A Crisis of Governance

Apr 15, 2024 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Peeping Tom…

Kaieteur News – Guyana finds itself grappling with an electricity crisis that threatens not just the comfort of its citizens but also the economy. However, as the lights flicker and power outages become a norm rather than an exception, it is becoming evident that that the roots of this crisis lie not solely within the country’s energy infrastructure but is deeply entrenched within the nation’s governance.

At the heart of this issue is a glaring failure in governance, where poor planning and a lack of foresight have led to a catastrophic mismanagement of the country’s electricity sector. The recent address by the President to the nation serves as a stark reminder of this reality. While addressing the crisis, the President’s speech, marred by repetitiveness, only served to highlight the systemic governance failures that have plagued Guyana under the PPP/C administrations. One of the most glaring manifestations of this governance crisis is the concentration of power among a select group of individuals, leading to decision-making bottlenecks and a dearth of effective action. Instead of empowering the subject Minister to lead the charge in finding solutions, decision-making appears to be tightly controlled within a small circle.

The President’s attempt to shift blame onto the previous administration only serves to highlight the inherent contradictions within his own arguments. While criticizing the APNU+AFC government for failing to invest in additional generating capacity, the PPP/C administration itself has been unable to significantly bolster the country’s electricity infrastructure since assuming office. The failure to anticipate and plan for the exponential increase in energy demand, particularly in light of the country’s burgeoning oil and non-oil sectors, speaks volumes about the systemic governance failures at play. If demand increased from 125 megawatts to 184 megawatts, this represents an almost 50% increase in energy demand in a matter of a few years. Did the PPP/C anticipate this increase in demand? They ought to have done so, given the growth in both the oil and non-oil sectors over which they have been claiming bragging rights.

The President showered blame on the APNU+AFC for not installing much additional generating capacity during the period 2015 to 2020. But if he did his own math, he would have realized that without the 46 megawatts which the Coalition government had procured but not installed, the crisis in Guyana would have been more acute. The PPP/C has not been able to add any significant generating capacity since it returned to office four years ago. The PPP/C was sleeping at the wheel and appears to have been pinning its hope of the gas-to energy plant. It was only last December that some additional generating sets to boost demand was able to have landed in Guyana The ad hoc emergency measures being implemented by the PPP/C government in response to the crisis are symptomatic of a deeper malaise in governance. Instead of adopting a strategic approach to address the root causes of the electricity crisis, the government finds itself scrambling to mitigate the immediate consequences of its own shortcomings. We have now moved from importing generating sets to now leasing energy from a vessel soon to dock in Berbice. However, the challenges facing Guyana’s electricity sector are only set to get worse. The President’s acknowledgment that demand is expected to triple will mean that additional generating capacity has to be added.

How does the PPP/C plan, over the short-term, to generate the additional 368 megawatts that will be needed? The gas-to-energy project is anticipated to inject between 200-250 megawatts of this amount. Even if by some miracle the government is able to exhume the Amaila Falls Hydroelectric Project, this will only provide an additional 165 megawatts. It means that the country’s near-term energy security rests on two major projects but of which are mired in controversy. This is of little comfort to consumers presently reeling from power outages.

To truly address the electricity crisis, Guyana must confront the crisis in governance head-on. Decentralising power, empowering ministers to take ownership of their portfolios, and holding them accountable for their actions are crucial steps towards fostering a more responsive and effective governance framework. The stranglehold of the small cabal within the Executive cabal must be loosened, allowing for greater transparency, accountability, and alacrity in decision-making. The electricity crisis gripping Guyana is not merely a technical issue but a symptom of a deeper governance crisis. Unless decisive action is taken to address the systemic failures within the political system, the lights will continue to flicker, and the wheels of industry and commerce will grind to a halt.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)