Decision to end Wartsila operations contract a sound one - Harmon

Decision to end Wartsila operations contract a sound one – Harmon

Mar 24, 2017 News

…Bender named Chairman

Government has insisted that its decision to form a local company and manage almost 20 power

Chairman: Mark Bender

generation sets for the state is a sound one.
Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, yesterday give the assurance after announcing a Board of Directors for the state-owned Power Producer and Distribution Incorporated (PPDI), which replaced Wartsila.
PPDI will be solely responsible for the operations and maintenance of the almost 20 engines that Wartsila, a Finnish company, had been running through its local subsidiary, Demerara Power.
That contract ended in December, with government admitting to reports late last year by Kaieteur News that it was not renewing it.
Rather, it was the intentions for Wartsila to continue supplying parts and offer advisory services.
PPDI took over the 100-plus staffers of Wartsila.
The new board of directors for the PPDI includes private sector executive, Mark Bender as Chairperson; Aaron Fraser, as Vice Chairman and Attorney-at-law Ronald Burch-Smith, Secretary.
The other board members were accountant, Harryram Parmesar; Attorney-at-law Stephen Fraser; Amanza Walton-Desir, Derlyn Klass, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Public Infrastructure and an Opposition party member.
During 2016, Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson, announced that the new company will become fully active in 2017. The Minister stated that the operations and maintenance of the engines were previously managed by Guyanese workers at the Wartsila Company. “It is felt that we need to invest in our own people, it’s important that we give them the

Some of the Kingston engines that PPDI will be managing.

assurance that as a government, we support them and we expect them to produce at the level we are accustomed to.”
Harmon noted that new arrangements will see savings from the fees paid to Wartsila in the past which will result, also, in between pay for staffers- a win-win situation.
Wartsila came in 1994 with the Garden of Eden power station the first to come online at a time when Guyana was struggling with generation issues. Since then, several more power stations have been built, including at Kingston and Vreed-en-Hoop.
According to Harmon, yesterday, the formation of a state company gives credence to the argument that Guyana has to invest in its own.
PPDI had come under questions after it became operational in January but without a board in place, raising questions whether it was indeed a state company.

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