The Free National Movement has begun reviewing the 3,260 pages of energy reform agreements released by the Davis-Cooper Administration.
What we can already tell the Bahamian people is this: these are bad deals. And when you see who benefits and who pays, it will be clear that these agreements were structured with private interests in mind, not yours.
Your Light Bill Is Going Up, Not Down
The Government told Bahamians that energy reform would modernise our electricity sector. What they did not tell you is what it will cost.
The contracted rates for electricity generation under these agreements reach as high as 30.4 cents per kilowatt-hour for some islands, significantly above what most Bahamians pay today.
The mathematics are straightforward. When you add fuel surcharges on top of these base rates, Bahamian consumers could face a combined cost of up to 50 to 55 cents per kilowatt-hour. That is not modernisation, that is a generational tax on every household, every business, every school, and every hospital in this country.
These Companies Have No Obligation to Perform
In any legitimate public-private partnership of this scale, one principle is non-negotiable: clear, enforceable performance standards. If a private company is being paid public money over 20 to 25 years, the public must have the right to measure what it is getting and to get its money back, or terminate the arrangement, if the company fails to deliver.
These agreements do not meet that standard. The performance indicators and key performance metrics in the documents we have reviewed are wholly inadequate. The liquidated damages provisions are significantly below what comparable agreements demand internationally. In plain terms: these private companies have been handed guaranteed payments with no effective mechanism to hold them accountable.
When related parties are the ones responsible for holding each other to account, those provisions become meaningless. The Bahamian people have no real recourse if these companies fail to deliver.
A Hidden Monthly Giveaway Paid for by the Public
There is a third problem buried in these agreements, and it will cost Bahamians every single month.
By government policy, BPL provides the first 200 kilowatt-hours of electricity to residential customers at no charge. That is approximately 17 million kilowatt-hours per month that BPL gives away and collects nothing for.
Under these new agreements, Bahamas Grid Company will bill BPL 5.5 cents per kilowatt-hour for every one of those units including the ones being given away for free. BPL collects no revenue on this electricity, and someone has to cover that bill.
That someone is the Bahamian people. Our estimates place the monthly cost of this arrangement at approximately $1 million, a recurring charge that Bahamian consumers will carry, month after month, because the Government signed agreements without ever asking who would pay.
If the Government disputes these estimates, it should immediately release the detailed billing models and revenue projections that support its position.
Friends, Family, and Insiders
It is important that Bahamians understand the full picture. This 3,260-page document dump is not just about Energy Bahamas Holdings Limited or Bahamas Grid Company. It covers a collection of private entities, all of them benefiting from similar comfort letters, minimum off-take guarantees, and long-term lock-in provisions. All of them feeding at a trough that Bahamian ratepayers must fill.
We will name them. We will follow the money. And we will ask, on behalf of the Bahamian people, the question this Government refuses to answer: whose interests do these deals actually serve?
We have just started. As we work through these documents, the FNM will continue to bring findings to the Bahamian people. This is not the full picture, it is the first frame, but what we have already found is enough to demand answers.
The Bahamian people deserve to know what was done in their name. We will make sure they do.
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