The Government’s New Energy Deals Are a Bad Deal for Bahamians
The Free National Movement has gone through every single one of the Government’s new energy contracts, and the findings are clear. These deals are not good for Bahamians, they were not designed with Bahamians in mind, and the people who will pay the price are the same ones already struggling with their light bills every single month.
The facts speak for themselves, and they come directly from the Government’s own signed agreements.
Bahamians are being charged two to three times more than everyone else in the region.
The new energy companies are locked in to charge BPL between 23 and 25 cents for every kwh unit of electricity they produce. That is the starting price before fuel costs, logistics charges, and other fees are added on top. Jamaica pays 8 to 9 cents for the same kind of power. Barbados pays 10 to 12 cents. Turks and Caicos pays 11 to 13 cents. Bermuda pays around 11 cents.
The Bahamas is paying almost triple what our neighbours pay. That is not progress. That is Bahamians getting a bad deal while private companies get rich.
And unlike our neighbours, the Government did not put these contracts out for open competition. There was no process to force companies to offer their best price. They simply signed the contracts, and Bahamians are left to foot the bill.
BPL’s costs are guaranteed to go up every year, automatically, for the next 25 years.
Buried inside these contracts is a clause that automatically raises prices every single year. The minimum increase is 2.5 percent. The maximum is 5 percent, and this goes on for 20 to 25 years, whether the service improves or not.
Other islands in the Caribbean allow prices to go down when conditions improve. Not under the PLP. These contracts only go one way: up.
When the next hurricane hits, you still pay to fix the grid, not the private company.
A private company now controls 60 percent of the New Providence power grid, but when a storm comes and tears that grid apart, the contract makes clear who is responsible for the repair bill. Not the private company. Not the investors. The Bahamian people.
There is a hurricane fund written into the deal, but Bahamians pay into it through their bills. The private company contributes nothing. There is no requirement for them to carry hurricane insurance. There is no guarantee they absorb any of the cost when a major storm hits. The private company keeps collecting its fees while the public pays to rebuild the system the private company controls.
Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands learned this lesson the hard way. That is exactly why they now require their private energy operators to carry proper insurance and share the cost of storm damage. Our contracts require nothing of the sort.
And even after Bahamians finish paying for all of this, the assets do not come back to us.
In countries that do these kinds of energy deals properly, the contracts are designed so that once the private company has made back its investment, ownership of the infrastructure is returned to the public. Jamaica and the Philippines are examples of this. Not here. Under these deals, Bahamians pay for the system over time, but the private owners are not required to hand it back.
Bahamians must ask why their government failed to include such a basic protection. Was the PLP working for you or working for the few?
These contracts lock the Bahamas into some of the highest electricity costs in the entire Caribbean. They guarantee automatic price increases for decades. They leave the public on the hook when hurricanes destroy the grid. And they do not even require the private companies to return what Bahamians paid for.
This is not a new era. This is the same old story: a government that cuts deals in the dark, calls it progress, and leaves Bahamians to pay for it.
The Free National Movement is calling on the Government to open the books. Publish the full financial plan. Show Bahamians what their bills will look like in 5, 10, and 20 years. Show who pays when the next storm comes. Show why we are paying triple what Jamaica pays.
If this deal is good for Bahamians, prove it. Show the numbers. Let the public see the truth.
Because right now, the only thing the numbers show is that these deals were built to protect private profits, not the Bahamian people.
To see our full report and analysis, go to FNMBahamas.org/energydeals.