The Davis administration is the first government in our country’s history to take on the very significant problems in our electricity sector in a comprehensive way, creating a series of reforms to invest in utility-scale solar energy and natural gas and to transform energy across our archipelago. The Davis government is focused on the urgent need to lower costs, while creating a stronger grid that is more reliable and more resilient.
Working with both Bahamian and international partners across our islands, the new reforms will update and modernize the grid, and lead our country’s transition to cleaner, less expensive electricity – all while protecting and upskilling Bahamian workers, and addressing BPL’s legacy debt of half a billion dollars.
The government’s New Energy Era reforms are critical to unleashing the potential of the Bahamian economy.
The FNM should join fellow citizens in celebrating lower bills and game-changing reforms for the country. But they put themselves first, not the people, so they reflexively criticize everything – whether it’s the increase in the minimum wage, the government’s challenge to the Grand Bahama Port Authority to live up to their responsibilities, or the government’s school breakfast programme, which serves thousands of our schoolchildren hot meals, helping them start their day ready to learn.
Nothing disturbs the FNM more than progress made under a PLP government — they aren’t afraid that the new energy reforms won’t work; they are afraid they will, and in doing so will help every Bahamian family and business.
These FNMs never miss an opportunity to remind Bahamians they are performance artists when they should be patriots first.
They are calling for the release of BPL contracts now, even though doing so would give up some of the country’s negotiating power as the final deals are concluded. The government has committed to making the energy contracts public at the conclusion of the final negotiations.
Michael Pintard has never negotiated a series of consequential, inter-related, and complex deals in a fast-changing market – and it shows.
In fact, every time he speaks, Michael Pintard reminds us that his accomplishments are meager and insubstantial.
Then there’s the hypocrisy:
These FNMs, who never tabled a single contract in Parliament when they were in a position to do so, suddenly can’t wait until the country has finished negotiating comprehensive reforms?
Their problems go even deeper than their insincerity.
The FNM’s major energy initiatives were a humiliating Oban fiasco and a rate reduction bond that they couldn’t make happen. Not only did the FNM fail to make the Oban contract public – it is missing altogether. If they have any sense of shame, they will cough up the hidden Oban contract before uttering one additional phony word about energy reform. Or did they burn all of the copies of the Oban contract, even though they belong to the country?
These are serious times, in which serious problems must be confronted – but these FNMs are just not serious people.
In all his many, many years in politics, and in all of his years as Leader of the Opposition, Michael Pintard has never put forward anything resembling a vision or a real plan for transforming BPL and energy in this country. He’s wrong about the hedge – the hedge he’s so proud of leaving behind was for the wrong kind of fuel. He’s wrong about the New Energy Era reforms, which will lay the foundation for a new Bahamian economy. And he’s wrong to attack progress, when he should celebrate it.