Former Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) Chairman Leslie Miller called for the “lies” on Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) to stop.

“This foolishness about these old engines is just one part of BEC. That’s Station A. That had the old engines out of Germany. They were not used often at BEC. They were rarely a part of the mix,” Mr. Miller said yesterday, while appearing as a guest on Love 97’s radio talk show Issues of the Day.

“The problem we have in New Providence now is the fact that people failed to address and the corporation has failed to address the fact that when they had that fire down at Clifton Pier, they lost almost 70 megawatts of power.”

The former PLP Cabinet minister went on to explain that upon coming into office, the PLP discovered that the former Ingraham administration was renting engines from the South American company Aggreko. 

He said these generators gave the Baillou Hills Power station 20 megawatts of power. 

“They said they didn’t have the money to fix it. So, it was easier for them to rent it instead of doing the work that would justify the necessary things that needed to be done at Clifton Pier,” he said.

“To tell these boldfaced lies, is so unfair. The Bahamian people aren’t interested in who rented the engines and what was spent. They want their lights on.” 

Going back a bit into the power company’s history, Mr. Miller claimed that under the last Ingraham administration, no serious overhaul was done on the company’s engines for nearly two years and its chairman never held meetings with executives. 

Fast forward to where the company stands today, Mr. Miller charged that it will take about 12 to 18 months to establish a new plant.

If he was still in control, Mr. Miller said he would call the company’s engine manufacturers, assess both the Clifton Pier and Baillou Hills plants and bring in the necessary resources to correct the problem.