM is not in power, and for good reason.

And nobody is buying the paper-thin attempts by the PLP to cast blame for what is occurring on the former administration.

It is complete nonsense.

The fuel charge is currently astronomical because the current administration took bad advice in not continuing the rolling fuel hedge and artificially manipulating it while BPL bled cash.

The PLP also canceled the contract with Wartsila to run the plant it built and found itself in a position where it could not afford to maintain those generators and others.

To watch the parties responsible for the horrific treatment Bahamians have endured under BPL is frustrating and ridiculous.

But shame is as elusive to find among them as accountability.

The post Plenty of blame to go around on BPL appeared first on The Nassau Guardian.

The post Plenty of blame to go around on BPL appeared first on The Nassau Guardian.

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