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Vandals steal copper wires from GPL poles
GPL’s Chief Executive Officer, Bharat Dindyal, inspecting a post in Kingston where vandals stole the copper earth wire
Technicians of the Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL) are in danger of losing their lives because of vandalism. People are removing the copper wires, which they sell on the scrap market.
Several power poles across the city have seen thieves destroying and removing the earth cables causing the power company to also grapple with extra costs to replace the fixtures.
The disclosure was made by GPL’s Chief Executive Officer, Bharat Dindyal, on Tuesday.
The power company is now forced to shell out money to replace the copper cables. And to prevent a recurrence the power company is replacing the cables with aluminum ones.
There was one example at Cowan and Parade Streets, Kingston. Dindyal said that with new fixtures and cables, each post is costing the company an extra $5,000 given the action by the scrap metal dealers.
“Multiply this by hundreds and one can see the increased cost to the power company,” Mr Dindyal said.
The stealing of GPL’s cable for copper and other metals for the vibrant scrap metal trade is nothing new to the company with government suspending trade last year until dealers managed to broker an agreement that would see closer monitoring of the buyers.
Vandalism of public property for metals saw a huge spike as demands overseas rose in face of a booming construction industry especially in China.
Last year, after lobbying to Prime Minister Sam Hinds, scrap metal dealers were allowed to partially export but copper was banned. This ban was later lifted.
However, according to Dindyal, while the incidents have dropped, the removal of the copper cables is especially worrying since technicians working on lines depend on them for protection when working on the transmission lines.
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