business@tribunemedia.net
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2020
GOOD MORNING, DELICIOUS
The original, official SubwayÂŽ restaurants!
Locations in Nassau: Cable Beach - Charlotte Street North Marathon Mall - Food Court Shell Airport Service Station Palmdale Shopping Centre Shell Old Fort Bay Town Centre Carmichael Road - Shops at Carmichael Plaza East Street South - Independence Shopping Plaza
SubwayŽ is a Registered Trademark of Subway IP LLC. Š 2020 Subway IP LLC.
$4.52
$4.54
BPL power plant has ‘hit the rocks’ By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
Bahamas Power & Light (BPL) is racing against time to have its new $95m electricity plant ready to meet peak summer demand after plans for its cooling system literally hit the rocks. Tribune Business can reveal that the state-owned utility’s scheme to cool the 132 Mega Watts (MW) of newly-installed generation capacity by digging four 800-foot deep wells at
Clifton Pier is in danger of running aground because the area’s rock structures have proven far more difficult to penetrate than first thought. BPL has to-date managed to reach just over 50 percent of the target depth on two of the four wells and, with summer’s peak demand just threeand-a-half months away, it has ordered an alternative radiator system as a back-up in case the original strategy fails. Several drill bits have
already been broken in efforts to reach the required well depth, this newspaper has confirmed, with sources suggesting that only two of the seven Wartsila-supplied engines which comprise BPL’s new generation capacity are currently online and being used amid the wait for a cooling solution. Tribune Business also understands that BPL management was advised against the well cooling solution by Wartsila, which urged the state-owned
$4.45
$4.39
utility to instead purchase a closed radiator system, but executives decided to press ahead despite the supplier’s recommendation. The drilling woes, though, have finally forced them to alter course. And, besides the challenges in penetrating the rock, this newspaper was also told that decades of oil spills and other BPLrelated pollution at Clifton Pier means that the water pulled up by the wells SEE PAGE FIVE
AG HAILS ‘A NEW DAY’ ON FINANCIAL REGULATION By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
THE Bahamas is targeting a June “exit� from a list of 18 nations with “strategic deficiencies� in their antifinancial crime defenses, the attorney general said yesterday, hailing “a new day� in regulation. Carl Bethel QC, speaking after the Financial
Action Task Force (FATF) found this nation had made sufficient progress to “warrant an on-site� examination to ensure its reforms have been implemented and will be sustained, told Tribune Business that The Bahamas was “moving at a fast pace� to ensure it escaped the body’s continued surveillance. SEE PAGE FOUR
GAMING BOARD’S REDUNDANCY FAIL ‘MIND BOGGLING’ - JUDGE By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net A SUPREME Court judge has slammed the Gaming Board’s failure to follow “clearly set out� employment law procedures when it dismissed 24 staff as “mind boggling�. Justice Indra Charles, in her much-anticipated
February 17 verdict, suggested that the casino and web shop regulator had failed to adhere to modern industrial relations practices requiring employers to be candid and forthright with staff as it never showed how those workers were “chosen to be made redundant�. SEE PAGE SEVEN
’ ‰ ‰
† ‡ ˆ ‰
† † ƒ
 �  �� �   € �
‚ ‚  ƒ „ ‚  � � …
� �   € �
‹�  “   ” • – –  �  € � �   € �
Š ‚ ‹Â?  ‰ ÂŒÂÂŽ „ ‚‚  Â? Â?  Â? Â?   € Â?
‘ ‹Â?  ‰ ÂŒÂÂŽ „  Â? Â?Â? Â? Â?   € Â?
FUNERAL HOME ROW ONÂ DORIAN BURIALS By YOURI KEMP Tribune Business Reporter ykemp@tribunemedia.net
A MINISTER has denied that the Government reneged “on its word� to allow a funeral home association to bury Hurricane Dorian’s unidentified victims on Abaco. The Bahamas Funeral Directors Association (BFDA), in a
February 19, 2020, letter said it was “shocked and very concerned� that the Government appeared to have gone back on a “letter of commitment� that it had allegedly promised to issue to it. The BDFA, which said it had travelled to Abaco on February 17 to meet with the Disaster Reconstruction SEE PAGE SIX
INSURANCE MANAGEMENT
(BAHAMAS) LIMITED. INSURANCE BROKERS & AGENTS Since 1977 our clients have enjoyed a wide range of insurance products and services that protect their lives, loved ones, property, valuables and businesses.
Nobody Does it Better!
 �  � �