WPA wants GPL Chairman to step aside for impartial billing, meter probe
Stabroek News
November 22, 2003
The Working People's Alliance (WPA) is calling for senior partner in the accounting firm of Jack A. Alli, Sons and Co., Ronald Alli, to stand down as GPL Chairman to allow for an "impartial investigation" into how the firm was under- billed for electricity over the last two years.
Jack A. Alli and Sons was found to have been consistently under-billed for electricity over the past two years in part because of a faulty meter following a routine inspection a few weeks ago. The firm says it had made numerous reports to GPL about the problem.
Allegations that the firm had been stealing electricity were last week refuted by the power company's Chief Executive Officer Rabindranauth Singh.
In a statement on Tuesday, the WPA says the party is perturbed that Alli continues to function in the capacity of chairman of Guyana Power and Light's (GPL) board "even as investigations are being conducted into his accounting firm's billing and alleged faulty meter problems".
It also notes that GPL and other agencies appear to practise double standards where ordinary citizens are dealt with in the most ruthless manner when found to be in default, while excuses are advanced for big wigs whenever they are similarly accused.
Contacted earlier this week by Stabroek News on the matter, Alli would only say that the faulty meter "was replaced last week", but could not state how much his company owed GPL for the billing errors and a malfunctioning meter since 2001. Efforts to contact the power company's public relations officer on this issue proved futile.
Last week the accounting firm in a press release had said employees of GPL had installed the faulty meter in August 2001 and it was not until sometime later that they noted that no bills were received for the period up to December 2001.
Alli this week told Stabroek News that the company changed the first meter in the building after carrying out rehabilitative works. When questioned about what was wrong with the original meter, Alli said, "that meter was faulty". He said the company tried for two years to get a working meter, but was prevented from doing so because there was none in stock until recently.
The WPA said in the kind of situation that GPL had found itself, it would have been more principled on the part of the power company's board and on the part of the government who holds fiduciary responsibility for the transparent operations of GPL to at least, suspend Alli's membership on GPL's board while the matter was probed.
The WPA said it had no desire to give credence to any attempt to malign the accounting family firm which Alli heads, but it hoped that it would be recognised by now that an impartial investigation into alleged irregularities would not be facilitated by his continued presence on GPL's board.
"Contrary to the recent...pronouncement by Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon, who in his usual flippant manner sought to dismiss the matter, the moral conscience of this society cries out for a more principled response from both the government and the board at GPL."
GPL had said there was no clear or documented reason why the meter was not replaced at the time the reports were made, but that the current management's initial focus earlier this year was to address a significant number of outstanding applications for new services.
The power company said it would seek to recover, from Jack A. Alli, Sons and Co., the estimated amount that was under-billed. GPL has not given an indication of that figure.