Editorial
On Thursday, October 15th Prime Minister Samuel Hinds promised the nation through the National Assembly that come November 5th there would have been some measure of relief from the worsening power supply problems that have plagued the country for some months now. The Prime Minister’s promise came in the midst of a particularly miserable “season” of blackouts which, apart from the fatigue and frustration factors that have come in their wake resulted in millions of dollars in lost production – particularly for small businesses without alternative power supply capability – which losses they are probably unlikely to recover from in a hurry if, in some cases, at all. There are losses, too, that accrue from damage to electrical appliances. Here, the thicket of bureaucracy associated with seeking compensation from GPL is sufficiently formidable as to discourage many of the victims from bothering to seek such compensation.
There is something profoundly and morally wrong about the manner in which consumers of electricity are treated; and despite the fact that we are told that there is a silver lining behind the prevailing bank of storm clouds, GPL still stands out as perhaps the worst example of customer service among the state institutions in Guyana.
Not a great many people are likely to have taken the Prime Minister’s undertaking seriously. This is not to say that the November 5 commitment was not sincere. The problem is that public attitudes to the power company are informed by such extremes of cynicism that consumers are inclined to believe that hell might freeze over on the day that we find ourselves in a state of blackout-free existence in Guyana.
In truth, we tire of raising the blackout issue particularly since it seems that GPL itself has no control over the situation. The problem is, however, that electricity is so compellingly central to our lives that its protracted absence cannot be ignored. Whether it is the loss of production that threatens the viability of one small business or another or the denial of the simple pleasure of watching television after a long and difficult day, protracted blackouts are a miserable and unacceptable ordeal that evoke a range of emotions ranging from tired resignation to violent outrage; these are compounded by a sense of deep frustration born of the realization that we have no choice but to grin – or scowl as the case may be – and bear it.
Of course, November 5th has come and gone and except they choose to apply a particularly creative ‘spin’ to the current electricity supply status quo, neither the Prime Minister nor GPL can say with a clear conscience that what now passes for a power supply service constitutes any meaningful improvement on what went before. In fact, we know for certain that there are sections of Georgetown which, as far as power is concerned, are decidedly worse off than they were prior to November 5th and the editorial department of this newspaper grows increasingly accustomed to working to the constant hum of an installed electricity generating plant.
Interestingly, the fact that November 5th has brought no ‘salvation’ has not given rise to any unusual level of public indignation. The reason, of course, is that consumers, cynical as they are about promises emanating from GPL, did not mentally prepare themselves for any improvement in the power supply situation and are therefore not in the least surprised that blackouts are still the order of the day.
We have said before that we believe that this is the GPL’s biggest problem. Its credibility with its audiences – commercial and domestic consumers – has long hit rock bottom, so that whatever it says, however much it seeks to beef up its public relations capacity, the credibility gap between the company and its audiences is simply too wide.
Over the years there has simply been too much evasiveness, too much misleading information, too much passing the buck and too much practiced elusiveness by the people in charge. There has, too, been too much callous indifference to inflated electricity bills and consumer material losses resulting both from damage to electrical equipment and loss of production. The truth is that GPL’s posture has yielded the company a dividend of extreme public opprobrium and mistrust and it will take nothing short of the full restoration of electricity and a particularly protracted period of kept promises to restore GPL to a semblance of credibility in the public eye. If the November 5th promise was intended to be the start of an attempt to restore a measure of public faith in GPL it manifestly did not work.