The Opposition, A Partnership for National Unity, (APNU), is taking the Government to task over the frequent power outages that have been plaguing parts of the country over the past few weeks, declaring that the power supply problem exposes poor planning and incompetence.

At a press conference today, APNU Member of Parliament Sherod Duncan said the problem was compounded when Guyana Power and Light Company sought to shift the blame to citizens.

“This failure is inexcusable. After the government itself acknowledged the extraordinary growth in electricity demand that was coming, GPL should not now be asking Guyanese to conserve as though citizens are being irresponsible for using the electricity. Increased heat and a growing economy naturally demand. Families should not be made scapegoats.  People need houses and modern amenities. Businesses are expected to expand. Manufacturing is supposed to grow. When power fails, food can spoil, shops lose trading time and children lose study time. Ordinary people pay for PPP failures,” Duncan said.

Duncan said the recent announcement by the government that it is hoping to start up at least one turbine from the gas-to-energy project to add 57 megawatts of power to the grid would not solve the problem.

He said that promise is also not in keeping with the Government’s own earlier promise for the first phase of the project, and a plan to add 300 megawatts to the grid.

“Any competent government taking office in 2020, with the pending massive inflow of oil revenues and the expected boom in economic activity, including energy-reliant manufacturing activities, should have recognised that expanded electricity generation and upgraded transmission and distribution were absolutely necessary to prevent inadequate power from becoming a bottleneck and strangling the economy. The PPP/C knew what to expect. In 2019, before first oil, the IMF identified increased infrastructure investment and expansion of GPL’s generation and transmission capacity as vital to unlocking Guyana’s expected economic growth,” Duncan said.

Meanwhile, APNU Member of Parliament Juretha Fernandes, attributed the power supply challenges to poor planning and poor projections by GPL.

“GPL is all over the place when it comes to projections, they said back then that annually they will be adding 20 megawatts. GPL has not been consistent with anything they have told us, they have not been consistent with whatever they have put out there, whatever they have reported to the public, they are not been consistent with their reporting in the national budget and so they have no consistent plan,” Fernandes said.

Fernandes said there is a need for an immediate outage-reduction plan with community-specific repair deadlines, weekly reports on available generation, reserves, and outages; and full disclosure of project costs, contract changes, and delivery milestones.

Related posts:

Norton outlines APNU’s plans to remedy GPL’s power supply problems Opposition braces for more power supply problems; Calls for technical losses to be addressed GPL promises Government improved power supply by weekend Jagdeo expresses frustration over GPL’s power problems; Promises continued efforts to reduce blackouts