Even though power and water supply has begun to improve in Linden and a key generator should be working by Saturday, protesters in the township continued to block roads and the main mining company in the area warned that its operations could be jeopardised if this continued.
Vice-president and general manager of Omai Gold Mines Limited, Rejean Gourde, met yesterday with a group of Linden residents who are part of the current protest action in order to negotiate for the free flow of traffic on the road leading to Omai. His proposal was later rejected.
Lindeners have been protesting over the collapse of their electricity and water supply by blocking roadways and key bridges to prevent vehicles entering or leaving Linden.
Gourde assured them that if the roadway to Omai is made accessible to his gold mining company they will be guaranteed full and reliable power supply within three months.
"For the medium term we might be part of the solution of the power supply of Linden. We just want you to understand that we will do everything we can to help the community. In the medium term we are going to move some generating sets from Omai, (but) it's not something that is going to happen overnight," Gourde told the gathering of about twenty.
But when the Linden group consulted later with a larger number of protestors the Omai proposal was rejected as they decided against opening the road.
The group that met with Gourde had observed that Omai's action in coming to them was evidence of the company being a good corporate citizen. However, the protestors insisted they will not be curtailing their protest action until President Bharrat Jagdeo and Minister of Water Shaik Baksh go to speak with them.
Gourde had made it clear to the small group that he was not representing the government and noted that he has been resident in Guyana for over nine years and had a vested interest in the well-being of the people.
Gourde told the residents that it was imperative for Omai Gold Mines Ltd to continue its operations if it is to bring some relief to the community at the earliest possible time.
He said that currently Omai is facing an oil crisis and if no fuel is transported into the mine site by this morning, the management would be forced to send home all its employees and maintain a skeleton security staff until such time that they could have fuel transported from the company's Linden stockyards.
Additionally the company needs to have experts travelling from Omai into Linden to conduct a study for the platform base of the three diesel engines they want to bring out to the mining community.
Gourde said that on Monday he had a meeting with President Jagdeo, Prime Minister Hinds and the management of the Linden Power Company (LPC). At the meeting he was informed of the situation at the power company and that there were some parts coming in to fix the steam plant and that in the next few days other parts would be shipped to fix the defective diesel engines.
He also said that he had been informed that the government had placed an order with MACORP to have two 1.5 MW generating sets that are expected to arrive in the country in three weeks time after being shipped this weekend.
"You have to understand that if the existing generating sets are not fixed the power and water situation would be on and off in the next few days," Gourde said.
He further stated that if Cambior - Omai's parent company - is to take over Linmine it must have a reliable power supply. The lack of this, he said, was one of the main factors that contributed to the decline of the bauxite industry in Linden.
He said further that at the mine site Omai currently has 48MW of power distributed through 15 units. Because Omai is winding down capacity by the end of April there will be three units available which have the capacity to generate 3MW each, a total capacity of 9MW.
Gourde stressed that for this plan to come to fruition, the company would have to obtain the cooperation of the residents to provide unrestricted passage for Omai vehicles through the Mabura Road. He informed them that each day's delay would set back the schedule for shipping the engines to the bauxite town.
"We plan to keep on mining until the end of April in Omai but if we lose two weeks we would have to recover those two weeks in May to conclude our mining and that would mean two weeks later for us to start dismantling the generating sets."
He told them that Omai was not asking them for the release of the bridge which links Wismar and Mackenzie but just the road to Omai.
In response the residents expressed their dissatisfaction that no government minister had seen it fit to go to Linden and brief the residents on the issues relating to power generation and distribution in the community.
Gourde had suggested that a community group be formed to deal with the electricity situation and indicated that he would be available to participate, and that offer was well received.
It was decided that Gourde should make contact with the management of LPC and the Regional Democratic Council to have an Omai representative sit on that committee. They also decided that the list of names of community representatives would be supplied to Omai within the next two days.
Meanwhile, the supply of electricity and water to the Linden community remains unstable though there have been improvements. Since Monday power had been supplied intermittently, mainly in central Mackenzie and yesterday power was on for a little over one hour in sections of Wismar, and the same could be said for the water supply.
However, from around 11 am yesterday LPC was able to generate electricity with both of the engines sent to the town by the government. With this residents have been getting electricity for six hours on a 24-hour rotational basis while the water treatment plant is being supplied electricity on a 24-hour basis. The management is hoping that this system would alleviate the situation until the steam plant is brought back on load for the generation of electricity to both the community and Linmine at the same time. The boiler feed pump for the steam plant arrived in the community yesterday and the steam plant is expected to be up and running by Saturday.
A revised load shedding schedule put out by LPC, LINMINE and the Linden Utility Services Coop Society Ltd says that LPC is now generating 2.6 MW of power utilizing two Caterpillar generator sets loaned by GPL. According to a release, the load shedding schedule which went into effect yesterday is based on the availability of the generator sets and is subject to change without notice.
The schedule is as follows:
Area D: Wismar Back: 11:00 am - 17:00 hrs
Area B: Residential Back: 5:00 pm - 11:00 pm
(Amelia's Ward, Kara Kara, Rainbow City, Industrial Area)
Area A: Residential Front: 11:00 pm - 5:00 am
(Central Mackenzie, Cockatara, Richmond Hill
Area C: Wismar Front: 5:00 am - 11:00 am
(Burnham Drive, Silver City, etc. and Village)
The release said further that LPC expects to have its steam power plant in operation by Saturday and that would allow an improved level of power to most areas.
LPC, the release said, has ordered replacement turbo-chargers for the two diesel sets at the diesel plant and delivery is expected in three weeks' time. In the interim, the sets on loan from GPL will remain to supplement generation from the steam plant, the release added. It also stated that two Caterpillar generator sets would be ordered this week by the Guyana government and delivery is expected to take about five weeks.
"This is a further contribution by government to ensure a stable power supply to the Linden community," the release said.
The government, the release added, is also making arrangements to install a 250 KVA generating set at Ituni to provide power to that community.
In the meantime the protestors are continuing their demonstrations. They say that they will continue until the problem is fully rectified. Yesterday a few of the ferry services had been transporting persons, but the main streets continue to be blocked. As such persons coming from far off areas like Amelia's Ward and Wisroc have to walk miles to get to work or to the market. Most businesses are still closed and most persons are still refusing to walk the distance to get to work.
And the police in a release said that yesterday at about 1:05 pm full power was restored at Ituni and all blockages were completely cleared making the road to Kwakwani as well as other streets in Linden again accessible to vehicular traffic.
However, the main bridge linking McKenzie and Wismar is still blocked but the situation is receiving attention, the release stated.