Were the current Barbados Light & Power (BL&P) rate application before the Fair Trading Commission (FTC) a purely public relations exercise, the company would likely not get a one per cent increase, far less the near 12 per cent it is seeking.
The BL&P, for most of its 111 years of operation on the island, has enjoyed a stellar image as a corporate entity. Citizens held the company in high regard. It was known as a responsive utility, where complaints were addressed promptly, and its electricity services were extremely reliable.
Important also was the perception that BL&P was one of the island’s best employers, where the pay was great, and employee turnover was unheard of. Many of these aspects of the company’s existence may still be true, but in recent years, it is difficult to deny that BL&P has fallen from the pinnacle it held.
Yes, there have been applications for rate increases before in which the company stridently defended its requests and objectors were equally passionate in their rejection of those demands.
However, something has changed. The public complaints have increased, and the dissatisfaction levels are going in the wrong direction for the utility company.
It may be linked to the fact that only a sprinkling of Barbadians still own a stake in the company post the Emera takeover. The Canadian owners of BL&P will naturally be in an ongoing battle for the hearts and minds of Barbadians suspicious of a foreign corporate takeover of a highly prized local asset.
Complaints about scores of leaning and rotting poles all across the island are mounting. We must concede that the two communications companies share the blame for this aesthetically ugly and mushrooming safety threat throughout our landscape.
The apparent slide in public perception could also be linked to the fact that the company has cut many of its employees and outsourced aspects of its operations. The very public rows between the company, its workers, and their union representatives in recent years, have not been endearing.
And so, the company may not be in a position to give the kinds of guarantees for which it was known. Those corporate commitments now form part of consumer quality standards that have been legally imposed by the FTC.
In the face of a contentious rate increase application by the BL&P, the company is fending off growing criticism about the timing of the application when Barbadians are already struggling with price increases on every front.
Trying to follow and understand a utility rate hearing is not an exciting exercise; it is frankly boring stuff. It features complicated legal processes, abstruse formulae, and hours of dreary evidence and questioning.
The BL&P, though it has presented a strong defence of its position with scholarly expert witnesses and tactical representation by its legal team, one must wonder whether the company may not be losing the public relations battle, even if it is likely to win the ultimate war.
Intervenors have succeeded in pinning in the minds of Barbadians that BL&P has made super profits, that its main shareholder, Emera, has been enjoying millions of dollars in dividends, while the company has reneged on an undertaking it gave to invest in new generation plant.
What has remained with consumers from the BL&P’s side is the repeated refrain from that without the increase, it cannot guarantee a stable service to consumers.
Doing little to help the company’s image was the recent lashing it received from Senior Minister Dr William Duguid in the House of Assembly over the company’s rejection of a proposal on use of concrete poles.
Reacting to the politician’s criticism, the company now faces additional backlash for presenting its $4 million corporate social responsibility expense over the past decade as a response.
“That can’t be right . . . It can’t be $4 million in ten years – a company that makes hundreds of millions in dollars to the point that they can pay dividends of $100 million to their entity, as was reported in the press, and in ten years could only give $4 million to the people of this country.
“It is something that they now send to me to curse me about. What I said was absolutely correct, that they were not good corporate citizens,” Duguid reacted.
The FTC will make its ruling on the BL&P rate request, but the company has a lot to do to repair the fracture with its customers.
