The Guyana Power and Light (GPL) will soon initiate a customer data validation exercise to target a review of all customers, especially those who steal electricity.

GPL officials at a press briefing in the Guyana Television (GTV) 11 conference room yesterday, said the company is functioning at a “critically unstable level” at the moment.

Focusing on errant customers, General Manager Robin Singh said a recent survey showed that some 18,000 customers had recorded zero consumption, although many were using the company’s electricity.

Singh further stated that during the exercise, GPL uncovered some 6,000 meters that were either malfunctioning or, possibly, tampered with and the company is now moving to correct the situation.

“We have concluded visits to approximately 18,000 customers, whose consumption was being recorded as zero. And within the area of commercial losses, the next programme which is going to be undertaken within weeks is a customer data validation exercise [to] target a 100 per cent review of all our customers, street by street, house by house, so as to correct the information we have on the data base,” Singh told reporters.

He said the exercise would help in rectifying issues such as non-existent residents being billed. This investment, the official said, would be significantly less than a move right now to reduce line losses, which is another problem the company faces.

Chairman of the board of directors, Ronald Alli explained that the other mandates that faced the company since government took back GPL from private investors in April, included stabilising the power supply and restoring several generating plants.

At the moment, there are some power supply problems in the Berbice region, which GPL is seeking to rectify with five leased units from the United States. GPL will be paying approximately US$35,000 per month for each of the five units. (See other story on page 17.)

Giving an overview of the first six months of the company’s operations under new management, Alli noted that in spite of formidable challenges, including the lack of loan capital, GPL has managed to achieve “a largely stabilised power supply in the Demerara interconnected system, though remaining without any reserves in most areas to cushion the effect of power outages required to carry out maintenance and of emergency breakdowns; stabilised rates without an increase; commencement of a plant maintenance programme and of the replenishment of the spares inventory; progress on a programme of meter replacement and theft prevention; substantially improved payment collection; and the repayment of part operational debt liabilities within an overall repayment plan.”

Nonetheless, he reiterated that GPL “continues to function at a critically unstable level”, a situation which will not change unless the company can install reserve generating capacity in all of its systems, construct transmission facilities to interconnect its Demerara and Berbice systems, rehabilitate its entire distribution system and complete the reduction of commercial loss to an acceptable level.

The company reported that it has completed a five-year business plan to address these issues. The government, Alli said, is currently reviewing the proposal.

“Since it is unlikely that we will be able to secure capital investment on concessionary terms, the plan relies on investment from IPPS [Independent Power Producer] and on the company’s internally generated revenue to finance its recovery and to do so without minimum tariff increases,” Alli remarked.