Georgetown : Prime Minister Samuel Hinds has issued a call for APNU representative, Joseph Harmon, to join Government, in seeking ways to help reduce the losses, incurred by the Guyana Power and Light (GPL).
Prime Minister Hinds made this clarion announcement, at the commissioning of the Infrastructural Development Project’s sub-station on Mandela Avenue, North Ruimveldt, yesterday. The Prime Minister was responding to an earlier statement, made by the Opposition Member of Parliament, when he called for the GPL, to ‘get off the back’ of citizens.
PM Hinds countered the opposition member, declaring that, “I (now) call on MP Harmon, to join me in bringing down the losses, the non-technical losses, that we are having … some areas to the South and West of Georgetown, where he has political standing. If we have standing in our country, let us start leading our people into the right things. Let us not be making ambiguous or worse statements, let us desist from that.”
The need to reduce losses, both technical and non-technical, was stressed by the Prime Minister, who cited the commissioning of the facility, as part of the power utility’s upgrade.
“We have consultants, some time ago, who said that GPL needed some US$200 million of investment, and maybe a dozen high-flyers from developed countries.” He said that while some people interpreted this to mean that the GPL was “no good,” as patriots, the understanding that people should have is that the company is still providing a reasonable service. The current level of service “doesn’t come without money,” he pointed out, even as the focus continues on “getting losses down.”
So far various proposals have been implemented in this effort, but with limited success, he explained. “There are calls for even more complex technical solutions, smart metering and so on” which will run into millions of dollars.”
Prime Minister Hinds stressed the need for a change in attitude. He intoned that, “If the majority of our people don’t change their attitude…we may be making these investments and we may be no further ahead (still).”
He noted that the country is at an important point with regards to investments, and hence the need to reduce losses and cut costs. He said that Guyana should accept the challenge to (do) better (than) Barbados, which has losses of 6% to 8% in its power generation system. “I think we could, I think we should,” was the Prime Minister’s challenge.
