Submitted by Sonnet
Controlling shareholder of Barbados Light and Power exercises options
How much money is too much to pay a corporate executive? Emera CEO Chris Huskilson is no doubt a successful corporation executive, seeing as how he earned almost 5 million Canadian dollars in one day by exercising share options awarded to him by the company.
Emera owns about 80% of Barbados Light and Power. Emera’s and therefore Barbados Light and Power’s mission is to maximize profits for the shareholders while providing the bare minimum acceptable product to Bajans at the highest possible price.
Dirty Power harming electrical equipment
Bajans know about the widespread outages we’ve recently experienced, along with the raised rates and extremely dirty power that has harmed electronics throughout the island. Talk to folks and you’ll see that it’s not just you with the blown TV set or fried refrigerator… it’s everywhere!
So here’s a suggestion: next year Mr. Huskilson should be paid on the basis of the quality of the Barbados electricity supply.
Further Reading
Huskilson is laughing all the way to the bank
Barbados Free Press 
I have complained for years about dirty power. Severe fluctuations and spikes that destroy electrical equipment. BL&P hv one answer “buy an uninterruptible power supply”! A UPS. These aren’t cheap and they too can take a licking from spikes and fluctuations. One of the major problems we have with power is proving the damage to equipment is attributable to power. The power company has a plaster for every sore. Try getting past their experienced engineers spouting technical gobblegook as to why your refrigerator burnt out; your UPS and PC smoked. Must have been hit by lightning. It behoves the Government Electrical Department to have top quality cycle and voltages monitors — and having got these the BL&P will surely claim they have not in a parallel calibration with THEIR TEST EQUIPMENT THUS ARE WRONG.
We suffer but I think our neighbours have a much worst time, but let’s start to kick ass and complain complain. We have the FTC. Use them.
I have complained for years about dirty power. Severe fluctuations and spikes that destroy electrical equipment. BL&P hv one answer “buy an uninterruptible power supply”! A UPS. These aren’t cheap and they too can take a licking from spikes and fluctuations. One of the major problems we have with power is proving the damage to equipment is attributable to power. The power company has a plaster for every sore. Try getting past their experienced engineers spouting technical gobblegook as to why your refrigerator burnt out; your UPS and PC smoked. Must have been hit by lightning. It behoves the Government Electrical Department to have top quality cycle and voltage monitors and when they do the BL&P will claim they have been calobrated in parallel with THEIR TEST EQUIPMENT THUS ARE UNRELIABLE. One just has to be part of this sordid story or worse been a customer whose equipment has been destroyed by power problems and you have to sit through a litany of complicated gobbledygook excuses
We suffer but I think our neighbours have a much worse time, but let’s start to kick ass and complain complain. We have the FTC. Use them.
Barbados residential power rates are about 7 times the average in the US! How is this possible? I can supply the figures to prove this…we are being screwed…..and the Govt is not helping/ controlling the screwing that has been going on for years. Does anyone think that the Canadian Company Edmera Inc would have been interested in BLP, if they could not make huge profits out of their investment..Shame BLP Directors..Shame Government of Barbados..we are now being screwed by Canadians!
Oh Gosh muh belly. FTC? What a joke. This is Barbados, where the local power company is sold off to a company renowned for its singular focus on profit at the expense of everything else. Bajans allowed BL&P to be sold off with their apathy. They have been fooled into thinking that having concrete buildings all over and owning big cars and houses all financed on credit equals development and best island in the Caribbean status. Bajans are a bunch of idiots.
reduce your consumption and Go Solar!
@BFP – You make it sound like there is a devious plan by Emera to screw Barbadians. Energy all over the globe is costly. What I think is outrageous is the price of an “average” house in Barbados – close to 1 million Barbados dollars. But I don’t hear anyone complaining.
Where r u living? Pick up either of the daily papers and READ FOR YOURSELF the varying prices of houses/homes. Don’t display your ignorance for all to see read it.
$1,000,000.00 Absolute nonsense.
I stand by what I said. So sorry if you live in a rat and cockroach infested hovel.
hate to tell you guys, but Emera is quite adept at screwing us, and we their home ground. They , in Nova Scotia, have a guaranteed ROE of 9% which has given them a lever to buy a number of other electric utilities. Their actions quite likely to bring down the present government. We hare subjuect to constant outages on the most flimsy pretexts, the highest electricity cost in Canada, and two decades of neglected infrastructure , all sorts of back3room deal though its all supposed to be public
Observer, anyone who reads the Classifieds in the Nation or on-line and has a little personal knowledge of the real estate market knows you are full of shyte. Rat and cockroach infested thinking is yours….
Go solar and phuque Emera…a side benefit will be putting that loudmouth lying Steven Worme on the breadline.
