BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - THE People’s Action Movement’s (PAM) Shadow Minister of Public Works, Bernard Welsh, has harshly criticised the Electricity Department, stating that mismanagement over the past 10 years have left it with “zero value”.
May 6 officially marked the end of the six-month EC$6.5M contract the government had signed with Agreco International Projects Ltd. for the rental of generators to supplement two Mirrlees 430-series engines damaged in an October 2 fire at the Needsmust Power Station.
Welsh told SKNVibes in an exclusive interview that the decline of quality electric utility services that led to the pricy generator rentals began with the purchase of the Mirrlees engines that were damaged in the fire.
“I was an engineer back in 1998 when we were doing the expansion project, and what I can tell you without any water in my mouth is that we knew that the choice [to purchase the Mirrlees generators] was a wrong choice.”
Welsh claimed that the decision to purchase the Mirrlees generators has cost the country greatly over the 10 years since, and particularly since 2004 when generators had to begin to be rented from overseas to supplement the power supply occasionally.
“[The Mirrlees engines] were not only prototypes, but there were certain problems in terms of procurement of the after sale services and so forth. We felt that we should not have gone that way. I cannot tell you why government decided to purchase them,” Welsh stated.
In addition to paying $30M for the generators and having an unreliable source for spare parts, Welsh alleged that the government is wastefully contracting overseas technicians to do jobs that have been traditionally handled by local workers.
“Because of that situation they have had to bring people in from overseas under a services agreement contract, which is something over US$89 000 per month, for three years now to manage the plant that was being run by locals from as far back as 1951.
“As a matter of fact, when I reached here I was the first ever trained engineer to sit at that plant. So, the guys who were used to managing that plant had no engineering training and they used to manage it fine,” he stated.
The Shadow Minister said that if he were to be elected to office and take over the management of the Electricity Department, his first goal would be to increase the value of the utility so it could eventually be sold to private companies.
He said that the only way to add more value to the utility and make it worthwhile to sell would be by ending “any contractual agreement with the supplier, closing the support services agreement and finding an alternative energy source, such as the geothermal in Nevis”.
Welsh added that privatisation is important because only then would the utility cease to cost the national treasury large sums of money.
“What we need to do is hire good managers and properly trained people, and upgrade the business.”
