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‘Govt. creating blackout crisis to circumvent procurement system’—PNCR says
Kaieteur News- The People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) has accused the government of creating a crisis within the electricity sector to circumvent the procurement system and insisted that the deal with the Turkish powership in mired in corruption
At the party’s weekly press conference last Friday, Opposition Advisor and Economist Elson Low told reporters that long before government rented the power ships the PNC had been calling for the government to procure an additional 50MW as it had predicted that the 36MW added would not have been enough.
Opposition Advisor and Economist Elson Low (Govt. creating blackout crisis)
Responding to a question posed by this publication on whether the party was concerned about power ship company Karpowership’s chequered past and Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo not confirming whether due diligence was done before signing of contracts, Low said that it is a red flag and warrants an investigation. He told reporters that, “when they first brought online that powership, we said they need to bring on additional power right then and of course they did not do that. So the result of that is that you have a powership that is costing over US $1M, costing the treasury that and looking at the other option which could have been put in place earlier. A powership is an emergency option because it requires not much infrastructure to get it going.”
The economist explained that the powership is a measure that the government was forced to adopt because the other options could not be brought online swift enough. “If the government had heeded the opposition’s advice…they would have saved Guyanese 50 to US 60M immediately.”
Low then said that the PPP is known to create a crisis so that it can circumvent the procurement rules. “So a serious question must be asked as the why they have allowed the power situation in Guyana to get to that level.” Low said the answer is to allow the government to engage in some form of corruption.”
On November 22, 2024 this newspaper reported that Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo shrugged off concerns raised over the chequered past of the company Karpowership, from whom government is renting two electricity producing vessels, saying that the only thing that needs to be known is that the ship is here, and supplying power to the grid at a certain cost per kilowatt hour (kwh).
The vice president’s comments had come against concerns raised by the Working People’s Alliance regarding the company’s track record and demanded the government release the due diligence report done on the company before the contract was awarded to it. However, in brushing aside the WPA’s concerns, Jagdeo said: “we made it clear even if a ton of info drops on their (WPA) head they wouldn’t be able to use it so let me be clear what the cost per kilowatt hour is and what it entails. We said that the capital cost on the operation and management for the powership in Berbice is 7.6 cents per kwh. The one here which is now 80-90 MW but we are only buying 76 MW, so they have extra capacity, it’s 9.5 cents per kwh.” He stressed that all that’s needed to be known is that, “the ship is there and it’s supplying x amount of power at a particular price per kwh.
(‘Govt. creating blackout crisis to circumvent procurement system’—PNCR says)
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