Yet, the cost of Crude Oil has come down $10 per barrel in the last six months. I don't understand why businesses are not demanding the cost of gas to go down considering the cost of gas for them to make deliveries and service calls. Why are not workers demanding that Gov decrease the cost of gas for them to drive to and from work every day. No damn need for gas to cost us $5.50 a gallon.

BPL is not a utility anymore. It is a state-sanctioned shakedown. What landed in Bahamian inboxes this week is not a “summer spike”, it is a systematic transfer of household and business cash flow to cover years of political cowardice, bad fuel policy, and a tariff architecture written to protect the monopoly first and the consumer last.

Here is the cold arithmetic from my new bill:

> Usage: 1,372 kWh for the period.
>
> Base energy charge: $157.21 ( $71.70
> on 201-800 kWh @ 11.95¢ + $85.51 over
> 800 kWh @ 14.95¢).
>
> Fuel charge: $261.61 (800 kWh @ 17.4¢
> + 572 kWh @ 21.4¢).
>
> VAT (10% on the whole lot): $41.88.
>
> Current charges this cycle: $460.70.
>
> Total due with past-due balance:
> $591.38 by August 11.
>
> Effective tariff this month:
> ~33.6¢/kWh on current charges alone;
> ~43.1¢/kWh if you include the past-due
> they’re dragging forward. More than
> 56% of your subtotal (before VAT) is
> fuel. The Government then taxes that
> fuel pass-through.

So, after promising that prices would “level off” by early 2024, we are in mid-2025 paying 70%+ more on the fuel line than the hedged ~10¢/kWh they inherited in September 2021 — and 100% more once you cross 800 kWh. Meanwhile, Government trumpets a 1.1¢ “Summer Energy Rebate” while your bill still jumps 25-40% month-over-month because the structural problem (diesel dependence, abandoned hedge, rental engines burning ADO, and VAT on top of it) is untouched.

The Government just tabled an Order to (1) lock in BPL’s new base tariffs (remember the 14.9% hike on the first 900,000 kWh for the biggest customers) and (2) re-enable fuel hedging—the very tool whose lapse detonated this crisis. They’re also authorizing BPL to stuff into the fuel charge everything from “upper cylinder lube oil” to FX and bank fees, IPP purchase costs, and even the costs and fees of hedging itself. In plain language: we pay for their mistakes coming in, and we pay for their “solutions” going out. That is not regulation; that is organised extraction.

Bahamians should not whisper it:

Bahamian households and businesses are being shot in the back by a Government-owned utility that failed to protect consumers with competent fuel risk management, then taxed the fallout, then congratulated itself for shaving off 1.1¢ while effective bills exploded by 25-40% in a single month. This is not a “never-ending nightmare”; nightmares end when you wake up. This is a policy choice: tax the fuel, abandon the hedge, rent the most expensive engines, bury the true numbers, then lecture the public about consumption and weather. BPL’s fuel line is now a fiscal pipeline, and VAT on top of it is the State dipping twice. Enough.

What must happen immediately (not in another consultation, not in another press release):

* Zero-rate VAT on electricity up to a defined social floor (e.g., 800 kWh/month) and on all fuel pass-throughs. Stop taxing inefficiency.

* Publish the full hedge book, forward curve assumptions, and the “over/under recovery” account monthly. URCA must compel it.

* Independent forensic audit of BPL’s fuel procurement, rental generation contracts, and hedge unwind/expiry decisions from 2020-2025. Name the losses.

* Cap the percentage of generation allowed on rental ADO units and publish the per-kWh cost of every generation block on a rolling basis.

* Fast-track 150–200 MW of utility-scale solar + storage under transparent PPAs, with publicized levelized cost of energy (LCOE) and take-or-pay terms.

* Real net metering with bankable credits for households and SMEs; end the fiction of “self-generation encouragement” without a tariff that pays.

* Time-of-use tariffs so consumers can actually shift load and see a price signal—otherwise “use less” is just rhetoric.

* Legally bind BPL to a fuel charge stability band for 12 months, backed by a properly governed hedge program (not a political promise).

* Consumer restitution mechanism for provable over-recoveries during periods when BPL mis priced or misapplied the fuel rider.

Until these steps are executed and verified, every press conference about “heat” and “consumption” is an insult. Bahamians are not paying for electricity; they are paying for institutional failure, opaque fuel math, and government take on top of both. Call it what it is: a shakedown. And it ends when we force transparency, strip the tax off the fuel line, rebuild a professional hedge with public oversight, and replace the diesel addiction with real, measured renewables—not promises.

*The bottom line*

At ≈ 34 ¢/kWh, Bahamian households now pay twice the world average, 75 percent more than the U.S., and neck‑and‑neck with Britain’s crisis‑era cap—without Britain’s subsidies, winters, or wage levels. That is not the price of electricity; it is the price of chronic mis‑hedging, diesel addiction, and a tax regime that turns every kWh into a revenue stream for the Treasury.

In plain language: BPL has manoeuvred The Bahamas into an elite club no country wants to join—one defined by punitive power costs that strangle disposable income and choke investment. Until fuel risk is professionally hedged, VAT stripped off the fuel rider, and large‑scale renewables fast‑tracked, every monthly bill will keep reminding Bahamians where they rank on the global pain index.

What about the bill apparently decreased the last two past months? All these party’s do is suck up the bill for a few months and increase it for the other months. The government gaslights the public. It does not solve a problem it makes it look like it is solving a problem. Smoke and mirrors.

PLP & FNM don't need to solve any problems for people who vote only for them or don't vote. They have a monopoly on votes.
A monopoly on votes.

Twas **if to believe the eyes** of evidence captured on Vehicle's Dash Cam camera...shows a **decent amount** of movement going in and out the Mackey Street headquarters of the RedShirts'Movement. -- Most captured footage is of what looks to be clear movement of a **looking dejected, rejected** talk show host Howard Grant's **comings' and goings'** ---Yes?-

FNM know they will win. Bahamians only know two Parties and they are "the other one."
Stay tuned for more high prices ... on everything.

All of you posting here choose, for whatever reason, to ignore the real problem.

BPL is no longer controlled by government. It is now controlled by a cabal of corrupt marauders led by the sinister and deceitful likes of the greedy Snake and Tony Ferguson who are laughing all the way to the bank.

Yup, our most corrupt and incompetent PM Davis foolishly turned control of most of our nation's energy sector over to the insatiably greedy Snake of all people. Snake and his cabal of marauders will squeeze every penny they can out of electricity consumers for years to come and, when they can no longer do so, they will simply dump BPL back on the government..

Absolutely correct, connected thugs who operate under government approval.

Left in the wake of handling general election choices. --- The movement is "devoid of "official opposition" leadership" status. -- Time **unswear** before the King's governor-general. -- Yes?

The question shouldn't be who will win the next election.
It should be how we can make sure that these PLP bozos go to jail for the crimes they have committed.

I wondered if the rates went up or the usage.went up
Many missing from the looney farm. For sure