Georgetown : Head of the Presidential Secretariat (HPS) Dr. Roger Luncheon at his weekly post-Cabinet briefing defended the increase in electricity tariffs called for by the Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL).
Dr. Luncheon explained that the increase is justified since the GPL reported a shortfall of $11B and despite the request by Minister of Finance Dr. Ashni Singh in his budget presentation for a $6 Billion transfer from Government, the company still has a $5B shortfall.
This $5B, he said, has to come from the customers as opposed to the entire $11B which would result in inordinately high tariffs.
The HPS was critical of the current protest against the proposed increase in electricity charges in Region 10, stating that, “if the political opposition has risen in arms in defence of what was planned or is planned for tariff increases in Region 10, if we are to take it to its logical conclusion when tariffs increases occur elsewhere, I don’t know what they are going to do.”
He added that it would be illogical for Guyanese everywhere other than Region 10 to bear the brunt of tariff increases.
To queries about the costly rental of generators by the GPL, Dr. Luncheon explained that such decisions are made at the Board of Directors’ level and not Cabinet or Central Government and, he is not privy to the other factors that contributed to the decisions that were made by the GPL.
In his budget presentation on March 30, the Finance Minister noted that electricity tariffs were last adjusted in 2007, when light and heavy fuel oils were procured at US$71 and US$109 per barrel respectively.
However, prices have since increased by 61 and 38 percent to US$114 and US150 per barrel respectively and GPL funded the escalated costs without any tariff adjustments.
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