When it rains it pours, they say, and that certainly applies to the current weather. It also goes for utilities provider GEBE, which experienced two unfortunate incidents with a negative impact practically at the same time.
One was a private contractor damaging an electricity cable at Mullet Bay, prompting outages in that area. The other involved rough seas affecting the engine cooling system’s intake, resulting in widespread load-shedding both Tuesday and Wednesday.
Let’s face it, nobody likes power cuts, but this appears to have been a particularly unlucky set of circumstances. Hopefully technicians will be able to solve the problems so the situation can normalise soon.
Meanwhile, GEBE continues to recover from a ransomware attack almost two years ago that had a debilitating effect on its administration. Recent vacancies for a CEO, CFO as well as COO in the newspaper confirm that the entire top management is subject to change.
Under these difficult conditions, the last thing people should do is turn their back on the government-owned company, which essentially belongs to the community. When its billing system was in disarray clients were asked to do the right thing and pay the usual monthly amount “on account,” which many did and some still do up to today.
However, there are apparently also those, both residents and businesses, who feel they have no such obligation and probably think GEBE may be reluctant to disconnect customers anyway because of so much bad publicity. A few of them own generators and reportedly aren’t worried.
That is simply wrong and a downright antisocial attitude to take. After all, GEBE must maintain enough capacity for the entire island including them if needed.
Moreover, if the company runs into financial trouble it will ultimately be at the expense of society as a whole.
