Dear Editor,
Some months ago I was in my yard when there was another blackout and was highly displeased at what I witnessed: the meter was still recording consumption and at a quick pace when everything should have been at a dead halt. After all, a blackout was in progress! I notified Guyana Power and Light immediately, and was told I most likely had a defective meter. I asked them to change the meter, and it took them two and a quarter months to come to my home and investigate my assertions of inaccuracy. They discovered upon arrival that the meter was recording 16 points above normal on that day. Now, any educated person would be aware that a defective product is never consistent from day to day. But yet they took weeks to replace the meter, while they continued to bill me on the basis of information given them by the faulty machine.
I then lodged another complaint, and what they did was to adjust all my due payments to be based on that one day when they had determined I had a defective meter. Their method could not be accurate, for as I stated earlier, a defective machine could give a certain reading one day and the reading could have been twice as much the day before the fault was discovered.
Now, how many people in Guyana have defective meters, and are asked to pay bills much larger than they should really be paying? The constant stoppages and resurgence of energy will also affect a receiving machine. And the meter itself, apart from being inaccurate, every time there is a restoration of energy it jumps forward in such a fashion as to charge the customer for energy they did not receive. I am confident GPL has knowledge of this exorbitance, but because it favours them, they do nothing to correct it until you the customer request that they do. We are now at the point where I have a new meter which I check every day to make a note of the revolving cycle. I am now burning three times less per month than the defective meter recorded – specifically 53 kilowatts per month as opposed to the 150 reported by the old meter.
This did not please GPL, and so one day suddenly I lost power, and thinking it to be another blackout, I unplugged everything to avoid them being damaged when it was restored, but upon going to my verandah I saw a team from GPL walking away with my meter.
I accosted them and was told their action was based on a disconnection order with which they complied. I argued with them and informed them they most likely were complying with matters relating to the old defective meter when I myself had demanded a disconnection. However, I have now had the new meter for months and owed no payments. Yet, however much I talked, they took away my meter. This act was perpetrated after four in the afternoon and so I was in darkness that night. And on a visit the next morning to GPL, the CEO had the meter returned with an apology. The following day, as I have become accustomed to doing, I checked the meter to judge the time revolutions of the cycle, and discovered it was now running three times faster than before they took it away – they had readjusted the cycle so it would read higher. I now was extremely angry and appalled that a business would resort to such tactics.
Every business sets itself up to make money, but the money made should be honest money. If they truly value their customers they should treat them with fairness and respect. I would advise all Guyanese to have their meters checked to ascertain they are free from defects. And I would like to see the government check all businesses in the country to guarantee they operate with good and honest practices.
Yours faithfully,
Jorge Bowenforbes
