The Minister of Transport and Energy, the Hon. Jobeth Coleby-Davis announced a 50% rebate for Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) customers on the island of Eleuthera. This island has been experiencing frequent power outages for some time that has also affected their water supply.

Coleby-Davis was part of a government delegate that included the Minister of Works and Family Island Affairs, the Hon. Clay Sweeting and the Minister of Education and Technical and Vocational Training, the Hon. Glenys Hanna-Martin that traveled to Harbour Island on Monday. She said, “what we’ve seen is an extreme growth in the economy of Harbour Island, which we’re excited about but our demand has not been meeting the growth and the needs for Harbour Island as it pertains to electricity and those challenges have been persistent. And so Eleuthera residents are reasonably and justifiably angry because they’ve not been getting sufficient electricity supply for many of the years. However, Bahamas Power and Light has provided an update for the works that they are currently carrying out in Eleuthera and Harbour Island and they will be providing five megawatts of generation power through two of our engines that we will be bringing online by middle of September.”

Harbour Island residents staged a protest on Monday against the unreliable supply of electricity, water and cable that they have been experiencing. Minister Coleby-Davis said, “we’re also bringing support staff from Long Island who would be on the ground in Harbour Island to provide support to the staff of Bahamas Power and Light here in Harbour Island to make sure we bring those engines up, online and make sure that BPL provides the necessary generation support to help with the growth of demand that we’ve seen in the economy. We understand that there have been great challenges. We humbly apologize for the challenges but we will be providing solutions that are short term, medium term and long term to make sure that we are ahead of the growth from the future on.”

Both residential and business customers are eligible for the rebate that will be applied to the base rate of electricity. The reduction is expected to appear on the August bill.

The post BPL Eleuthera Rebate appeared first on ZNS BAHAMAS.