GPL doesn’t have management or capacity to deliver reliable power – private sector

In a searing attack, the Private Sector Commission today said that GPL doesn’t have the management or capacity to deliver reliable power to the public.

The strong statement comes after months of unstable power in several parts of the country and broken promises by GPL.

A statement by the PSC follows:

The Guyana Power & Light Inc., owned and operated by the government and who enjoy a complete monopoly in providing the country’s power supply, have, within recent months, subjected the entire country to a series of unannounced and frequently prolonged power outages. There has been no credible explanation from the company’s management nor Board for these failures and none from the responsible Minister.

To add insult to injury, the GPL recently from 2nd September to 5th November, 2017, announced a series of scheduled maintenance power cuts which, in Georgetown alone, amount to a total of 149 hours spread between 17 sections of the city. In addition, power cuts averaging about 5 hours each were scheduled for the Essequibo Coast, Berbice, East and West Bank Demerara, West Coast Demerara, Soesdyke and East Canjie.

Needless to say, the majority of our citizens do not scan the newspapers everyday to see for when there is going to be a scheduled power cut and, as a result, are taken by surprise when the power goes out. The majority of our citizens are also not blessed with private generators to provide alternative power to save the food they have stored in the freezers and refrigerators.

Judging from this performance or, to be more accurate, absence of performance, GPL simply have neither the management nor the capacity to deliver a reliable power supply to the country and the government has consistently failed to address this reality. Guyana’s manufacturing and commercial sectors cannot function in these circumstances and, in this day and age at the exorbitant price that we are expected to pay for electricity, Guyana’s population should not be subjected to this punishment. As the Christmas season approaches, this has now become an even more pressing source of concern for the populace.

It is nothing short of a tragedy that a country with such immense hydro electric potential resources should be made to tolerate this situation. The previous government, with support of the IDB and CDB and funding from Norway, negotiated a major American power company to build and operate the Amaila Falls Project. Our current government has put the Project in cold storage while offering no acceptable alternative. So where do we go from here?