"If we don't have the basic infrastructure in place, how can we talk about productivity?" Peter Turnquest.

This is the most sensible thing i have heard from this government of dummies.

They have finally that the country is dysfunctional and lacks reliable infrastructure including electrical power security, education, hurricane preparedness, medical care, proper governance, the ability to week out corruption etc. ect.

We need to increase VAT from 12% to 15%.

The extra money will help the government to pay for all the foreign trips the gussie mae cabinet has been taking around the world with their entire families and government employees.

Don't forget all those red plate cars you see driving all weekend to the food store and in church and at every funeral. Free gas at the government gas depo.

if they had invested hundreds of millions in diesel generators the lights would not be going off now.

they have wasted hundreds of millions on pensions, purchasing of diesel via straw men, maintaining generators from the 1960s, paying BEC overtime so a linesman can make over $100,000 a year and lots of fraud, slow moving meters, un authorized connections and evaporating power due to a aged and poorly constructed grid.

Simple. You build solar fields like our next door neighbor Florida Power and Light that have 18 fields, generating 1,200 megawatts of energy with 5 million solar panels.

https://www.fpl.com/energy-my-way/solar…

Ohh nooo! Its to simple to go next door...can't get greased with them. Lets go to a corrupt fossil fuel European giant whose global warming technology is from the last century.

BPL solar strategy. Solarize Ragged Island where no one lives and allow Bahamians to forget about solar once they are able to stop the power cuts. The problem is that the electrical plant and grid are at the point of collapse.

Please pray with me that Dorian don't come this way. Its lights off for our 100 year old electrical grid.

Yes, as a public school teacher and part of the Bahamas Teachers Union I would like to have all school children be forced to buy all their school uniforms and school books from a company owned by the Teachers Union and the profits split between government and the union.

Also all text books must written by school teachers and sold to the children.

Also all food vendors at the schools must be owned by the Union and profits split with the government.

All computers must be sold to the children by the union.

Too much itemization, customs rates, Vat exceptions and customs categories used to compile worthless statistics on what is imported. Power outage also causes inputs to be lost and computers fried.

The problem is not the system but dysfunctional FNM and PLP leadership.

Pray tell we why the Finance Minister has to be so granularly involved the details of computer software?

Until the politician get out of the business of electrical power, water, telephone, road works, mail delivery, ports, airports education Bahamians will continue to punish with a poor quality of life.

Can anyone tell me how many "major generators" BEC has? Say if they have 4 generators that would mean 75% of our generating capacity is off line.

The CEO at BEC has zero consumer skills. He has no shame, if he did he would resign....in fact the entire BEC Board should resign. I guess they like the $40,000 director fees for doing zero. The boy from Lyford Cay has made zero difference. Might as well had given that $40,000 to my boy in Bain Town that could use the money.

Also whats up with Agrekko? Can't find much about their Florida office which looks like an unoccupied warehouse when you Google them. Why no statements from them?

Also whats up with Shell? If they are in charge of the new generators why are they so silent. Whats the latest with the Netherlands based investigation into their multi billion dollar Nigerian corruption scandal? Don't seem like much of any foreign corrupt practices act or regulations on that side of the ocean. Probably explains why we have to always go so far away to get anything done while Florida Power and Light produces the cheapest and most reliable electricity next door. Anyone ask them in Miami what we should do? I guess not.

Also whats up with the new $650 million bond slush fund being raised by crooked Wall Street and fronted by a Bahamian SPV to bury decades of BEC losses, incompetent run pension funds, over priced polluting Bunker C oil purchased from you know who with a sweetheart deal and massive oil leak at Clifton into the water table and ocean.

We better get on our knees and pray there is no hurricanes this year. The electrical grid with it poor engineering layout and non maintained overhead power lines is the next disaster. This time the lights will go off for good. Maybe then they will stop sending out these outrageous bills.

😂...10 Haitians serving 1 foreigner in Bakers Bay.

Only Hard working Bahamians speaking Creole need only apply.

Yes but the Abaco port is better run under the FNM than the PLP.

Better give Hotmix the $40 million contract to fix.

Well muddy, you are spot on.

BEC $550 million US$ bond issuance to fund $200 million in BEC pensions is the test and template to transfer the government bank debt to foreign and bond holders or the general public.

The banks that now hold the government debt/pension payments now want it off their balance sheets not that the ppl are being taxed into oblivion and the national debt dropped by $30 million (a flash in the pan on the $12 billion in debt on an accrual basis including the current value of future pension payments).

Let’s face facts and stop the smoke and mirrors...the Bahamas is essentially broke and all this borrowing will finish us off ($750 million to Hot Mix to repair all the broken down runways in the Bahamas, $550 for BEC to pay off old debts, and $3 billion for the unfunded general government pension fund).

Ohh, don’t forget, it’s hurricane season which usually costs $100 if we are hit.