By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sbrown@tribunemedia.net

STATE Minister for Finance Michael Halkitis said the government did not pay the electricity bills at schools in Grand Bahama because it was still determining the legitimacy of an 18 per cent interest fee on arrears added by the Grand Bahama Power Company.

Addressing parliamentarians in the House of Assembly on Wednesday night, Mr Halkitis said the failure to pay the electricity bills for 18 government schools on that island was not evidence of “bad management”. He insisted that the government was attempting to protect taxpayers’ money.

“We were investigating whether the interest payment was legitimate or not. We are also in the process of consolidating all of the payments within the Ministry of Grand Bahama, so the payment was already in transit,” Mr Halkitis said.

“The power was disconnected on June 27, the next day we made a payment of $1.3 million.”

He added: “We have a responsibility to ensure that (when) we are disbursing taxpayers’ money, that we are doing so legitimately. We did not think it was legitimate for us to pay 18 per cent interest so we did not make the payment, we want to resolve that issue. That is our responsibility.

“The company took a specific course of action and we maintained a particular stance because we did not believe we should be paying interest and we also wanted to ensure that the issue going back to 2010 was resolved as well. So this is the issue, not mismanaging.  We wanted to make sure that when we discuss taxpayers’ money that we were paying legitimate bills.”

Mr Halkitis said the Ministry of Grand Bahama will now manage the process to ensure no arrears build up.

His comments came after opposition members accused the government of mismanaging government funds and failing to pay the schools’ electricity bills because it was not “important to the PLP.” Power was disconnected at the schools last Wednesday.

Last week, Prime Minister Perry Christie called the action “un-Christian and uncharitable.”

Power was reconnected at the schools late on Friday. Grand Bahama Minister Dr Michael Darville said the government made a payment of over $1 million to the company the same day.

Dr Darville also expressed disappointment with the power company and felt that actions taken were a bit drastic and unnecessary. He also said that while there is sometimes a delay in payment, the government always pays its bills.

Attempts to reach officials at Grand Bahama Power Company for comment were unsuccessful yesterday.