By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

Trade unions and politicians yesterday described as “real weird” the decision to have one of the Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) bidders determine the cause of last week’s island-wide blackout, with some screaming it was a “blatant conflict”.

The Bahamas Electrical Workers Union (BEWU) was among those questioning whether it was “unethical” to contract Carolina-based Power Secure to assess BEC’s systems, given that it was a bidder on the management contract for the Corporation’s transmission and distribution segments.

And K P Turnquest, the Opposition’s finance spokesman, agreed that “there seems to be some inherent conflict” in the Power Secure engagement, even though it was the only bidder focusing solely on the transmission and distribution management deal.

He suggested the engagement could give Power Secure an advantage over any rivals in the BEC restructuring tender, as it would gain insights into the Corporation others would not, thus enabling it to potentially adjust its bid.

“There’s an inherent conflict here, having them come in without having won a contract,and they’re able to get an advantage over anyone else participating in the process,” Mr Turnquest told Tribune Business.

“There’s got to be something inherently wrong with having a bidder coming in to diagnose the issues with the Corporation. They will know what all the weaknesses are, what all the flaws are, and will have the opportunity to adjust their bid accordingly. It doesn’t sound appropriate to me.

“It’s akin to dressing up to go to the dance and taking your make-up off to see what you look like before going home.”

Power Secure was one of five remaining bidders in the protracted BEC process, which is now at least seven months behind schedule. While it was the only bidder focused solely on transmission and distribution, at least two of the four generation-based bids also included taking over that aspect of BEC’s operations, too.

“It seems real weird in the middle of the bid process,” one source said of Power Secure’s BEC engagement. “It’s a really strange deal.”

Another source, more forthright, added: “It’s a blatant conflict. They are addressing an area which they have bid on. But I was told there’s nothing to it.”

Leslie Miller, BEC’s executive chairman, did not address the ‘conflict of interest’ concerns directly.

Instead, he emphasised that Power Secure was in the country to “assess” and “assist” the corporation in the wake of last Thursday’s island-wide black-out.

Yet the engagement appears to corroborate what Tribune Business sources suggested on Monday, namely that the Government is now leaning to giving Power Secure a management contract, and not proceeding with the partial privatisation of BEC’s generation systems.

BEC released a statement on Monday which said that while investigations into the power outage are ongoing, preliminary findings reveal that a fault on one of its key high voltage cables appeared to have been the catalyst for the power failure.

The statement added that a team from Power Secure has arrived in the Bahamas and started initial discussions with the management and staff of BEC.

BEWU president Paul Maynard said yesterday that hiring Power Secure was a “complete waste of time”.

He added: “They said that they needed us to show them the system because we know the system the best.  Send them back and put the money back in the coffers.

“What happened is we have interconnected cables between the Blue Hills and Soldier Road power plant. The old power plant at Soldier Road, which is now a substation, the cables have been there for years. They are obsolete now.

“The cable blew; it shouldn’t have brought the system down but it did because of the lack of protection. What we need is a proper protection system. We don’t need anyone to tell us that. We have known that for years. Our protection systems are not the best, they need to be upgraded, but the problem is BEC can’t afford to do it. That is why when lightening strikes, a lot of the system goes down.”

 Mr Maynard went on to blast the decision to bring in Power Secure as “unethical”. “That’s not ethical. That cannot be right. You can’t give them a heads-up. That’s skulduggery. You can’t bring these people in here knowing that they are bidding to take over the transmission and distribution, you can’t do that,” he added.

“You can’t give them an ‘in’; that’s skulduggery. It shouldn’t be happening. It has to appear that you are above board. Bahamians were responsible for getting the system back on line when we had the blackout. We can do what we have to do.”

Mr Miller, however, told Tribune Business: “They [Power Secure] are here to do a specific job. They are an independent company that is here looking at assisting us on what we need to have done on behalf of the Bahamian people.

“They are new eyes and hands on the job. They are going to give us some suggestions on how to correct some things, looking at all the faults we may have in the system. I don’t know why anyone would even attempt to question the capabilities of this company. It’s one of the top companies in America. 

“They do most of the work for Florida Power & Light and all of the big utilities in the US. They are here to do a job independently to assist our people to make sure that what occurred before does not happen again. No one is here to criticise; they are here to ascertain the problem and get it fixed.”

 When asked specifically about concerns arising from Power Secure’s involvement in the BEC tender process, Mr Miller responded: “I’m not going to comment on what process they are in to.

“This firm is an independent firm we brought in to look at the system and to make recommendations. I’m not concerned about all this other stuff they’re talking about. We have a problem and they are here to assist in solving the problem. Anything else is none of my business.”