Latest update March 21st, 2025 7:03 AM
Latest News
Former GWI CEO says $30M party bill was ‘investment’ in staff
Former CEO of GWI, Dr. Richard Van West-Charles posing for a photo with former Georgetown Mayor, Patricia Chase-Green and Substantive Minister, Ronald Bulkan.
Kaieteur News – The ex-Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI), Dr. Richard Van West-Charles says that the company’s $30M party bill for 2018 was an ‘investment’ in his staff.
Kaieteur News had reported recently that a ‘cash-strapped’ GWI could not pay its electricity bill that year but was able to spend a combined $30M for a Christmas party and its anniversary celebrations. Van West-Charles told reporters yesterday during a press conference held via Zoom that the move to spend the money was not “a luxury” but rather an investment in the employees.
“Well that is spent on our workers for different activities for a year and we must understand what that contributes to,” said the former GWI Boss.
He posited that the 21st century management speaks to the need to invest in workers. Van West-Charles continued, “On the CARICOM HR plan that we (Guyana) have subscribed to, speaks to the need of investing in your workers.”
He argued that Guyana’s public utility companies do not follow this commitment to their workers and described this as a “mismatch with words in CARICOM documents that the country had signed on to.”
The former CEO added that another reason why $30M was spent on “a year’s activities” was because “many of the (GWI) workers did not know their company,” suggesting that it was a way for them to meet and greet their colleagues. Van West-Charles also hinted during the press conference that, apart from the $30M, more money was spent to invest in staff.
The ex-CEO said that when he took over GWI under the Coalition administration, there were no acceptable toilet facilities across the company or lunch facilities for the staff.
“There were no overalls for staff, the staff working in the sewage section had to go down into the manholes and had to be exposed to gases,” he added.
Van West-Charles continued, “We introduced equipment to be able to sense and tell them when it is safe to go down in to the manholes.”
He then bashed the current administration by labelling it as one that did care for staff “at all” and reasoned that it is important to invest in employees in order to keep committed and loyal.
Kaieteur News had learnt of the $30M spent by GWI under his leadership from a leaked internal document which illustrated the amount as expenditure by the company. GWI spent some $15.58M on activities for the entity’s anniversary celebrations, held in May 2018. The anniversary celebrations included a retreat and a prize giving and awards ceremony, held at the Ramada Princess Hotel. Finally, for the year, the document had revealed that the utility company hosted a Christmas Party expending some $14.5M.
The expenditure by the utility company came under focus in light of the company’s position that it was essentially cash-strapped, to the point where it was unable to pay its electricity bills for that year.
It was also reported last year that GWI owed the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) some $7 billion for the period 2018 to 2020 and that the power company was hoping to enlist the assistance of the newly elected Irfaan Ali administration to have the company pay off some of that debt.
Similar Articles
THE BLUNT OF THE DAY
Sports
Features/Columnists
“One Guyana” is no less a national slogan than “Green Guyana”
Kaieteur News- The notion that “One Guyana” is a partisan slogan is pure poppycock. It is a desperate fiction... more
If Guyana’s President Ali is the “Zelensky of the Caribbean”, who is the Putin?
Antigua and Barbuda’s Ambassador to the US and the OAS, Ronald Sanders By Sir Ronald Sanders Kaieteur News- In the latest... more
Weekend Cartoon
