Public Enterprises show mixed performance at end of mid-year

Aug 10, 2017 News

At the end of the first half of the year, some state owned organizations exceeded expectations while others continued to exhibit dispiriting performances. Overall, one can say that those entities exhibited mixed performances.
This was reflected in the data compiled by the Ministry of Finance in its half year report on the economy.
When compared to last year, the Finance Ministry found that there was an 8.7 percent decline in the total revenue from the public enterprises (PEs). At the end of the first six months of the year, just $54.2 billion was collected from these enterprises. On the other hand expenditure increased by 8.9 percent to $59.3 billion.
The Finance Ministry also noted that there was growth in revenue collection of 12.9 percent for six of the ten state owned enterprises.
In this regard, the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) for example, earned revenue of $17.0 billion in the first half of 2017, up from $14.7 billion for the same period in 2016 as a result of more timely payments.
Similarly, expenditure increased from $9.3 billion in the first half of 2016 to $12.6 billion in the same period of 2017. The Finance Ministry said that this increase is driven by higher cost of Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) for which the weighted average cost rose to US$48.70 for the half year from US$30.50 as at June 30, 2016. The Company’s outlook for the year has improved, with the budgeted deficit of $5.0 billion now expected to improve to a lower deficit of $771 million.
Notwithstanding the improved cash performance of GPL, the Finance Ministry said that the company’s technical performance remains plagued with inefficiencies. It was noted that production of electricity increased marginally to 394,832 MWh in the first half of 2017 from 387,864 MWh for the first half of 2016.
At the half year 2017, the twelve-month rolling average of total losses was 29.6 percent a slight increase from the half year for 2016 when the total losses was 29.3 percent.
However, there was a larger decline in collections for the remaining entities. These include; GuySuCo, Guyana National Newspapers Limited (GNNL), Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB), and Guyana Post Office Corporation (GPOC).
In addition to this, total operating expenses increased by 12 percent to $55.7 billion in the first half of 2017, compared with $49.8 billion in the same period in 2016. GPOC, GNPL, GuySuCo, and GRDB recorded employment costs above 40 percent of revenue. In the period under review, GuySuCo’s employment cost was 12 percent more than its revenue.

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