Four days after the fact, the Guyana Power and Light Inc (GPL) yesterday expressed regret for spilt oil on the Rupert Craig Highway, which caused two separate accidents, even as Roshan Khan, the proprietor of RK’s Security Service, lashed out at the company’s seeming reluctance to address the matter.
On Monday, oil that had leaked from a transformer in the vicinity of Conversation Tree on the Rupert Craig Highway saw four vehicles colliding and one turning turtle several times. At the time, it was unclear who the transformer belonged to.
But according to a letter published by the Guyana Chronicle yesterday, Khan said his investigations had revealed that the spilt oil on the northern corridor of the Rupert Craig Highway came from transformers belonging to GPL.
Khan chastised the company for its reluctance to take responsibility for the mishap. “I find this most despicable that a responsible company like GPL will not accept that it was their fault,” Khan wrote in his letter.
He also lamented the lack of a “serious investigation” into the matter by police, and called for charges, if warranted, to be levelled against not only the driver, labourers and technicians on GPL vehicle, but also senior management of company for not enquiring and accepting that they were at fault.
However, in a press release sent yesterday evening, GPL addressed the matter. It said it regretted the accident, which allegedly “was caused as a result of oil spillage on the road from an electrical transformer transported on the aforementioned date by a private contracted vehicle on behalf of the power company.”
The company said a thorough investigation was underway to determine what led to the occurrence.
According to a source, cameras in the vicinity of the accident had captured a GPL vehicle on tape transporting the transformers in the area between 09:30 hrs and 10:00 hrs on Monday. The source added that the truck was not supposed to be in that area transporting the items at that time.
Khan, whose daughter was involved in a four-car smash up, reiterated that GPL needed to accept that the accident was its fault as well as approach the owners of the damaged vehicles to discussion compensation and/or replacement of the vehicles.
He was also critical of the driver of a blue minibus who refused to heed a warning to slow down and careened into the back of his daughter’s vehicle.
“When we came out we noticed that there was nothing but oil on the road, and then seconds after that everybody was running towards the seawalls because there was a minibus coming with, I would say, quite a lot of speed and that hit into my vehicle from the back,” Khan’s daughter had said.
The man said the driver of the bus refused to stay around after the accident, an action which he described as criminal. He recommended that the man be found and charged.
There have been several other instances where neglect in the handling of transformers had caused significant damage to property, and in one instance, even death.
In December 2007, a GPL transformer that was being transported on a container truck fell on a Route 43 (Linden) minibus, killing its driver, 41-year-old Trevor Charles of Lot 97 Craig. Several persons at the scene had blamed the accident on sloppiness saying that the transformers had not been secured to the container truck.
– company lambasted for its silence
