GPL mulls arms for personnel

May 06, 2009 News

Death of Chief Security officer…

– calls emergency meeting
Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL) has convened an emergency meeting to come up with ideas to deal with security measures in the wake of Monday’s brutal murder of its Chief Security Officer, Clifford Peters.
Peters was gunned down while carrying out disconnection work in the Lamaha Park area.
Kaieteur News understands that GPL’s Chief Executive Officer, Bharat Dindyal, was expected to return to Guyana from overseas yesterday to convene the meeting which will deal with a request for firearms for the company’s security personnel.
This newspaper understands that the GPL security personnel who accompany the disconnection crew do not carry firearms and as such the company is forced to seek the assistance of the police.
But yesterday when the police at the East La Penitence station were approached there were no ranks available to accompany the GPL crew on the loss reduction exercise.

Dead: Clifford Peters

Peters, being a licenced firearm holder and dedicated to his job, went and paid the ultimate price.
The meeting is also expected to ventilate what went wrong during last Monday’s exercise.
A source attached to the GPL Loss Reduction Unit told this newspaper that apart from Peters, another security personnel was on the operation.
However, the security personnel was assisting with a ladder and could not respond in time to warn Peters of the danger that was lurking.
“His job was to watch the men back, not to fetch ladders,” the source said.
The power company had expressed concern over the danger that their employees face while executing their duties.
On several occasions they have been met by hostile residents and have been soliciting the help of the police to effectively execute their tasks.
On one occasion in West La Penitence, the workers were threatened by a man with a gun and were forced to abandon their work.
“The man keep walking behind them and order them fuh come off the pole,” another source told this newspaper.
On another occasion, the GPL workers were made to walk across a trench in their clothes while working in Sophia.
Only recently they encountered similar hostility in Albouystown.
“In there it was brutal. We even had to arrest some people for their behaviour,” a police source recalled.
Kaieteur News understands that on Monday, the men had been waiting for Peters and rest of the crew.
A resident of the area said that the men had been waiting under a tree, a few metres from where the GPL crew eventually arrived to carry out their work.
According to reports, shortly before the gunmen struck, the GPL crew was approached by some people who enquired from them why they were disconnecting the electricity supply.
“Dem men ask dem why dey carrying away de wire and Mr. Peters tell dem that is not they current, is GPL own. De people suck dey teeth and walk away. Minutes after is sheer shots,” a source related.
News of Peters’s death shocked his colleagues who described him as a fearless operator who would stop at nothing to get the job done.
GPL’s Senior Director of Finance, Ash Deonarine, described Peters’s killing as a despicable act of the lowest nature. He said that Peters was carrying out his duty, helping to reduce the company’s losses, for everybody’s benefit.
“We condemn this act to the strongest possible point. I want to say that the company will stand behind this and will not let his death go in vain and will put every cent and whatever it costs to bring the perpetrators to justice.” Deonarine told Kaieteur News.
He said that he expects that in the short term the staff of the Loss Reduction Unit will certainly be apprehensive in carrying out their duties.
“But I guess after they recuperate and we rethink strategies going forward, we’ll fight it even harder so that Mr. Peters’s death does not go down in vain,” the GPL Finance Director said.
Police sources indicated that they have a few leads on who the perpetrators may be, but no one has been arrested as yet.