Time for a GPL end-of-blackout timetable
Editorial
Guyana Chronicle
August 16, 2004
GUYANA Power and Light Incorporated gave us an interesting update last week on what it is doing to improve the quality of its service in order to attract increased revenues, enhance its viability and provide an even more satisfactory service to consumers.
That was impressive.
It was good of the company, currently in local hands, to keep consumers and the general public informed about the people-friendly programmes it is implementing - and absorbing rising fuel prices at no extra cost to energy users.
But its generosity apart, there is something that consumers would like to hear from GPL that the utility company isn't telling. Perhaps it was premature to expect the Chief Executive Officer to give us a timetable of GPL's plans to end blackouts in Guyana, but that's the information the public sorely wants to hear.
Our own sense of that timetable, for all that came out of the press conference last week, is that the end-of-blackout date with consumers is afar off. We hope we are wrong. For if we aren't, Guyana under the PPP/Civic administration will have borne some resemblance to the Guyana that the PNC (now PNC/Reform) ruled before it was voted out of office in 1992!
How so? It will be recalled that 13 years after the PNC took office in December of 1964, Guyana's electricity sector crashed. The turbines at Kingston gave out on July 23, 1977, throwing every sector of the country using GEC-generated power in darkness for 24 hours straight.
Those of us old enough would remember the PNC making the crash appear to be 'no big thing,' After all, New York of all places had a blackout the same day that would last for several hours. There was a parallel, and the PNC made sure we were well informed about the power failure in the Big Apple.
It wasn't a smart move, however. We would soon learn from the late Sir Lionel Luckhoo that he had warned the Burnham administration well in advance to give priority attention to refurbishing the near worn-out turbines and replacing other deteriorating and virtually obsolete equipment of the Guyana Electricity Corporation, or face a total shutdown sooner than later.
The government didn't take Sir Lionel seriously enough. With its professed "wisdom" and "foresight," the regime determined that other things were more important. Things like white rice producing silos!
The result of ignoring Sir Lionel's recommendations was that GEC did face a total shutdown. And we would experience blackouts for the next 15 years that the remained in office!
When the government changed in October of 1992, the Cheddi Jagan administration started repairing the damaged GEC with a bang. It got Wartsila to bring in new machinery and equipment and the electricity situation improved significantly.
So why, almost 12 years after the PPP/Civic government took office on October 9, 1992, are we still experiencing blackouts?
Saying that the situation has improved from what it was under the PNC would be an understatement. Still, that isn't much comfort for people who risk having their electrical appliances damaged or destroyed by power surges, who risk having perishables in their refrigerators spoiled, who depend solely on electricity to operate their businesses, and/or who risk being attacked by bandits for whom blackouts provide an ideal crime backdrop.
And what about students who depend on electricity from GPL to study at nights? How are they to improve, do better at exams and with more education realize their full potentials, if power isn't any certainty?
We know scarce finance is a major constraint. But faced with the option of being fingered for equaling the PNC's record of bad management of the country's electricity sector, we believe the government should knock its chest and loan GPL the money it needs to end blackouts in the near term.
In addition to wanting to improve its service to ensure household consumer satisfaction, GPL needs to have surplus energy to facilitate a long-mooted surge in industrial activity and commodity output.
It would be to the country's all-round advantage - bearing in mind that almost every facet of life requires energy to progress - for GPL to aggressively seek funding to increase its power generating capability beyond the need for scheduled blackouts.