Americas and Caribbean (AC) Power Ltd yesterday evening paid the third of four tranches to the Guyana government, which makes up its payment of US$23.5 million for a 50% partnership in the Guyana Power and Light Inc (GPL).

Yesterday's payment, the sum of US$5 million, was made to Prime Minister Sam Hinds in his Wight's Lane, Kingston office by Chairman of AC Power Ltd, Andrew Aldridge, and witnessed by Chairman of GPL, Adam Heydeyat; Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GPL, John Lynn and; Head of the Privatisation Unit, Winston Brassington.

In brief comments the Prime Minister said he was pleased that this next step had been taken in the transaction by which AC Power Ltd was made a 50% partner in GPL.

Referring to adverse comments he has heard from a number of people, the Prime Minister reiterated that the government did arrange that the money would be paid in four tranches. He said that he looked forward to the next tranche, when the process would be completed. He said that the comments had been made by people who had opportunity to know differently and to know what the situation truly was, since all of the documents that were entered into at the time of forming GPL were laid in Parliament and were public documents.

Aldridge said that his company was very pleased to be associated with the government in running GPL and stated that the third tranche further signalled the company's commitment to the development of GPL.

He admitted that the development progress of the company had not been quite as quick as people might have expected and noted that it was a challenge. But he assured that the injection of the third tranche equity would go a long way to helping the company to embark on part of the development programme which includes securing about ten megawatts capacity to improve supply in Demerara and Berbice.

The chairman further admitted that there has been some problems with reliability of the existing power supply. GPL has come under fire recently from President Bharrat Jagdeo and members of the general public over the steady spate of power outages around the country. The President had announced that Cabinet was examining the company's performance.

According to chairman of GPL, the road has been full of challenges, but he said that the management, board and the shareholders were committed to making GPL a success. "With all the difficulties and the challenges I am sure that we will endure? and deliver with the key goal of creating customer challenges so that at the end of the day every customer should be satisfied with the service of GPL and that is the commitment of the board, management and the shareholders...," Heydeyat promised.

Answering questions about the service delivered by the power company the Prime Minister said: "I think that all of us have been not pleased with the service delivered and it has been a concern as to what to what to do to improve it." But he stated that the management of the company has been addressing the matter and there were plans to improve the service.

The CEO of GPL revealed that the board yesterday approved the acquisition of ten megawatts of additional capacity. Pinpointing some of the problems the CEO noted that in the county of Berbice if the set broke down in Canefield then people in that area were subjected to outages which they have been having over the last couple of months. He said that new sets were to be ordered within the next week, and be delivered maybe in the next six weeks to cover the situation which will help to improve the reliability of supply in the Berbice area. He further disclosed that this would also be done for the Georgetown and Demerara areas. "I think this will go a long way to improving the situation and covering the risk of any other failures," he said.