Govt. to scale down role in GPL operations

Dec 06, 2009 News

When Guyana Power and Light, on Friday, commissioned the US$30M Kingston power plant, Government signaled its intentions to scale down its involvement in the sector.
According to President Bharrat Jagdeo, while government will continue to play a role, it is the hope that this will be minimal since the private sector will have to become more involved in managing the industry.
Also present at the opening of the plant were Prime Minister Sam Hinds, several Ministers, private sector and Wartsila officials.
According to Jagdeo, the country is expanding spending while at the same time reducing its fiscal deficit. All of its recent loans have been taken on concessional terms and the intentions are to keep repayments at less than five per cent of the revenues.
The President, acknowledging that an experiment with a foreign investor in the sector had gone wrong when electricity tariffs rose sharply despite little investments at that time, said Government’s intervention in recent years has served to lessen the impact on consumer with several measures including subsidies, financial injections and US$25M injection to connect electricity to over 35,000 households.
However, the official was critical of the deadline for the project which was expected to have been completed in May.
Referring to a recent private sector meeting in which members were critical of Government’s role, President Jagdeo urged that attention be paid to the input made by the administration on the power sector over the years.
Wartsila’s Project Manager, Rodney George, said that Wartsila’s relationship with Guyana has been a long one with the company managing several sites around the country to supply GPL with power.
Acknowledging that it is never easy to build from scratch, the executive was happy that the Kingston project was delivered on budget and in keeping with the highest of environmental standards given the noise-reducing specifications.
According to George, Wartsila has been making full use of local engineers in its projects. Wartsila currently operates in almost 98 per cent of Caribbean territories generating over 1900 megawatts.
GPL Chairman, Winston Brassington, said that while he is convinced that the blackout situation has improved, he acknowledged that the situation still has a far way to go. The company plans to address these issues.
Prior to the commissioning ceremony, Chief Executive Officer Bharat Dindyal had said that GPL had surplus capacity. This seems not to be the case.
Listing the numerous investments made by government, Brassington disclosed that Government has played a major role in easing the plight of the company and of consumers, especially with a $16M fuel subsidy when prices had sky-rocketed on the world market. Government had also assumed a 15% tariff increase for consumers.
According to the Chairman, GPL is still facing some major challenges to reduce its technical and commercial losses.
Additionally, he said, one of the major hurdles facing the company is the inability of the corporation to attract skilled workers.
He was convinced, with the huge investments, that GPL was heading the right direction.
Prime Minister Sam Hinds, who holds responsibility for the electricity sector, was very clear in his message—‘Stop the stealing’.
According to the Prime Minister, while many would consider the supply of electricity as a right, there are many taking it free of charge. Everyone must pay.
He noted that back when the PPP had taken over in the 90’s, many households were only getting about 50 per cent power.

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