Amid increasing blackouts and unstable power supply, President Bharrat Jagdeo last evening disclosed that a further US$20M will have to be spent on a new power plant despite assurances last year that the new Kingston plant would take care of needs prior to the Amaila Falls project.
The President was speaking at the Guyana Labour Union’s Triennial Delegates’ Conference at the Princess Hotel.
Jagdeo in a sometimes testy rejoinder to GAWU General Secretary Seepaul Narine’s call for lower taxes said that the government had significant expenditure on its hands including a further US$20M for a power plant before the controversial Amaila hydropower project is in place.
Last year, top government and power company officials had assured the public that the new Kingston Power Plant would be able to handle demand. The assurance had come amid furious complaints by the private sector over blackouts. The US$27.5M Kingston station was commissioned in December last year, months behind schedule. The new plant which added 20.7 megawatts to the generation capacity allowed the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) to further reduce production costs and improve supply reliability. It boosted the current capacity to 83 megawatts which more than covered last year’s Christmas demand which the company anticipated would be as high as 78 megawatts.
During a tour of the power plant in October last year, while most of the city was grappling with constant blackouts, GPL chairman Winston Brassington had said confidently that blackouts due to generating capacity would end with the commissioning of the new plant. At that time there had been no further plans for another US$20M in generating capacity.
Last week there were severe power problems in the system with two aged converters at Sophia going down simultaneously with a feeder.
Jagdeo opened the sixth Triennial Delegates Congress of the Guyana Labour Union (GLU) urging other unions to follow the example of the GLU and adapt to the changing struggles facing the nation.
The theme for the two-day Congress is `Facing the Challenges of Climate Change for Workers Progress’, and Jagdeo, who delivered the feature address, said that this was evidence that the union recognized the new struggle facing workers. He said that there was a direct link to climate change and workers.
“This union picked it right,” Jagdeo said. “They [the GLU] are changing with the times. This is the time to get involved,” he said to the audience gathered at the Princess Hotel. He said that some unions today were not taking up the new challenge and said that “a few people” were leading workers astray. He identified the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU), as a union that should pay heed to as the sugar workers stood to suffer most from the impact of climate change.
The President appeared to be a bit peeved by statements made earlier in the evening by Narine. Over the past two years, GAWU has been involved in a number of industrial disputes with the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo).
Narine, while greeting the Congress, identified the country’s “unfair and discriminatory” tax system as a matter that should be addressed. He said the current tax system allowed small businesspersons and entrepreneurs who made millions each year to pay a pittance in taxes, while the workers had their salaries subjected to deductions made via PAYE.
Narine called for the income cash threshold to be revised, saying that the working class deserved a higher tax threshold. He also called for the reintroduction of tax credits to ease the burdens on the citizenry according to their family sizes.
“We cannot be shortsighted as a society,” the President said in response to Narine, saying that the all the money could not be spent on wages. According to Jagdeo, the government was making investments in the health, educational, housing and other sectors which have long term benefits. Jagdeo also said that the government will now have to spend a further US$20 million for a new power plant even before the Amaila Falls hydropower comes into operation to effectively service the nation, as he noted the impact of the current spate of blackouts affecting the country.
Regarding the income tax threshold, the President said that there will continue to be debates on this. Stating that the tax threshold had been increased incrementally by the PPP/C administration, Jagdeo said that the government was focusing hard on the issue of inflation. He said managing inflation was one of the keys to ensuring economic success in the country.
The President explained that one aspect of the struggle was to get the developed world to recognize the impact of climate change.
He also took another swipe at the multilateral lending agencies, which he said placed a set of barriers which made it difficult for developing countries like Guyana to access funding.
The GLU, formerly known as the British Guiana Labour Union, was started in 1919 by Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow. The union was strongly associated with the late Presidents Forbes Burnham and Desmond Hoyte and had vociferously criticized the post-1992 PPP/C government until a few years ago when it made the ground-breaking decision to join the government-aligned Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Guyana (FITUG). Previously it had been a staunch member of only the Guyana Trades Union Congress. This was the first time that a PPP/C representative had opened the Congress. The current General Secretary of the union is Carvil Duncan.
Also addressing the gathering last evening was Chairman of the Private Sector Ramesh Dookoo, who said that there was a new approach in corporate behaviour regarding employees, unions and the corporate entities.
He said that there has been the novel idea for unions to engage in activities to boost the profitability of agencies which would ultimately benefit employees. This he said is not at an expense of the unions representing the rights of the employees.
Dookhoo, however, expressed disappointment that sometimes the unions cannot provide a joint position on matters of national importance.
He called on the GLU, as the oldest labour union in Guyana, to play a lead role in changing this.
