By ANNELIA NIXON

Tribune Business Reporter

anixon@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers’ Confederation (BCCEC) says prolonged elecricity outages are inflicting significant financial costs and losses on businesses as it renewed calls for improvements to both energy and banking services.

Don Williams, the Chamber’s chairman, said the recent widespread BPL outages affected businesses “throughout the length and breadth of Nassau”, disrupting operations, damaging inventories and preventing many merchants from processing electronic transactions.

“The blackout has significantly affected all businesses throughout the length and breadth of Nassau, and it’s been a negative impact,” Mr. Williams said. “We have heard the business community, especially the downtown stakeholders, because the lack of power causes issues with equipment as simple as merchant services, as simple as your freezers and your supplies. That inventory is a cost to those businesses.”

While acknowledging that businesses will face financial losses, Mr Williams urged merchants to avoid passing those costs directly on to consumers wherever possible. He argued that reliable electricity supply remains one of The Bahamas’ most urgent priorities as it supports everything from traditional retail operations to online businesses.

“Reliable power is one of the key infrastructures that we need throughout our country - not just for lives, but it is what drives a business,” he said. “Whether you are a storefront or whether you are e-commerce, power is essential.”

Mr Williams said the Chamber is in discussions with the Government, and plans to meet with Jobeth Coleby-Davis, minister of energy, utilities and aviation, to discuss measures aimed at reducing the risks posed by future outages.

While he did not provide a timeline for the meeting, he said it would focus on strengthening energy resilience and exploring solutions that could help businesses better withstand future disruptions.

“We know that natural disasters are something that you can’t predict, but how do we now ensure that businesses have reliable power?” Mr Williams said. “What additional resources, whether it is renewable energy such as solar, can assist businesses in having additional resources just to mitigate against further losses?”

He added that the Chamber will provide an update following the meeting. Beyond electricity, Mr Williams said improving access to banking and payment services, particularly in the Family Islands, remains a major priority as the Chamber continues its broader push to improve the ease of doing business.

He added that many Family Islands are experiencing increased tourism activity and population growth, making access to reliable financial services increasingly important.

“This is a part of ease of doing business,” Mr Williams said. “Whether it is power, whether it is processing from government agencies, whether it is banking services, we are diligently working so that we can expand the ease of doing business.”

Mr Williams said the Chamber will collaborate with financial institutions and private sector partners. Among its priorities, he said, is expanding merchant payment services to more remote Family Islands and cays, while also reducing the cost of those services for small businesses.

“We’re going to be working with the banks as well as some other private partners,” Mr Williams said. “We’re going to see how we can provide merchant services to a lot more of the Family Islands, especially those remote islands and cays, as well as decreasing the cost of those merchant services.

“We want to ensure that we keep costs as low as possible so that we can keep the economy rolling and keep prices low and affordable.”