South Georgetown singled out as biggest electricity thieves

Feb 01, 2014 News

South Georgetown has been named as one of the most critical in terms of electricity theft, officials of the local power company testified on Wednesday.
Appearing before Parliament’s Sectoral Committee on Natural Resources, executives of the Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL) said that from records, loss in the South Ruimveldt, Guyhoc Gardens, Festival City,

Prime Minister Samuel Hinds and senior GPL officials reporting to the Parliamentary Sectoral Committee on Natural Resources on Wednesday.

West Ruimveldt and Sophia areas remain the most worrying with for every 100 kilowatts of electricity produced, 60% is lost through theft and technical faults.
According to Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, who holds the portfolio for energy, the losses represent a “great embarrassment” for the power company which has been battling the issue for years now. For a country average, of every 100 kilowatts of power produced, GPL says it loses around 31%, an untenable situation for the critics and the Opposition.
GPL for the last few years have been declaring a loss. It says that to bring down the losses it will have to engage in a host of initiatives that may cost upwards of US$100M. These include smart meters, new transformers, new transmission lines and perhaps a more aggressive attitude to tackling the thieves.
Also present at the forum held at the Parliament Building were GPL’s Chairman, Winston Brassington; Chief Executive Officer, Bharat Dindyal; his deputy, Ash Deonarine and other senior management officials.
The Prime Minister noted that while the South Georgetown situation was worrying, at places like Kitty, Campbellville and Windsor Forest, West Demerara, the situation is better at 11%.
Hinds stressed that the loss issue remains an area of poor performance, reflecting badly on the integrity of the nation. He compared the losses to Barbados which has declared 7%, and urged that Guyana pull out all stops to at least achieve that level.
However, the losses of GPL are made worse with collusion between staffers and customers to beat the system. In addition to turning a blind eye on theft, some staffers are actually colluding, helping to bypass meters and other systems. Despite a special Loss Reduction Department created to tackle theft and which included 72 persons, the level has remained worrying.
According to Dindyal, GPL is mulling several systems which include technologies that will accurately and precisely, zoom in on geographic areas of losses down to the actual transformer.
Of the 31% loss, almost half is to theft.
The officials made it clear that any system will not come cheap. Comparisons were drawn to the Dominican Republic which Guyana has been working with, where some US$376M is being spent on new technology to prevent losses. Guyana never had a single investment of that magnitude on any project.
The CEO said that while there is no single system on the cards right now, GPL will have to continue to examine different ways to reduce theft.
The Sectoral Committee was also told that GPL had attempted to place meters on poles in certain areas but the pilot stage at West Ruimveldt met with resistance. In some cases it became a political situation with Opposition officials backing the customers in those critical areas.
The demand for prepaid meters has also picked up significantly with 18,000 arriving recently. There are 6,000 applications on file for these meters, Dindyal said.
GPL is estimating that around 7% of the 175,000 customers it has on file, has postpaid meters that have been tampered with. This was against the 4% of the prepaid meters which have been vandalized.
Significantly, GPL said that of the total electricity theft, half of the power is believed to be stolen by large customers.
Members of the Sectoral Committee, which is chaired by Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine, a senior Member of Parliament of A Partnership For National Unity (APNU), were highly critical of GPL in which residential customers and others are placed before the courts and even in the newspapers but the large customers are receiving a slap on the wrist.
GPL is currently involved in a major expansion program to run new transmission lines on the coasts, to the tune of US$42M-plus.
It is also preparing a US$52M five-year program that will see funding for new transformers and a different-style of management that will be mandated to meet specific targets.