Dear Editor,
I read the editorial titled ‘Power problems’ in your publication of October 24 with tremendous sadness. I totally agree with your comments on the negative impact caused by power problems, and the urgency to restore stable power supply to the country.
Since our company, China Machinery Company (CMC) was referred to in the editorial (‘The contractor involved in this project should be summoned immediately to provide an explanation on what has been happening’), I feel obliged to respond to the power problems from our perspective, and I wish to state as follows:
- Issues with damage to the submarine cable: GPL has provided an official explanation on the cause of damage which debunked the accusation that our company had not buried the cable to the 3 metre depth specified by the Contract.
- Frequent outages with transmission lines: Based on media reports, the problematic transmission line is the section between Kingston and Sophia. This section of transmission line was in place long before the commencement of GPL’s Infrastructure Development Project, and we cannot take responsibility for the transmission line that was not built by our company.
- Numerous trips and shutdowns of the power system: As our company has parted with the project, we are not in a position to pronounce on the cause of these problems. We can only assume that as power supply from the 26MW Wartsila Plant in Vreed-en-Hoop could not be loaded to the DBIS system due to the non-service of the submarine cable, there is a significant power shortage in the grid, resulting in overloading and frequent trips.
During the project construction and warranty period (up to March 2016), all the transmission lines installed by our company operated reliably, and we are credited for the advanced SCADA system. For example, any accidents (such as a tree falling on the transmission line causing a trip) could be pin-pointed in the control room, which means the fault could be located and dealt with swiftly, reducing the power outage period to the minimum.
Kaieteur News has pursued a relentless smearing campaign against our company since May this year, and the only possible cause is our company’s involvement in the tender for GPL’s power distribution project. The latest attack came on Oct. 23 in the article titled ‘US$18M smart meters, new transformers project … After eight-month delay, GPL to announce winner in another week’. It states ‘A part of the CMC-built transmission lines, in the city, is also now facing severe problems with outages increasing in recent weeks’. Kaieteur News knows that the section of transmission line in concern was not built by our company, but it keeps spreading this false information for the purpose of defaming our company. This kind of journalism is a poison for the country, and is not conducive to solving the power problems.
It is our sincere wish that the submarine cable could be restored as scheduled to bring normalcy to the DBIS grid.
Yours faithfully,
Huibao Jin (Andrew)
Project Director
China Machinery Company
