Opposition Member of Parliament, David Patterson, has lashed out at the government over the current spate of power outages that have gripped the Georgetown, Berbice and Bartica areas.

Patterson, who oversaw GPL as the Minister of Public Infrastructure in the APNU+AFC Government, said clear mismanagement at the level of the Ministry of Public Works and GPL is to be blamed for the current problems with the electricity supply.

Over the last ten days, there has been constant and prolonged power outages in various parts of the country. While some of the outages have been blamed on damage to the company’s hardware by road contractors, some of the outages have also been blamed on GPL being unable to meet the current demand for power.

In an interview with News Source this morning, Mr. Patterson said that the government must take direct responsibility for the issues facing GPL and frequent blackouts.

“They have not added a single kilowatt on to the system since they entered office, so there was absolutely no forward planning. So, if you are going to open malls and all of these things and not add any power to the grid then this would be the result,” Patterson said.

He said the President’s attempt to blame the former government for the current blackouts is just a deflection from the reality facing the sector.

The Opposition MP said it is also disingenuous for the Guyana government to be encouraging large consumers to remove themselves from the national grid, when the same government has been welcoming new investors.

“Those persons have applied to come on the grid and they could have said we don’t have the capacity, you accepted and is now blaming them for your mismanagement,” the Opposition MP said.

In the short-term Mr. Patterson said the GPL must hire competent persons who are able to do the work. He alleges that many of the new persons at GPL are political appointees, who do not know or understand the sector.

He said staff members who were performing well in specific fields were forced out to make way for the new ones, who are now underperforming.

Just last week, the power company urged citizens to conserve on their use of electricity, since the demand has been growing beyond its normal pace.

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