GWI paid $45M for 22-year-old inoperable truck

May 10, 2021 News

…employees trained overseas to use equipment now off the job

Kaieteur News – Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) this past week announced the acquisition of a Hydraulic Well Maintenance truck, but the utility company is at present unable to use the $45M piece of equipment since it is inoperable.

Compounding this state of affairs is the fact that the personnel trained by the utility company in Holland to operate the machinery have since left the job even as GWI is desperately trying to get the truck operational so that it can assimilate the vehicle into its 2021 ‘robust well maintenance programme.’
GWI’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Shaik Baksh, had inspected the vehicle on May 6, last, after which the company said in a public missive, “works are apace by GWI in collaboration with the Dutch principals to ensure that the machinery is operational within the shortest possible time.”
Kaieteur News understands that the purchase of the truck and ancillaries commenced in 2017, taking nearly four years to arrive in Guyana. Also, the utility company’s new management was unable to cancel the order for the vehicle, since payment was not reimbursable. The $45M truck and ancillaries are 22 years old and it only carries a limited warranty of six months valued at 10 percent or $2.4M.There is no warranty for the additional ancillary equipment purchased.

The $45M truck and ancillaries which are 22 years old and inoperable.

GWI CEO, Baksh, at the time of inspecting the piece of equipment had disclosed that a drilling rig was acquired two years ago but was never utilised. At the time, he expressed optimism that within two months, GWI would be mobilising the rig to drill a new well on Wakenaam Island, Region Three.
GWI’s Manager of Groundwater and Wells Services, Orin Browne, had lauded the specifications of the 22-year-old truck, namely, its jetting and plunging trailers that would, if operational, complete well rehabilitation in a fraction of the time that it normally takes for a conventional water well development and maintenance machinery will take to complete.
Browne in providing an overview had observed that the truck is equipped with a lifting crane and built-in high-powered, high-pressure, water pump, which is required to clean well screens that naturally become clogged over time.

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