Progressive Liberal Party Chairman Senator Fred Mitchell said Bahamas Power and Light crisis is the result of the appointment of a new management team approved by Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis, whose “bad decisions led to multiple fires at multiple power plants on multiple islands and a loss of significant power generation capacity”.  

In a release yesterday, Mr. Mitchell explained that no amount of “thousand dollar ads blaming the PLP can absolve the FNM government of this epic failure, pushing BPL to the brink of collapse and threatening this country’s economy”. 

Mr. Mitchell said, “The prime minister should have taken full responsibility for this crisis in leadership and apologized to the Bahamian people.”  

 Sadly, he said, Dr. Minnis is in charge of “commanding 35 of 39 seats in parliament and in control of the public purse, yet the most he could come up with is a slick and dishonest PR campaign of political bluster and deflections, blaming the opposition for his failures”. 

He was referring to an ad featured across the front page of a local daily yesterday accusing the PLP for the power company’s current state.  

The PLP chairman said the prime minister’s tour of the Clifton Pier power plant didn’t prevent the power cuts this past weekend, leaving thousands of consumers to cope with the sweltering summer heat. 

He added that Bimini residents have also reported blackouts on that island.  

“After months of ducking, dodging and deflecting on BPL, after sending his BPL minister out to say BPL was not in crisis, Dr. Minnis has finally come to his senses and admitted what Bahamians knew and were saying all along, that BPL is in crisis,” Mr. Mitchell said.

However, he added that it’s regrettable that the prime minister failed to admit that he created this needless crisis through a series of ill-advised and politically motivated decisions, a move the senator deems shameful.