By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Activists yesterday said the Grand Bahama Port Authority (GBPA) had expressed a willingness “to step in and broker” settlements to the island’s “fake energy saving devices” controversy.

Pastor Eddie Victor, head of the Coalition of Concerned Citizens (CCC), a long-time Grand Bahama Power Company critic, told Tribune Business that the GBPA was eager to resolve the issues between the utility and residents/businesses who had these devices installed.

He added that the coalition had “petitioned” members of the GBPA regulatory committee, which is supposed to oversee and supervise GB Power, to improve the “protocol” for how such consumer-related matters were handled in the future.

Expressing concern that current arrangements between the GBPA and GB Power were inadequate, Pastor Victor said it emerged at the meeting that the utility had been relying on Freeport’s bye-laws to justify its actions.

GB Power’s interpretation, he suggested, was that these gave it the right to immediately disconnect customers suspected of electricity theft. However, Pastor Victor argued that the disconnections were “very wrong” because they were based on “suspicion” - not “concrete proof”.

He reiterated previous accusations that GB Power is “strong arming” businesses to settle, and agree payment plans on its terms, by either refusing to reconnect power until such a deal is reached.

Pastor Victor said three of the seven Cooper family fast food franchises, which were among the first prominent businesses to be disconnected, remained without power supply as does Sav Mor, the largest supplier of over-the-counter drugs on Grand Bahama.

While GB Power has acknowledged that these businesses, and other companies and residents like them, are likely the “victims of a fraud” perpetrated by those who sold and installed devices that could never delivered what they promised, this does not change the fact that electricity has been consumed and not paid for - with sums likely reaching into the millions of dollars.

As previously reported by Tribune Business, under the Electricity Act and Freeport’s bye-laws responsibility for paying up falls on the customer - not the installer. “The businesses and residences could claim and feign ignorance, but they’re still going to be liable for the loss suffered by the Power Company because they were the beneficial recipients, in effect, of stolen goods,” one source said last week.

Pastor Victor, though, described yesterday’s meeting between the Coalition and GBPA as “OK” although no explanation was given for why it seemingly took GB Power to long to uncover the alleged “electricity theft” despite its computerised systems and meters which would have shown any sudden drop in consumption below historical trends.

“There are still three [Cooper family] restaurants that have not receive power yet and Sav Mor are still on generator,” he told Tribune Business. “The regulator [GBPA] has offered to help broker arrangements with the Power Company.

“It was a good meeting, and we were able to share our concerns about the manner in which the Power Company conducted the whole exercise. We are asking the regulator to change the whole protocol for how any customer, who finds themselves in a similar situation, is handled.

“We made it very clear that the Power Company was very wrong in the way it approached long-standing customers. These restaurants employ 500 people, and Sav Mor employs 39 people and is the largest over-the-counter prescription pharmacy on Grand Bahama,” continued Pastor Victor.

“We’re going to see now what transpires from here. Again, the power has not been restored to those restaurants and Sav Mor yet. We still believe the Power Company is strong arming them. It’s evident by the length of time it’s taking to restore them.”

Pastor Victor said that while a regulatory framework and protocol had been signed between the GBPA and Power Company, outlining each other’s obligations and roles, “the document does not in these cases address how the customer is handled”.

“We understand that the Power Company went by the bye laws that govern electricity regulation and distribution in Grand Bahama,” he told Tribune Business. “The Power Company feels it has the right to shut down the business right away when it determines there’s been a theft and some illegal hook-up.

“We stated that they went ahead and cut the power off on suspicion; without concrete proof. We have asked and requested that a protocol be set up by the regulator to govern how customers that may find themselves in a similar situation are handled by the Power Company. We have petitioned for that and we will be hearing back from the regulator.”

Pastor Victor pledged that the Coalition’s efforts will now “intensify” through Town Meetings and such like, adding: “We don’t agree in any way that this was the right way for the matter to be handled.

“We agree that everyone was scammed, and that if you use power you need to pay for it. It has to be in an amount that can be agreed upon by the parties without duress.”

As Tribune Business previously revealed, and was subsequently confirmed by GB Power, many installers of these “energy saving devices” exploited the desperation of numerous businesses and households to reduce electricity bills that had become equivalent to a second mortgage, eliminating corporate profits and shrinking household disposable income.

While sold as “magical boxes”, they were nothing of the sort - as confirmed by GB Power, which said many were “fake” and did nothing for energy saving and/or conservation. In order to produce the promised savings, the Freeport-based utility provider said the installations it uncovered had resorted to either bypassing or tampering with electricity meters to under-record actual consumption.

Such actions are illegal, with GB Power arguing that customers who had fallen for such deception were “victims of a fraud” that delivered no actual energy savings. The utility, which is 100 percent owned by Canadian-based Emera, added that it, too, was a victim because not all customer energy consumption was being recorded - resulting in underbillings and financial losses.

GB Power, in a statement last Thursday, set out a three-step “remediation” plan for addressing the “fake energy devices” controversy that has created havoc in Freeport and Grand Bahama because of how widely they are being used.

It called on all customers to “urgently” report the presence of the “fake” boxes and associated equipment to it, so that GB Power personnel can inspect it and “address any immediate safety risks” - a process that could result in short-term power outages.

“GB Power will make reasonable arrangements for customers to pay for the electricity which has been used but not metered and billed,” the utility’s statement said. “Where GB Power and the customer reach a satisfactory resolution, no complaint will be made to law enforcement.”