WE have had our share of disasters already in The Bahamas – but a manmade one lies in wait just ahead.

Whatever we might say about what level of preparation we might have made for Hurricane Dorian or the outbreak of COVID-19, there is one thing we absolutely had control over – and our failure to deal with its many problems is coming back to haunt us now.

We’re talking about Bahamas Power and Light.

Earlier this month, we wrote about how the coronavirus outbreak is showing us where the weaknesses in our society lie – and there is perhaps no bigger weakness than the ever-problematic electricity provider.

We can’t even talk about years of being badly run when it comes to BPL. The electricity system in this country has been badly run for decades.

And now, Minister of Works Desmond Bannister tells us that its finances “get more and more perilous every day”.

Already heavily in debt and struggling to find takers it seems for its planned $580m bond placement and debt restructuring plan, BPL suddenly has a number of customers who can’t pay their bills, and a bunch of big businesses not using electricity and being a reliable source of income to the utility.

At a time when oil prices have crashed, BPL doesn’t even have the money to take advantage of the situation. Its pockets are empty.

Whatever the past history of BPL, this particular albatross now hangs around the neck of Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis.

Last year, the provider gave an appalling service. Call them what you will. Call them blackouts, call it load shedding, the net result was hours of darkness for people across The Bahamas. Flick the light switch and nothing came on all too often. Freezers defrosted, leaving the contents unusable.

Can you imagine the same now? At a time when people have filled those fridges to avoid going back out in an effort to curtail coronavirus, can you imagine a return to power outages if BPL finds it doesn’t have the funds to keep paying for fuel?

If power problems are added to the anxiety of lockdowns, that’s a recipe for disaster. It would not be too far-fetched to imagine it bringing unrest.

We can all see where this is going if things continue this way. We’re headed for a government bailout of the company. If BPL was a boat, we’re all going to need to grab a bucket and bail, bail, bail to stop it from sinking.

The power must be kept going. You know it. We know it. The government knows it. “We’re going to continue to provide that service come what may,” said Mr Bannister yesterday, adding: “We can never go back to what we had last summer.”

The sad truth is that whatever bailout it is going to take will be government money that could have been going towards people left out of work by the pandemic, money that could have put food on the table for those in need.

It’s also money we’ll all have to pay back in future – through higher electric bills perhaps, through taxes maybe. There will be a bill for us all and it will come due.

BPL is a problem that, one way or another, must be fixed. Not for a year. Not for a term of government. But for a generation. We cannot pretend to build a new Bahamas if it is on the failing foundation of the past. It is a problem that must be solved, for all our sakes, now more than ever.