People are easily stealing electricity from GPL

May 25, 2017 Letters

Dear Editor,
As a resident of Guyana for just over a year I was surprised to see the sentence “To report Electricity Theft: Call or SMS 600-4475” on the monthly bill of the Guyana Power & Light Inc. I imagined how people might connect their wires to active wires of GPL or how people might bypass their electricity meter at home by making a direct connection between the active wires of GPL and the wires in their house. A week ago I found out that it is not that dangerous as I thought it was; one simply has to remove the cover of the electricity meter and turn a screw, causing the meter to indicate less electricity consumption.
One would expect that removing the cover is not possible because it would be put under seal. Not so, at least there is no seal on the meter in our house. My wife told me that GPL removed it years ago. A fact is that GPL never checked whether the cover was sealed or not. It would be helpful if that would be a task of the person who reads the meter every month. In case there is no seal, my advice is to check the meter and immediately install the seal. In the meantime I am asking myself how much electricity consumption is being stolen and to what extent the persons who are not stealing, have to pay extra for this.
Jaap Zwart

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