Unethical practices at GPL

Aug 24, 2021 Letters

Dear Editor,

After reading the letter printed in your Tuesday August 17, 2021 edition of your newspaper under the caption “My neighbour has illegally used my address to set up a GPL meter,” I felt the need to share my experience with your readers also. I too have had a similar experience with the Guyana Power and Light as it relates to having a meter placed on my building without my consent.
I reside overseas and I have a two-flat building, which is occupied by me whenever I am in the country, and a tenant who occupies the bottom flat of the said property. Sometime in 2019, my tenant’s meter was removed because they were found to be in breach of their obligation to satisfy their contractual terms and conditions with the power company (they were caught stealing electricity).
The tenant was sent a bill for an amount that they refused to pay and the meter was removed. On my last visit to Guyana about four months ago, I noticed that my tenant was receiving lights via a metered service. Assuming that they had cleared the bill off, I paid that no mind. A few days after, I noticed a GPL bill in my mailbox with someone else’s name and it had the location of the service as being attached to the bottom flat back apartment.
As I mentioned above, my building only has a top and bottom flat, there is no separation of the apartment below. I asked my tenant how was this possible and they indicated that since they couldn’t get a meter back in their name at the apartment, they were advised by person(s) at GPL on ways that they can acquire one by cheating the system. I was told that a portion of the money that they had owed was paid to a male supervisor who told them that he can get the meter for them and that all they needed to do was get a rental agreement endorsed by a Justice of the Peace along with the electrical wiring system certified and they will take it from there. At no point in time did I sign any document(s) giving permission to the person whose name was now on the new meter to do so or to rent my property. My tenant has since removed from the apartment for an unrelated matter and the meter was subsequently removed for non-payment. I was also told that it would be hard for any new tenant to acquire a new meter at the address since there are two separate accounts for one apartment that owes GPL a large sum of money. Since I reside out of the country, I do not have the time nor energy to follow up with this since I don’t have any immediate plans to rent the apartment and it is my belief that these persons who are intent on defrauding the company are being protected by senior officials who are aware of what is going on. This is something that upper management needs to look at to prevent future occurrence and to discipline those staff that are involved in this unethical practice.
After reading that letter, I felt the need to share this since it seems that persons employed by the company are using loopholes in the system to defraud the company of revenues and that loss is then passed down to the general consumer.

Yours truly
Name provided

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