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The Great Mythical Progress of GPL

Sep 01, 2015 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
In a KN letter of Aug 26, Samuel Hinds, former Prime Minister (PM) and Minister responsible for Energy and Electricity in the previous PPP Govt., gave insights of the discord which plagued Guyana Power and Light (GPL) during his tenure until he was relieved of his duties earlier this year.
It was clear from his missive that the newly elected APNU/AFC Govt. took over a utility that was dysfunctional and in disarray as PM Hinds, who lacked transformational leadership with both vision and expertise, failed in his attempts to successfully address the management, operational and financial problems which had plagued GPL over the years.
Significant of his many failures as Prime Minister was the Vreed-en-Hoop Generating Station Project (VGSP). He claimed that when the GPL Board presented VGSP for construction, he had to make a quick decision to have it built in a hurry as it was badly wanted and needed by the PPP Govt.
His approval for construction to start was based on his best judgment of what turned out to be questionable cost estimates, a dubious completion date and no detail design of the structure and its foundation.
The foreshore site PM Hinds authorized for construction of VGSP was at the mouth of the Demerara River, NW of the Vreed-en-Hoop Ferry Stelling on a patch of land with poor soil characteristics to build anything on. No load test was carried out to determine the bearing capacity of the piles for the foundation of VGSP and as construction progressed, the Engineer noted that as a result of the poor soil conditions encountered during pile driving, longer piles were required to support the load of the generating plant.
Accordingly, design changes were made, resulting in the slow delivery and increased driving time for longer wooden piles which adversely affected construction progress. To get VGSP back on its completion deadline, Wartsila, the Power Plant manufacturer, was asked whether concrete piles could be substituted for wooden piles to speed up construction. The answer given was no, as there could be no substituting, as was reported by PM Hinds.
Any change to the design of VGSP had to be approved in the first instance by the Design Engineer, and not Wartsila. Also, there was no conceivable reason why concrete piles could not have been substituted for timber piles for the foundation of this structure, since they are better suited to withstand the harsh environment where VGSP was built and a mixture of pile types to support the given loading was not technically challenging to construct. It is incomprehensible, therefore, that Wartsila, a reputable manufacturing Company, could have given GPL such an opinion, in light of the fact that concrete piles were used extensively to support the loads of many important structures in Guyana.
PM Hinds claims that in his view there was no wasting of time and money in the construction of VGSP although the Project experienced large time and cost overruns which, as he conceded, were due to the lack of knowledge and experience of GPL personnel to execute large complex projects.
He further failed to have understood that expediency was no excuse for GPL to have undertaken projects for which it did not have the competent staff to execute, and in the process caused the Utility to chalk-up large time and cost overruns, since constructing a complex project without first satisfying clearly outlined procedures for project execution was a recipe for disaster.
Therefore GPL made no great progress during his ministerial oversight, which he so proudly extolled, since the investments he approved to make the Utility reliable and cost effective were wasted on costly undertakings for system improvements which never materialized, as the high cost for power, black-outs and brown-outs still existed when he exited.
It is expected that the newly installed management of GPL by the APNU/AFC Govt. will make a difference, provided that the existing incompetent incumbents are replaced by qualified and competent personnel working as a team to achieve the set objectives of the Utility.
Charles Sohan
New York City, USA

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