Disconnections for non-payment a last resort

The break that delinquent Barbados Light & Power Company (BLPC) customers were getting from being disconnected is over, but company officials say they will continue to put measures in place to help those facing hardship avoid the move of “last resort”.

BLPC Manager of Customer Care Rodney Dottin reported on Friday that despite the continued hardship facing residents, there have been fewer disconnections this year so far than in the years prior to 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic began affecting the island.

Though opting not to provide detailed figures, Dottin said: “I can say that our disconnections since resuming are considerably lower than [they] had been before the pandemic.”

He said that reduction in disconnections was as a result of various measures put in place last year to help customers meet their obligations.

“Our focus is on keeping lights on for the customer and, really and truly, disconnection is a very last resort measure for us. It is not something we do and we don’t take any pleasure in doing at all,” Dottin said.

Director of Customer Solutions Kim Griffith-Tang How explained that many of the measures put in place during the second quarter of 2020 to help customers meet their utility bill payments remained in place for just over 13 months.

“We suspended disconnections to customers for non-payment of bills and we saw that as really critical,” she said.

Although pointing out that the company resumed disconnections earlier this year, Griffith-Tang How indicated that had only been done in extreme circumstances.

“Earlier this year we would have had a discussion with our customers to say ‘this isn’t something we can sustain much longer and so we had to resume disconnections’. But even in the resumption of disconnections we really only then began looking at customers who had arrears extended for a very prolonged period.

“Even with that, we would have reached out. Our teams have been reaching out to customers, having the conversations, trying to figure out what payment plan options are available that they could perhaps meet and work with them along the way. Only where we see a customer maybe isn’t forthcoming in that approach then we have no choice. But we have been doing a lot of work to try to work with customers throughout this period,” she explained. (MM)