The Bahamas Electricity Corporation is not collecting at least $7 million a day in money that is owed by delinquent consumers, BEC’s Executive Chairman Al Jarrett has disclosed.
It’s problems like this which has prompted officials to craft a new strategic plan to weed out the inefficiencies.
“Often times BEC has to carry a lot of corporations and individuals because they cannot pay their bills, which means that our carrying costs sometimes are affected,” Mr. Jarrett said on the Love 97 talk show Jones and Company.
“I did some calculations the other day, where we are probably losing at least $7 million a day in carrying costs because people are not providing us with working capital to cause us to continue to buy spare parts so we have to borrow money to fund their shortfall.”
The Bahama Journal recently broke the story about BEC being owed millions of dollars. It was reported that government corporations owe around $65 million while a leading Cable Beach hotel was millions of dollars in arrears.
“On my watch I can tell you that every account and establishment is being hound by BEC for its money,” Mr. Jarrett declared.
Hoping to reverse some of the problems that the corporation has been experiencing, Mr. Jarrett said officials are now concentrating their attentions on a high performance workplace plan.
“We are meeting to deal with every problem in BEC from top to bottom and I can tell you in the next two to three weeks, our strategic plan is going to be rolled out to deal with the various areas that are inefficient and we are going to become more cost effective and efficient,” he said.
But the General Manager of BEC Bradley S. Roberts was quick to point out that BEC is not a perfect corporation. However he tempered his comment by adding that it has one of the best rained staffs in the country.
The corporation has borne the brunt of scathing criticisms, especially this past summer when technicians had to resort to load shedding and there were problems with a diesel generator at the Clifton Pier Power Plant.
Mr. Roberts’ plan involves moving the corporation more towards operating like an efficient business.
Responding to the debt that is owed by consumers, Mr. Roberts said more aggressive measures are being used to settle accounts.
“We have task forces working with those people, who are going out there getting their money, putting on radio announcements, telephoning businesses and individual customers,” he said.
Mr. Jarrett is in favour of privatising the corporation, if only partially, reasoning that governments do not run businesses properly. He acknowledged that there was political interference in the past.
Although some people have criticized the high cost of utilities, officials at BEC pointed out that the corporation has not had a rate increase in almost ten years. The last increase was implemented in 1993.
The Bahama Journal