Poor Wormeee. He has a job to do. More than likely a mortgage and monthly bills to pay. He pays them with BL&P $. Cud dear, if he has to sing the tune his management tell him to sing, he gine sing it to the best of his ability. He’d be dumb not to. Today there is an article in the paper quoting SW that solar will hurt the bottom line of BL&P. Then there’s Mr Doyle sitting on the Crane Rocks just waiting on the necessary legislation so he can sell any excess power back to the BL&P. Now that’s going to be an interesting one – this Government, the next Government? Mr Doyle may be offering to the crematorium before ever selling it back to Government. One small matter which I wish to follow is the longevity and survival of these photovoltaic panels in the salt air that blankets the Crane on a daily basic. Rust at the Crane is far more prevalent than dust. Bizzy Williams and others are solaring with or without the blessing of Government. No problems??
To Observer…. Are you another MITT ROMNEY… 47% of the Americans…. The majority of houses in Barbados cost over $1M! Joke, drive by Bakers development, they are the most pricey that come to mind but drive up and through The Villages on your way to GAI airport, and across to Emerald City at 6 Cross Roads and tell the house proud owners living there that their homes are rat infested hovels. Check with Usain Bolt how to make a rapid get away before you get your ass lick in! LOL
@ A policy holder – Thank you for helping to prove my point. By the way, I NEVER said that houses in Barbados cost over $1M, what I did say was that they are CLOSE to Barbados $1 million. A house in Bakers Woods is around $800,000 some may be more, a house in Sunset Crest is $900,000. and more. Perhaps you would like to live in The Villages where you could spit from your bedroom window into you neighbours bedroom. Put that in your pipe and smoke it you moron.
Well this “moron” has fortunately or unfortunately has lived his life on this small island which even he knows has 11 parishes. Why would one select only to live on or near the West coast where the prices are highest, while there are many lovely areas where houses are not selling for “nearly one million dollars”. May be they are suffering from the “champagne mout and ginger ale money” syndrome!
I am so happy that someone else has decided to mention in this forum the potential hazards of that cesspool flow that traverses through electric wires in Barbados.
I would like to know who the eternal fool that engineered our generation system was. We NEVER like to adopt good standards here in Barbados, option rather to lean unto our own understanding. Let me quickly explain this. The prevailing standards for electricity generation in the Western Hemisphere are 240V 50 hertz and 120V 60 hertz. Those standards are adopted to efficiently move Alternating Current (AC) over long distances before it requires re-generation or simply boosting as the resistance of the wires will have an adverse effect on the power that is received at the point of delivery. So imagine your house in St Lucy and your power coming from Spring Garden. Without the use of step up/down transformers and large voltages you wouldn’t get enough power at the residence in St.Lucy to power a light bulb.
Thankfully, Barbados is small enough that our longest runs are less than 20 miles from any point to delivery, so we could have adopted any of the afore-mentioned standards and we would be in good stead when it came to upgrading and improving our infrastructure. But because of the “smush” we’ve got here, the BL&P can claim all sorts of ridiculous costs to upgrade because most if not all of what we use would have to be custom made for us! See why I am not impressed by the clown who engineered this stupidity in the first place?
The solution is multifaceted, but it seems like Barbadians are looking at solar and to a lesser degree, wind power as their alternative/saving grace from this tyrannical regime based at the Garrison. They cant even keep the power going when we get a good two hour downpour of rain, but ever so often they want a raise in rates. And yes, if you decompose the power signal coming from ANY of their major supply point it sucks! It is full of artifacts and other useless elements which invariably destroys electrical equipment in quick time. A UPS is a buffer which will isolate your valuable electrical investments from their dirty power, but the UPS will get destroyed eventually.
And to think that after all of this all you can get coming from them and their magnificently stupid PR department with their illustriously dumb PR manager is grossly irresponsible commentary emanating from his mouth every time he opens it, is nothing short of astounding. I recalled sometime ago when he came out and boldly proclaimed that the large and growing number of flat screen TV sets in Barbados was going to cause higher demands on power generation. What made this irresponsible was that these sets consume less power then their tube counterparts of equivalent size where applicable. Just so you know, here’s a simple formula you can use to determine the power capacity of any device. Multiply its rated VOLTAGE by its rated CURRENT DRAW/CONSUMPTION or AMPERAGE. (V=IR). Not rocket science or Neurosurgery, just Class 3 arithmetic. Most flat screen TV’s monitors use about 400~500 watts in the 37″ to 65″ class. So your large screen TV at 37 inches diagonally measured, doesn’t require significantly more power than your neighbours own that is 65″ diagonally measured. The major difference in powering the two is the back light which evenly illuminates the screen. That’s it! A plasma screen is a little more power hungry, but many people are moving away from them. And newer models of TV/Monitors are even more energy efficient that the previous generation. A curling iron, hair-dryer and clothes iron all have significantly more power requirements than a 67″ TV. Your refrigerator is the major culprit in your house with respect to power requirements and should be placed on a timer or a timed circuit. BL&P should be out there providing this information to consumers if they really have an issue with capacity so my question to you in the face of having to come to BFP to get this information is so “why do we really need them?”
