Regulatory Forums for Senior Technical Officers at the British Colonial Hilton Hotel, Nassau, The Bahamas.

Nassau, Bahamas - The Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (URCA), in partnership with the Public Utilities Research Center (PURC) of the Warrington College of Business at the University of Florida, recently hosted its second in a series of Regulatory Forums for Senior Technical Officers at the British Colonial Hilton Hotel, Nassau, The Bahamas.

The Forum attracted Directors and senior technical officers from various government ministries and departments, private sector representatives, URCA licensees and academia. It provided an opportunity for participants to deepen their understanding of URCA’s role as an independent regulator, and how URCA’s work impacts government policies and the public interests.

Mr. Shavonne Cambridge, Director of Utilities and Energy and interim CEO, in his opening remarks stated that URCA does not regulate in a vacuum and the effectiveness of regulations is driven by interactions with other agencies and those agencies understanding of the regulatory process.

The various sessions were engaging, with active discussions and opportunities to participate in regulatory scenarios addressing the issues from the various stakeholder perspectives. They were introduced to tools and processes to enable them to better understand the roles of the three critical stakeholders in the regulatory process, namely government, regulator and operator. The sessions focused on “how regulations serve the public interest, current trends and best practices in regulations, infrastructure resiliency and infrastructure leadership.

URCA’s Corporate and Consumer Manager, Mrs. Mavis Johnson–Collie stated that similar forums and focus groups will be conducted to ensure that key stakeholders are kept informed of the URCA’s emerging trends in regulations in the Utilities and Energy and Electronic communication Sector.

PURC is an internationally recognized academic center dedicated to research and providing training in effective utility policy, regulation, management as well as the development of leadership in infrastructure policy while building resilience in utility regulation.

URCA hosted the first series of Regulatory Forum, in 2019 which was geared toward policy makers.

Group photo: front row L to R: Daniella Pratt, URCAs Consumer Protection Officer; Mavis Johnson-Collie, Manager, Corporate and Consumer Relations; Dr. Mark Jamison, University of Florida Facilitator; Shevonn Cambridge acting CEO, URCA; Araceli Castaneda, PURC University of Florida Forum Facilitator and Tamandra Cooper, Consumer Relations Assistant, URCA. Along with the participants in the Regulatory Forum