The Guyana Power and Light Company intends to go after persons who damage its infrastructure and transmission lines

Minister within the Ministry of Public Works, Deodat Indar said legal actions will be taken against those causing damage to utility poles and other GPL infrastructure.

“We are charging them now, and we are making sure that we take them to court. If persons are going to operate and damage things, public utilities and cause others to be discomforted, we have to take action,” Minister Indar told reporters during a press conference on Thursday.

He explained that while the power company presently does not have the capacity to meet current peak demand, not all of the power outages are as a result of the shortfall.

He said some power outages as a result of accidents and fires.

“In Region Three, some excavator swing and hit the high voltage wire – that was 13,800 volts. It feed back into the Kingston Plant, damaged three of the engines. One excavator, swing and hit the high voltage wire. What happens, when you have that high voltage going through, it feeds back into the sub-station, the sub-station shuts down to protect itself but it damages three of the engines,” the Minister within the Ministry of Public Works explained.

In that particular case, two of the three engines totaled 11 megawatts of power, resulting in thousands of customers being knocked off the grid when that incident occurred.

Citing another example, Minister Indar said at Friendship on the East Bank of Demerara, thousands of customers were plunged into darkness when a piece of bamboo tree fell on an electrical line.

“We had another issue, somebody gone cutting bamboo at the back of Friendship, burn down something, cut the bamboo, it fall on the 69,000 volts, feed back into Garden of Eden, damaged up all of the engines down there. Because its high voltage, you have to now bring up back these engines. This damaged, that damaged, you have to fix, change parts. Whilst that is happening, thousands of customers out of power. So that is insult to injury,” Minister Indar explained.

The Minister also reminded companies engaging in construction, that they must notify GPL of their plans.

He said it is important for companies to have Safety Officers on site, who would provide much needed guidance to avoid damage to the electrical grid.

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