GPL is shafting me without reason

Jun 07, 2009 Features / Columnists, My Column

I was much younger when blackouts were a daily fare. The government, then, was formed out of the People’s National Congress. The Finance Minister was Carl Greenidge and Haslyn Parris was Vice President for something, it could have been Economic Development.
I remember going to a press conference hosted where the ministry of Housing and Water now stands and asking Mr Parris whether, given the drastic reduction in fuel use, Guyana was actually saving money. He gave me a wry smile then said that such savings were not necessarily a good thing for Guyana because so many industries, be they cottage or national, depended on electricity.

He said that their inability to produce led to a far greater loss to the country than the government would save by not using the fuel to power the generators.
I was relatively young then. My head did not have a stitch of grey, I could have afforded to sport a fashionable beard. Of course the bald spot that signals my increasing age was also not there.
Things changed and soon I began to expect a regular supply of power. What used to make me angry was the fact that I would be attracted to a particular show on television and at the height of my enjoyment the power would go. To this day, I simply cannot sit in front of a television set watching something interesting—it could be a movie—and not expect a power outage.

Today, it is back to the same thing. Twenty years later and Guyana is back to where it was then. The blackouts are here and the frustration has returned. I have a daughter who would be 23 in August—my baby daughter. I still laugh when we meet and I remind her that her first words were blackout, and corn curl.
Yesterday, there was the cricket match between West Indies and Australia. I managed to see a bit of the Australians batting but not a single bit of the West Indies innings. I spent money calling people to keep me abreast of what was going on. At one point, Nigel McKenzie at Kaieteur News told me that West Indies had reached 130-something for one.

Norman McLean was the person to inform me that West Indies had eventually won by seven wickets.
Back then, with the almost incessant blackouts, my light bill was smaller than those that I got when there was adequate power. I wish I could say the same thing these days. Blackout or no blackout my bill is constant. It is as if I was using the power all the time and I can get no proper explanation for this.
A fellow working with Guyana Power and Light once tried to teach an idiot like me the reason for the constant billing. He told me that when the power goes, the appliances like the fridge would lose whatever cool they had. I would also lose my cool, so tell me something that I do not know.

He went on to explain that when the power returns these appliances take more power to get them back to the desired temperature so the bill would obviously be unchanged. Well if that is the case then GPL is screwing me and saving or making money at the same time. GPL is taking me to bed without a condom or without KY jelly.
I know that I am not the only person suffering the absence of power and still having to pay for this absence. I have access to the media but many of my fellow sufferers can only sit and mutter. The odd person would call me to complain.
Last week I had completed writing my column when the power went. I was just about to send it electronically to Kaieteur News. Since I am not rich and cannot afford a generator, I had to wait for just over three hours to forward the article.

Yesterday was no different. It took hours before I could start writing. So there it was. I could not see the cricket and I could not write and at the end of the month my light bill will be the same as if I had watched cricket and had been able to write.
I am in the news media and I should know why there is this spate of blackouts but the truth is that I simply do not know. It could be that I did not hear an announcement but I hasten to say that I did not read it either.
Is this a case of disrespect for the people? GPL made a big song and dance last week when it brought in some new generator to power the interconnected system. For the love of anything, make a similar noise about the reason for the outage.
And while you are at it, see that I get some reprieve with my light bill.

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GPL is shafting me without reason

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