He said however that the GPL does not have enough evidence to determine the impact it will have on the company.

He said although that would result in a loss of revenue on one side, there would also be less demand on the electricity system and less investment would be required.

Lynn said there are about ten companies that have recently started generating their own electricity, but an assessment on the impact has not yet been made. Lynn made this comment yesterday during a media tour of GPL facilities in an effort to bring media practitioners up-to-date on its Demerara operations.

The Georgetown power station at Kingston, the power station at Garden of Eden, East Bank Denerara, and the Transmission controls at Sophia are the facilities which were visited.

The tour was conducted by GPL officials, including the company’s Public Relations Cordinator Ms. Majorie Chester and Chief Operations Officer Mr. Paschal Buckley among others.

Mr. Lynn noted that there are a number of people who have been generating their own power traditionally, but there are cases now where people have changed to using their own generators in response to the billing they have been receiving recently.

"They have a right to go self-generating...I wonder if those generators are subject to the same environmental and other scrutiny that the generators at GPL are subject to, for example noise, the potential pollution and oil leakage that could pollute the local ground water supply", Lynn added.

He said the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would insist that GPL observes the necessary safety practices against pollution and hopes that those would be adopted by the companies who are now self-generating.

Lynn said while there are concerns by the consumers about the high billing for electricity supply, the GPL is still trying to grapple with reducing commercial losses, which have been a controversial issue for some time now.

He said the company has been unhappy with the rate of progress of reducing the losses. The Government and the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) have expressed concerns as well with the rate at which they have been reducing those losses, he said.

However, over the past six months the company has recorded a lot of success in identifying important cases where all the electricity being used is not being registered on the meters of mainly business agencies. This also applies to some Government installations and other industries, he said.

He said, although he did not think it was appropriate to name any of the agencies where meter reading was inaccurate, one of those agencies was a food processing industry which, after having the meter corrected, the billing went up from 2000 units per month to 200,000 units per month, he explained

Another main company in the city has seen its electricity bills gone up over the past six months by some 250 percent, while another well known institution which has several metering locations has had some corrections done on their metering.

He said several of that institution's locations have not had any meter at all. He attributed such a irregularity to bad administration by the Guyana Electricity Corporation in the past.

Lynn also said many of the people who have been complaining about high electricity bills have been benefiting from the use of electricity supply without actually paying for it at the right cost. He said the GPL will continue making the necessary corrections for the benefit of all customers.

On the question of defaulting customers being disconnected from the service, Lynn said that people have been complaining about this action by the GPL, but he sees nothing wrong with disconnecting people who have not been paying up.

"Why should any product be supplied to any person who is not prepared to pay". He explained the majority of customers who are paying their bills are effectively subsidising the people who are not paying.