BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – THERE still seems to be more questions than answers relating to the apparent unscheduled power outage that took place last Tuesday (Oct. 12).
On that day, at approximately 6:00 in the evening, several areas around the island – including St. Peters, Cayon and Sandy Point - were without supply of electricity which did not return until some six hours later.
According to an article published on WINNFM 98.9’s website, the power outage “was reportedly caused when rental generators were shut down…because the rent had not been paid…Located near the RLB Airport on the outskirts of Basseterre, the Aggreko units – which supply some 7MW of the 24 needed to meet the island’s peak demand – were silent Tuesday night”.
The morning following the power outage, SKNVibes contacted Superintendent of Transmission and Distribution Nubian Greaux, who when asked about the outage informed that it is a “ministerial matter”.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Public Works and Utilities Oaklyn Peets was also contacted and asked about the outage. His suggestion was that any question about that incident should be posed to the Prime Minister during his press conference which was to have been held later that afternoon (Oct. 13).
“…I think the Prime Minister would be having a press conference this afternoon and the Prime Minister should be addressing such issues, so I need not speak out of turn. If he does not address it there, you can always feel free to call me thereafter and I will tell you exactly what the developments of that would have been.”
A media operative, during the press conference, suggested that the government is alleged to owe US$16M to the Aggreko Company, and questioned whether or not this was the cause of the six-hour power outage. Dr. Douglas however described the question as “ridiculous” and denied that this was the cause of the outage.
Notwithstanding that he firmly denied the allegation, Dr. Douglas said he does not know the cause of the disruption in the electricity supply and informed that he was awaiting word from PS Peets.
“Government does not owe anybody $16M. I understand…that certain areas of St. Kitts might have been without electricity for a while sometime yesterday. The real reason, I am not aware of. Mr. Peets, who is the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry responsible for Utilities, has been asked by me to provide an answer, full investigation into the outage and to report to my office maybe sometime later today or tomorrow. But I know specifically that electricity was not discontinued because my government owed anybody $16M. I can say that much.”
Subsequent communication with PS Peets revealed that he had not yet reported to the Prime Minister because the information which he seeks is “slow in coming”.
“It would be better if you address the question back to the Prime Minister at a later date when he would have gotten the report. Because if a report has to be given to the Prime Minister and I have to divulge whatever is in the report once it is completed, I think I would be a little out of turn…it would be done prematurely.
“He did say he needs a report from (me) and obviously I would have to compile a report and pass it on to him and, then based on that, then other things would flow. The report has not yet been passed on because the information is very slow in coming from the persons responsible. As a matter of fact, I just tried getting them again and I am not succeeding. I have sent an email to find out exactly where the glitches have been and I am not getting the information that I request. But I speak to the Prime Minister on the matter and I will continue to work until I get some positive answers.”
