Why are we still plagued with power outages on the East Coast of Demerara?

Aug 24, 2019 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

I write this letter as a concerned and confused citizen. I am a resident on the East Coast of Demerara and like many of my fellow residents have been plagued with blackouts for the majority of this year. I am sure most citizens of Guyana are by now fully aware of how power outage affects one’s family, business and livelihood.
I am confused as to what the government and the Power utility company are doing about this situation. From the many articles in the media on this subject, these organisations have not seemed to acknowledge the severity of the situation and the impact on the lives of the citizens. This can be attributed to them being oblivious or have turned a blind eye on the power utility needs of the man on the ground. A specific case in point is the media release (dated July 15th 2019) from the Ministry of Presidency issued by the Director-General, Joe Harmon, where it stated that GPL is in talks with Banks DIH to supply power to the grid and an agreement with Giftland Mall has been finalised. A subsequent article in the media on Aug 07th 2019 by the Chairman of the Giftland Group, Roy Beepat, indicated that no agreement is in effect between GPL and his entity as his entity is still awaiting the agreement to be signed by the GPL Board. Mr Beepat also stated in his article that the power is being offered at a price competitive to GPL the current cost of production. Hence, you can understand my confusion as the man on the ground whose daily life is affected by these power cuts yet the powers in charge of this does not seem to be in sync and as such how can the people of this country have any confidence that their needs will be looked after? Whilst I understand there are many details to these agreements this should not be the concern of the citizens and if there is a shortfall of a resource that affects our livelihood and a solution is proposed and acknowledged we at least deserve an explanation as to why it has not materialised to ease the plaguing issue.

Yours sincerely,
East Coast of Demerara resident

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