GPL - IEG deal, more secrecy, more tricks

GPL – IEG deal, more secrecy, more tricks

Aug 03, 2025 Editorial, News

Kaieteur News – Three weeks after Cabinet gave its no-objection to the US$650,000 monthly contract between the Guyana Power and Light, Inc. (GPL) and the Dominican Republic’s InterEnergy Group (IEG), the development becomes public. Four weeks before pivotal general and regional elections, Guyanese are informed of this new reality. For a government that has compiled a record of being secretive and underhanded, the GPL-IEG contract takes the PPPC governance culture into new territory. How to absorb, how to consider, a deal for so much money done in such a manner, with what has plagued Guyanese, unsatisfied energy needs, unstable energy supply?

The opposition APNU has denounced the deal as corrupt, with the timing questioned, and sole-sourcing coming under fire. We think that both points represent fair comment, for the background circumstances are there to reinforce such positions. In its rush to close this deal, the details of which are so sketchy, the PPPC Government bypassed parliament, ignored the public, and put to shame all that President Ali claims about transparency. The GPL-IEG contract is for US$650,000 per month, or US$7.8M per year, and it is just dropped like that on the public. In Guyana dollars, GY$130M monthly, or GY$1.56B annually, and Guyanese are treated this casually, this contemptuously, by the people they elect to national office. After all the millions of US dollars spent in the last five years (and more millions before), this is where Guyanese are with something as basic as electricity, something that is so compulsory, but so much missing. What are citizens to make of all of this?

The timing can be questioned, the secrecy that is so characteristic of the PPPC Government raises questions about the integrity of the deal, and the substance of the objectives is also up in the air. Guyanese live with energy blackouts, and they are further handicapped by information blackouts. If there is something to be said, this government has been consistent on both fronts. The government persists with the fairytale that Guyana is a democracy, while President Ali makes a big production about transparency and accountability. Both representations are made against the backdrop of near constant disregard for citizen rights and a culture of chronic leadership and governance secrecies. The GPL-IEG deal adds another stain to the record of this government.

We assert that no matter how well-intended the deal may be, the manner in which it has come to light leaves it looking in the most unfavorable light. Guyanese have been dying on their feet for decades for a reliable supply of affordable electricity, but instead of a sliver or two of light, all that they get from government after government is more darkness, more energy blights. The Wales gas-to-energy has been sold by Vice president Jagdeo as the remedy for Guyanese energy woes. That project has started out and continued with the same sicknesses, such as secrecy from head to toe, lots of money being spent, and zero accountability. Unless the independent media presses and presses for answers, even little updates, the government and the vice president are a study in resistance and secrecy. It is why this new GPL-IEG deal is not surprising, because it highlights the consistency of the current PPPC Government as being for what sets this country back, instead of moving it forward.

How could a government commit over GY$1.5B a year of the taxpayers’ money, and operate in this manner? It is not a family government, nor is it a government of friends and co-conspirators interested in having a good time. The money belongs to the people, and there is a duty to be clean and open with them on how their resources are being spent, to what ends, and that their confidence is in good hands. What is there about this GPL-IEG deal that indicates any of those features? We don’t see anything, and while there is hope that Guyanese will get some value for their money, the probabilities are not in their favor. The question is if the GPL-IEG deal will be that innovation, a ray of light. Or, just one more instance of the continuum that has been part and parcel of the failures of the GPL, and government, to deliver electricity.

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Dominican Republic’s InterEnergy Group, Editorial, GPL, PPPC Government, secrecy, tricks

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