On December 28th, The Halifax Chronicle-Herald reported that Wayne Crawley, president and CEO of Emera Caribbean Ltd., had resigned, as of December 21st. Crawley, whose 2010 salary was $607,089, paid for on the backs of power bills stretching from Nova Scotia to Saint Lucia, was unavailable for comment.
The Chronicle-Herald reports that Crawley's responsibilities will be at least partly assumed by Sarah MacDonald, president of Grand Bahama Power Company (GBPC). MacDonald, since taking on the president's role of Grand Bahama Power, has seemed intent on channelling the spirit of Marie Antoinette.
On October 5th MacDonald noted that over 8,000 residents of Grand Bahama have no postal address, and that this was the reason why they were having difficulty in paying their power bills. Troy Garvey, of Operation Justice Bahamas, calls this a “slap in the face”, and notes that the majority of bill payment in Grand Bahama is done personally, so the issue of having or not having a postal address in moot.
The notion of “not having a postal address” does, however, suggest that MacDonald is perhaps fishing for an excuse as to why numerous allegations of faulty meter reading in Grand Bahama are now being investigated by the Bahamian Government. Without an address, the shady technique of “guess-timation”, of which GBPC is accused, is given a leg to stand on.
Reports have also surfaced that MacDonald has been unwilling to live in the housing traditionally provided for the incoming CEO of the GBPC. The house has a special significance on the island of Grand Bahama, as Troy Garvey explains:
“When Sarah MacDonald came to Grand Bahama, there was a house that was always prepared for the CEO of the Grand Bahama Power Company. This house was deeded to the Grand Bahama Children's Home. So therefore when the rent was paid from the Power Company...the money was allocated to the Children's Home, for assistance. But since Sarah MacDonald's arrival, she refused to live in that house, and now she's living in a $2 million house that Emera purchased for her.”
Let them eat cake? Hard to do without the power to turn the oven on.
For more on Emera in Grand Bahama, please see:
http://halifax.mediacoop.ca/audio/emera-under-investigation-grand-bahama/9102
