by Rick Lowe
BEC has been in the news a lot lately. Their union is charging them with "victimisation and a general attack on" a suspended employee and Mr. Michael Moss in Freeport, Grand Bahama is encouraging them shed a little light on how they calculate their fuel surcharge.
The Surcharge Issue
Mr. Moss contends that BEC implemented the surcharge when the "oil price volatility of the 1970's" occurred so the corporation did not lose money.
This is perfectly understandable as BEC would go out of business if it could not make a profit to continue to upgrade their equipment and services etc. However, the crux of the matter is BEC refuses to publish the formula they use to calculate the fuel charge.
Of course the request for BEC to be accountable and transparent with this calculation is because fuel prices have been declining for the past two or three months, but their surcharge does not seem to be reducing apace.
Suspended Employee
Now to the suspended employee issue.
According to press reports (The Nassau Guardian of Friday, October 27, 2006) BEC has suspended the employee because of insubordination and incompetence and because of his alleged involvement in the loss of hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel.
Insubordination and incompetence of an employee is one thing, but charging someone with losing hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel seems a grave situation indeed. Surely the Police have been called in to investigate the matter?
Assuming BEC pays $1.5 for a gallon of fuel and taking a leap that hundreds of thousands of gallons is say 400,000 gallons of fuel, we are talking about $600,000. That's over half a million dollars!!!!
Of course these calculations are merely conjecture, but BEC needs to come clean. After all they are talking about taxpayer dollars, not private losses. BEC is a government owned corporation and a monopoly. They are not a private entity so this places more of a burden on the management of BEC to be accountable and transparent to taxpayers.
The sooner BEC comes clean on these matters the better chances they have of helping rebuild taxpayer confidence that they are good and proper stewards of public property.
These are just two more reasons BEC should be privatised.
