Lindeners vow to resist Govt moves to acquire electricity cooperative

Apr 21, 2012 News

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The members of the Linden Utility Services Cooperative Society Ltd (LUSCSL) on Thursday evening made a resolution that they will “resist resolutely, any action to nationalize, absorb or engage in any similar act which would remove ownership and control of the Linden Utility Services Cooperatives Society Limited from its membership.”
“We will also stoutly resist and reject in its entirety, any act by any agency or authority that seeks to remove the ability of the Linden Utility Services Cooperative Society Limited to distribute power to our consumers at Wismar.”
This resolution was taken at a Special General Members Meeting of April 19, last at the Harmony Secondary School, Burnham Drive, Wismar, Linden.
The initial motion was moved by former Regional Chairman Mortimer Mingo and seconded by Member Junella Small. The amended motion, which included Member Valerie Adams Patterson’s correction that the LUSCSL had applied five times instead of reading “at least three times”, for the grant of an Electricity Distribution License, was moved by Member Mortimer Mingo and seconded by Member Gordon Callendar and was unanimously approved by the members present.
The LUSCSL meeting was called a mere two days after the town of Linden staged one of its largest protests to proclaim dissatisfaction over the proposed electricity hike for the Town.
The Committee of Management of LUSCSL had called the meeting to discuss the Prime Minister’s letter to the Stabroek News of Sunday April 15 which informed that by July 1, this year, Government intends to merge the Linden Utility Services Co-op Society Ltd. (LUSCL), which supplies electricity to residents on the Wismar shore with the Linden Electricity Company Inc (LECI)”which serves Mackenzie.
In the letter Hinds had pointed out, “ While countries the world over encourage and promote cooperative efforts such as this, and the LUSCSL provides a beacon of an example for emulation for other similar efforts by Guyanese in all sectors, this government intends to simply tell our thousands of members to shut up shop and hand over our operations.”
But irate members who were extremely vocal at the meeting have unanimously vowed never to ‘give up the Coop”
In a press release, the members stated that they will not back down from this challenge, but “will resist any attempt to emasculate or wrest from our control what is acknowledged as the largest cooperative effort in terms of membership in Guyana, and certainly one of the longest existing of these efforts”.
“We have protested long and hard against the perceived discrimination of the government against the L.U.S.C.S.L.’s cooperative efforts, most recently writing to engage the opposition parties in discussions, since our attempts to secure an Electricity Distribution License, which we applied for on at least three occasions, as far back as 1996 and again in 2008, have met with no success.
“The lack of this licence was cited by the government in an attempt in 2009 to impose a 16 per cent increase in electricity costs on the residents of Wismar under the guise of charging VAT, a decision which met with stern protest by our members and was subsequently withdrawn.”
Members view the latest attempt to wrest the cooperative from them as even more despicable, both “for the manner of its conveyance as well as for its intent.”
During the more than two-hour long meeting, the members were sensitized by the Committee of Management about the importance of a possible dissolution of the COOP.
Of major concern to the members were the increased electricity rates they would have to pay with the merger of LUSCSL and LECI, which would automatically come under the National grid.
Added to that, there is likely to be massive staff reduction, with possibly only the meter readers being assured of their positions.
At present LUSCSL employs about 50 persons. Of that number, only four are employed in the meter reading area, informed sources revealed.
Members are therefore adamant that no merger should take place, as even more people would join the ranks of the unemployed, in a town where unemployment is more than seventy percent.
LUSCSL currently purchases electricity from lECI, which it then distributes to its 4000 plus members.
Its owners and the members have unanimously vowed not to relinquish this important entity.
They have called for a complete retraction of this attempt to nationalize the LUSCSL, and are demanding the immediate grant of an Electricity Distribution Licence.
LUSCSL has been providing the people on the Wismar shore with electricity for over 50 years. The Cooperative was formed with just about 25 persons. Today the entity boasts more than 4,000 members.
It is managed by a Committee of Management, which is headed by the Chairman Valerie Adams Patterson.
Patterson became the first female to become Chairman of the entity when it was handed back to its members in September 2007.
The Committee of Management now proudly boasts that the institution is run more efficiently than GPL.
“When we took over in 2007, LUSCSL had a back debt of $50 million, and we have broken that down to $23 million in five years-we pay our bills”, Adams Patterson pointed out.
Among those in attendance at the meeting and showing solidarity with the members were executives of the AFC, including Gerhardt Ramsaroop and political activist Freddie Kissoon. Both Ramsaroop and Kissoon exhorted the members to continue to fight resolutely for what is theirs.

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