The time has come for the government to face the fact that it cannot continue with its business as usual approach to dealing with the provision of basic services. Long-term solutions are imperative. For this to become so, the government should get the ball moving by telling the public the real truth about the systems failures this past month in the areas of water, electricity and telephone services.
Despite our extreme annoyances with recent failures, our interest is to find out what government proposes to do for the long-term development of these so-called basic services.
These are vitally important in any country which would wish to be deemed truly developed.
While politicians of all stripes preen and strut their stuff to the delight of their ardent supporters, many of them are missing the really big story. Our reference here is to the crushing social reality that successive governments in The Bahamas have demonstrably failed to deliver many of the quality services they so glibly promise, while on the campaign trail.
Take for example the sorry state of public utilities in The Bahamas. In the case of a services as basic as that of water, New Providence is currently facing what we are told is a severe crisis. It is being claimed that there is a large gap between consumption and supply. Having already conceded defeat, The Water and Sewerage Corporation is lamely hoping against hope that it would one day get its act together. In the meanwhile, the longsuffering public can expect more water shortages, more inconveniences and higher prices.
In the instance of The Bahamas Electricity Corporation, the situation is perhaps even worse. With a regularity which is now quite sickening, that government corporation is revealed as being woefully incompetent, massively inefficient and totally unable to match word with requisite deed.
For the past few days, no section of New Providence has been spared its share of rolling blackouts. Businesses and householders have all been hit with costly power outages.
Regrettably, this pattern of neglect and abuse of the public by corporations charged with providing basic services is continued by Batelco. Telephone service is at best mediocre. On occasion, it is downright disastrous. Indeed, the discerning public has every reason to be sceptical when government ministers and corporation managers promise better.
With a track record of failure on their accounts, it is hardly surprising when consumers are disgusted when decision-makers come calling asking for fee increases. What makes these matters even more galling is the fact that politicians and corporation managers show absolutely no embarrassment when they talk about the ‘modern’ services consumers will get once they shell out even more money.
What makes this sad story even more pathetic is that the providers of these shoddy services have the temerity to testify either that they are on the cutting edge of change or that they are soon to arrive there. And to top it all off, these people will – at the drop of a hat – shut off their meagre service if the beleaguered consumer is late with his payments.
To make matters worse, when the consumer is inconvenienced and put out of pocket by the public utility companies, he has little recourse. We could, if we wished, continue this painful lament about what happens to consumers in a situation where they are obliged to pay more and more for shoddy services. That would be absolutely counterproductive to our social purpose.
In our considered judgement, the better course for us to follow in this matter involves reflection on what needs to be done to bring immediate relief to the long suffering Bahamian people, as they labour under the joke of these public utility providers. In the first instance, all of these corporations should seriously consider making rebates to consumers when they deny them services. The householder or business owner on the receiving end of a public utility’s incompetence should not be obliged to pay double for the loss of the service and its subsequent restoration. Who pays, for example, when a householder loses hundreds of dollars as a result of having no electricity for hours on end? Or for that matter, who pays when people have to travel miles simply to take a bath on a hot summer’s night because the water providers have gotten it all wrong? Or again, who pays when a business transaction cannot be consummated?
While these might – at first blush – appear to be rhetorical questions, they are not. What is at work in these matters is the revelation that The Bahamas is, in very many respects, just another example of another underdeveloped country.
While it is true that there is a veneer of efficiency and sophistication, the underlying reality is that New Providence, home to more than two thirds of the population of The Bahamas, is ill-served by utility providers, and that behind the scenes it is backward and underdeveloped.
Additionally, the population at large has been, generally speaking reluctant to pay the large amounts of money needed to sustain these services. At a deeper level, successive governments have failed in the area of capital outlays for sustained development. Instead what has happened is that they have opted for a piecemeal approach to development, thus the spottiness of efficiency in multiple systems.
Editorial, The Bahama Journal
