Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jan 06, 2016 News
The Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL) has assured it has no intentions to implement measures that will
see disconnected customers paying up to six months or more on average monthly to be reconnected.
The state-owned company was responding to questions and concerns over recent advertisements in Kaieteur News and other newspapers where consumers were warned about the pitfalls of disconnection.
The notices immediately sparked concerns about the ability of customers to pay six months security when they could not even pay their bill for one month, with the likelihood that electricity thefts would see a rise.
Not so, says GPL in a statement. The company explained that the Standard Terms and Conditions (STC) for Electric services (The Forth Schedule to GPL’s Licence) provides clear guidance to the agreement for electric services between GPL and its customers. The STC was one of the legal instruments that was amended in October 2010.
Under the amended Section 4.9, GPL is allowed in its sole discretion to require a post-paid customer who was disconnected to pay a security deposit greater than $20,000 or up to six months of the company’s estimate of the average monthly charges for any two-month period.
GPL, however, insisted that while it has the powers under the amended regulations, it never had cause to implement it.
“Even though the amended STC of October 2010 makes provision for this requirement, our company wishes to emphatically state that it has never instituted this legal requirement and will not institute such a requirement without adequate notice to customers.”
GPL also apologized, in its statement, for any misconceptions that the disconnection notice may have caused.
Yesterday, the Private Sector Commission (PSC) expressed concern over the notice and in a statement, called on the company to rethink the implementation of this plan as a condition for reconnections.
“If our people have difficulty in paying their monthly electricity bills, how will they be able to pay a deposit of six months for the reconnection of the service? We have to distinguish between hardship and tampering or fraud. We must have a social conscience and not impose a greater hardship.”
Last week, both Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson and GPL’s Chief Executive Officer (ag), Colin Welch, assured that the six-month assessments will not be implemented, although it is in the regulations.
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