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Is GPL telling Guyanese the truth?

Sep 26, 2014 Letters

Dear Editor,
This week, it is almost as if Guyana was experiencing a feeling of déjà vu. There was a time when Guyana was being given a dose of daily power outages. There were lines for fuel and basic food items.
Fast forward 22 years later, it seems as if we are regressing into those dark days again with the words coming out of the mouths of our executives being simply unbelievable.
On Sunday, residents in Berbice and Demerara experienced hours of blackout. It was not until the next day, that GPL, in its trademark, lackadaisical, “don’t care” behavior to taxpayers, said that strike actions at Skeldon factory, a downed engine at Kingston and another one that was taken out for maintenance, were the reasons for the outages.
GPL released a schedule of blackouts for residents in both counties that indicated blackouts were supposed to last for several days.
Yesterday, I read that the Skeldon factory is up and running as the strike actions are over. But Guyana will continue to see blackouts.
Mr Editor, I asked forgiveness if I repeated what is known by Guyanese. There is widespread anger and frustration by Guyanese over the situation.
When the newest power station at Kingston was commissioned a few years ago by former President Bharrat Jagdeo, his administration said that blackouts were a thing of the past. The next investment would have been in the hydro-power project at Amaila Fall, Region Eight.
Then we hear of a 26 megawatts power plant for Vreed-en-Hoop. That project is now several months late. The point that I am trying to get at is that GPL and the folks that are running it are telling Guyanese several nancy stories.
There are no details forthcoming on the US$40M transmission lines project and with the seven sub-stations. There is no word also on the Vreed-en-Hoop project.
In that Vreed-en-Hoop project, we see a common element with a section of the East Bank Demerara four lane expansion in the form a contractor. Both projects are delayed.
There is just no respect for the people of Guyana. What has changed so significantly that we have moved from not needing more investments to plugging US$26M more? Why is GPL and its managers so silent? Why does Guyana in this day and age being subjected to such treatment?
In another country, the principals would have been made accountable. We are paying what some describes as super salaries for what?
Guyanese are being taken for a ride on almost every project yet all we hear are excuses and more excuses.
How come a simple Skeldon factory could cause thousands of residents to be without power?
And the reality is that we have been beaten into submission. Tomorrow, the situation continues and there will not even be a whimper from our people. A sad reality, indeed, for our people.
Justin Campbell

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