Thousands of Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) customers in New Providence were left in the dark for hours yesterday following an island-wide power outage.

Corporation officials have promised a full investigation into the outage and are looking to prevent future supply interruptions.

The corporation says the outage, which occurred at 8:30 a.m., impacted its generation, transmission and distribution networks in New Providence.

BEC explained in a statement that teams were immediately dispatched and restorations began shortly after 9:00 a.m.

Supplies were fully restored by 11:30 a.m.

“The Corporation offers its sincerest apology to those customers who were impacted by the outage but assures them that it is carrying out investigations to prevent the likelihood of future incidents of supply interruption,” BEC said in a statement.

“Again, the Corporation reiterates its commitment to providing a safe and reliable source of electricity to its customers in New Providence and the Family Islands.”

Monday’s power outage sparked speculation of sabotage on the part of the Bahamas Electrical Workers Union (BEWU) which has been at odds with the corporation’s executive chairman, Leslie Miller over a newly implemented shift system.

BEC said the incident is currently under investigation.

Just last week Mr. Miller addressed the fiscal state of the corporation noting that a number of measures have been implemented to prevent the state-run company from facing bankruptcy, including the recent discontinuation of employees receiving National Insurance Board (NIB) sick pay along with a full week’s salary.

Mr. Miller also announced that BEC employees would now have to contribute to their pensions ending a years-long practice of the corporation fully paying into the employees’ pension plan, which the chairman maintained has caused the company more than $50 million over the last 10-years.