Just last week, Mr.Worme(what a fitting name!) apparently went to the press lamenting that Barbadians exercising THEIR right to generate THEIR own power is a threat to the BL&P! Can you imagine that? We are supposed to take whatever he and his useless, brain-dead band of criminals dishes out.By the way Worme, where did the Lamberts windmill mysteriously disappear to?
Barbadians hear this! Go online and research the alternative energy landscape for yourselves. Spend and hour of the Facebook time you spend on line educating yourselves to the alternatives available to you. There’s no tariffs imposed on these alternative energy generating devices as that was removed in the late PM’s first Budget Speech. ( I guess he had vision) Do your own analysis on your power requirements and plan your system suitably. Over-engineer so that you can eliminate batteries which are a major costs of a system of that nature and then set yourselves a timeline for implementation, and phase it suitably so that the costs are bearable.
Finally, get BL&P out of foreign controlled hands or just do what the Spartans did, “Give them nothing, and take everything from them!”
Well said “The Watcher!”.
Good to see a point made with intelligence and knowledge.
Seems like BL&P wants the monopoly on our freedom and minds as well. If their services and energy delivery policies were fair and forward thinking, I believe less people would be concern with finding alternatives to reduce their energy expenses.
I can respect a business that knows how to balance its own needs and the needs of its customers, but this greedy nasty minded attitude that seems to be the new cool culture among businesses in Barbados is becoming overbearing, especially in the current financial crisis we are in as a nation. Companies like BL&P, Lime and all the other monopolies and oligopolies in Barbados are very capable of improving their pricing and service models. Do they want to? The answer is a resounding NO!!! Why? Because the people let them get away with it.
Someone in a previous comment said that Bajans are Idiots. I am a Bajan and I have to concur. We ARE Idiots because we have no true sense of the power we hold and we have without a doubt LOST OUR WAY. A society with hardly any common ground, unity or selflessness. What are we so arrogant about? A fake shallow people. We’ve become the caribbean harlot. Screwed for money, land, false promises and sometimes for free! Everyone’s taking their turn screwing us over and over until we are worth dirt. From Foreigners to our OWN. A Laughing stock!
I know my words may sound harsh but put ones ego aside for a minute and think. You will see that it is true!
Why aren’t others seeing this? Has common sense abandon us? I am so worried for our future. What really can a few of us possibly do to undo this SERIOUS damage? I am out of ideas…..
@ I am with The Watcher!
I am really happy to hear(read) what you’ve said in your discourse. It’s not harsh, it’s just the truth plain, simple and unpolished. The BL&P issue, Clico issue, Trinidad vs US issue is all indicative of an underlying,unified issue that I have adopted the acronym (PSC) to describe. POMPOSITY, STUPIDITY and COMPLICITY!
We thumb our noses at others based on what we perceive to be their size, educational status, economic status or some other masterfully magnificent element of minutia, without judging them on their merits. Simple things that the rest of the developed world can achieve in 1 hr, takes us a year to do. And there’s no end to the excuses that we can find as to why it cant get done effectively earning us the black-belt in excuse making,inefficiency, and un-productivity.
Nothing you said is inaccurate and nothing that you or I can single-handedly do will make it better. We, Barbadians have to see through the eyes of the collective, and not the individual for progress to be made and realized at this point as we’ve sunken too far to expect any legacy-monger to offer us the magic formula out of this mess. So how will emerge from the quagmire?
Well, all I can say is that there’s nothing like adversity to being people together! Its after the adversity has passed that the real character of the people is tested.
@The Watcher!
It’s unfortunate but your acronym is very fitting indeed. I’ll borrow that maybe for a future conversation. 🙂
Black-belt in excuse making! That is a good one. I’ve always believed in the quote, “Excellence without Excuse” but many of my fellow countrymen seem to like it the other way, “Excuse without Excellence”. Sad really.
We can’t even get Agriculture right and it is soon 2013! The most basic human survival instinct is securing your next meal. I think this is kind of important!? God forbid the day if food imports were delayed for any extended period for whatever reason. We would probably starve!!! Some people think that is a joke and unrealistic. We are so naive. Food security should be at the top of our to-do list and not more empty hotel rooms and frivolous insane investments.
Government is always looking out for their “friends” and not the grand collective. It’s never about what you can bring to the table to IMPROVE Barbados. They don’t want the job done efficiently and promptly. It’s about associations. It’s about political agendas. They want back rubbers, a** wipers, lip service and of course a piece of the pie. Must have pie! We must serve them. They don’t serve the people.
Take a 2 month project and draw it out for 2 years to justify the millions spent. It seems like it is every man for himself. Grab whatever you can! Pillage the economy! The mindset is horrendous!!! The voice of reason is on sabbatical!
People should learn from the history of others. Where do countries that show these symptoms end up?
Pardon the digression.