{"id":243836,"date":"2003-08-06T23:45:40","date_gmt":"2003-08-07T03:45:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/2003\/08\/gross-mismanagement-at-bec"},"modified":"2003-08-06T23:45:40","modified_gmt":"2003-08-07T03:45:40","slug":"gross-mismanagement-at-bec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/2003\/08\/gross-mismanagement-at-bec","title":{"rendered":"Gross Mismanagement at BEC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Officials of the Bahamas Electricity Corporation are suing The Wyndham Nassau Resort and Crystal Palace Casino, formerly the Nassau Marriott, for reportedly failing to pay a multimillion-dollar electricity bill.<\/o_p><\/SPAN><\/P>
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The hotel on the Cable Beach Strip reportedly owes the corporation close to $4 million.\uffa0 <\/SPAN><\/o_p><\/SPAN><\/P>
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Driven by what it calls a need to create a better managed and more productive entity, the corporation is determined to get the money, putting pressure on the Phil Ruffin group to pay up.<\/o_p><\/SPAN><\/P>
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Wyndham Nassau officials, meanwhile, remained tight-lipped yesterday on reports that they have been negligent in paying the electricity bill.\uffa0 <\/SPAN><\/o_p><\/SPAN><\/P>
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The hotel's bill climbed since last year when it stood at $2.5, a source told the Bahama Journal.<\/o_p><\/SPAN><\/P>
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The government itself owes BEC between $30 million and $40 million, the Journal has learnt.<\/o_p><\/SPAN><\/P>
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BEC officials declined yesterday to comment on the lawsuit citing "privacy concerns" but one source close to the corporation said BEC has $35 million in accounts receivables from the private sector.<\/o_p><\/SPAN><\/P>
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Corporation officials are fearful that if the hotel is sold at any point in the future, BEC would be left "holding the bag."<\/o_p><\/SPAN><\/P>
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It's a concern that comes as other businesses have shut down, failing to pay off their debts to BEC.<\/o_p><\/SPAN><\/P>
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Gladstone Farms, for example, reportedly went out of business several months ago owing BEC $900,000. When it went out of business Divi Bahamas is said to have owed the corporation $600,000.\uffa0 <\/SPAN>The Pilot House reportedly owed the corporation close to a half million dollars.<\/o_p><\/SPAN><\/P>
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A source said that BEC has adopted a "no tolerance" policy, toward all customers.<\/o_p><\/SPAN><\/P>
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"We sell electricity for cash," he said. "If you can't collect money then it puts a real strain on your cash flow."<\/o_p><\/SPAN><\/P>
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The source recognized that the accounts receivables problem "can't be solved overnight.\uffa0 <\/SPAN>It's a chronic problem."<\/o_p><\/SPAN><\/P>
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He pointed out that because the law firm of Prime Minister Perry Christie was counsel for Mr. Ruffin while he [Mr. Christie] was in opposition, there are charges that the hotel's management may have taken "certain liberties."<\/o_p><\/SPAN><\/P>
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A key source in BEC said that the board is aware that there "is a bit of politics" involved in the whole matter, but is committed to "doing what is in the best interest of the Bahamian people."<\/o_p><\/SPAN><\/P>
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In recent years, BEC, which is slowly being positioned for privatisation, has had a high overdraft and, according to the source, borrowing too much money because some customers refuse to pay their bills.<\/o_p><\/SPAN><\/P>
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When the new board of the corporation was appointed last year, it recognized that BEC was struggling with a lack of proper maintenance and its expenses were exceeding its revenue. <\/o_p><\/SPAN><\/P>
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One official told the Bahama Journal that, "We're positioning BEC to be ran like a business, but we have a ways to go to change the culture."<\/o_p><\/SPAN><\/P>
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He said that privatisation has been put on the backburner because much still has to be done to make the corporation a more efficient operation.<\/SPAN><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

$30 million dollars in past due receivables proves incompetent management which is why BEC head, Bradley Roberts, should be fired.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243836\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}