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Govt. to sub-contract electrical inspections of properties
The Government Electrical Inspectorate (GEI) is seriously looking at sub-contracting the inspection and certification of homes and other properties.
The disclosures were made Tuesday evening by Chief Inspector, Roland Barclay, who was a guest on ‘The Legal Mind’, hosted by Senior Reporter, Leonard Gildarie on Kaieteur Radio.
Chief Electrical Inspector, Roland Barclay
Currently, the inspection of homes and properties by inspectors of GEI after being wired, is a major challenge to an understaffed entity.
It currently falls under the Ministry of Public Infrastructure and has less than 20 staff members who are supposed to serve 83,000 square miles.
Going forward, the idea is to establish a company and hire a staff complement that will involve 80 persons.
GEI’s role in ensuring that thousands of homes and properties across the country are wired in keeping with established regulations, would take more importance as Guyana enters oil and gas production.
The demand for internationally accepted standards has several Government entities scrambling to up their game.
Government is looking at options of sub-contracting electrical inspections of properties as part of the modernisation of the Government Electrical Inspectorate.
Several large buildings are being constructed across the country to cater for oil and gas.
On Tuesday, Barclay acknowledged that the unit is badly understaffed but there are several initiatives to ensure that it moves to expand and modernize its services.For a new home or property to receive electricity from the state-owned Guyana Power and Light Inc., there must be a certificate of inspection of the wiring, which in essence says that the property is safe to take power.
Each outlet and light fixture must adhere to the electricity codes.
Here is where the GEI’s inspectors are supposed to come after the electrician would have done his work, and to verify that the wiring meets the requirements.
With regards to outsourcing the work, Barclay explained that that inspectorate has been mulling a number of options.
These include sub-contracting the inspections to a company or companies.
In recent years, there has been an increasing awareness that state regulators and other revenue-earning entities for the state should and must make enough revenues to sustain itself and pay the balance to the national treasury.
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