Jobs and prices fear over electric costs

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

GROCERS may raise food prices and gas retailers are promising to lay off staff as some businesses see a 70 per cent increase in electricity costs this summer.

Arnette Ingraham, Bahamas Power and Light’s communications manager, attributed the soaring electricity costs to higher power consumption and the effects of increased fuel charges.

BPL announced last year that customers using less than 800kWh would see an increase of two cents p/kWh. Those using more power would see a rise of 4.3 cents p/kWh in four increments, peaking in September 2023.

Alarmed residents have been complaining about the costs on social media.

“The increase is a significant one looking at the bills from time past,” said Philip Beneby, president of the Retail Grocers Association. “This is the most significant it has been in any one period.”

Mr Beneby said grocers are reviewing their business model “to see what needs to be changed in order to absorb these increased costs”.

He said businesses are trying to avoid passing the costs on to consumers.

“It won’t be very long because you can only carry those costs for so long before you have to pass them on in some shape, way or form because when it’s time for government fees to be paid, you must have the government fees to pay them,” he added. “You must have BPL’s fees to pay them. Otherwise, you know what happens.”

Raymond Jones, president of the Bahamas Petroleum Retailers Association (BPRA), called the higher costs a disaster.

He said retailers have seen a 75 per cent increase in electricity costs.

“If we were another retailer with the freedom to adjust our margins, it wouldn’t have been an issue,” he said, noting the Davis administration refuses to adjust their margins. “We’d adjust the margin to cover the cost and maintain a reasonable profit.”

“There’ll be lots of layoffs,” he claimed. “There will be a reduction in hours and operations. All of that’s coming in the very near future.”

Meanwhile, Fusion expects a $500k jump in electricity costs by the end of the fiscal year.

“The overall bill moved up around 70 per cent over the past few months and I think we may be expecting about a half a million dollars increase in the electricity bill at the end of the year,” said Chief Legal Officer Tecoyo Bridgewater.

He said Fusion wouldn’t burden patrons but is examining cost-cutting measures.

“We’re looking for deals all around as it relates to the costs of the goods we import,” he said. “We do have an agreement that allows us to get certain reductions on certain items that are brought in. Now we can look for additional concessions. If they’re out there, we hope to get them, but we’re doing things like energy savings. We’re trying to look into some renewable energies.”

Ms Ingraham, BPL’s communications manager, said electricity costs are expected to be lower next year.

Comments

Sickened says...

And what will BPL do with all of this extra money??? Will the supply infrastructure be improved? Doubtful. Will our generation capacity be improved? Very unlikely.
This money will most likely go to replacing generators and repairing some of them. The maintenance program will not be reviewed, amended or implemented. So in a couple of years we will still have the same issues of fragile supply infrastructure, insufficient generating capacity and broken machines with 6 month delays for replacement parts.
BPL on a whole, is a worthless, incompetent, ignorant and utterly useless corporation.

Posted 18 July 2023, 10 a.m. Suggest removal

BMW says...

needs to be sold or given away!

Posted 18 July 2023, 10:59 a.m. Suggest removal

bahamianson says...

Cost due to power consumption when you are using the same amount of energy? That is a weird explanation. The people whom have priorities are paying for the lazy bunch.

Posted 18 July 2023, 12:22 p.m. Suggest removal

bahamianson says...

Water taps are around the island. People use them but whom pays for the water? People need to be taught about priorities in school. Brand named clothes and glasses are not priority. An apple cell phone is not a priority. Eating a expensive bahamian restaurants are not priorities. Buying brand name clothes , makeup, eyelashes a new bag and shoes, and jewelry to eat at the expensive restaurant are not priorities. Oh, neither is taking photos to put on social media
A priority. PAY YA BILLS , PEOPLE!!

Posted 18 July 2023, 12:27 p.m. Suggest removal

ThisIsOurs says...

Its oversimplification to say BECs problems are because materialistic people are buying iPhones. When in fact the bulk of the outstanding payments were shown to be corporate clients with hundreds of thousands of dollars owing.

Nevertheless, outstanding Bill's are a minute problem compared to a convicted bribe taker pushing though a deal to purchase faulty engines, ineffective cleaning of fuel spills, orders coming down from politically assigned incompetent (meaning no skills to lead in that industry) executive manager to turn on engines without proper safety protocols, in combination leading to a massive fire, the burn down of an entire plant in Andros and no report of any kind of fire retardant system (I assume they exist for power plants), no talk of early notification of the fire brigade, the entire thing just burned unnoticed, firing of an entire board so the minister could push a deal he wanted, .. the current state of BEC has little to do with eyelash extensions. Its gross mismanagement and corruption

Posted 19 July 2023, 3:45 a.m. Suggest removal

ThisIsOurs says...

"*Go to the sea*" for relief? Desmond Bannister cut down all the shade trees as he and the other FNM ministers laughed

Posted 19 July 2023, 8:41 a.m. Suggest removal

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