Presidential candidate of the Change Guyana political party Robert Badal says that under his government, Guyana will be ‘blackout’ free and voters should judge him on his record as Chairman of the Guyana Power and Light Company (GPL).
Badal served as Chairman of the Board of the electricity utility from January 2016 to February 2018.
“The party promises that within a short time…that progressively, we will have less blackouts until it becomes no blackouts…our bulb will always be lighting,” Badal, whose party symbol is a light bulb, told Stabroek News in an interview last week.
“This is because we will put in the investments and ensure that we will reform and change the strategic direction of GPL in a manner that will make it very efficient, very profitable and without blackouts,” he added.
Badal along with chartered accountant Nigel Hinds, who is the prime ministerial candidate, will launch a political party called Change Guyana tomorrow at the Pegasus Hotel, which is owned by Badal. Badal is also the proprietor of Guyana Stockfeeds Limited. He had previously been close to governing coalition partner AFC and the news of the new party caught key AFC executives off guard.
According to the World Bank’s Doing Business 2019 report, Guyana is ranked alongside Sub-Saharan Africa in its ability to provide reliable electrical power.
Further, Stabroek News reported last month that from June 1st to August 31st of this year, Guyanese customers experienced power outages an alarming eight times per day on average. The statistics were provided by current GPL Chairman Rawle Lucas at a stakeholders’ forum. During the said period, there was a whopping 772 power outages of varying duration.
Badal told Stabroek News that the situation will continue if no proper planning is done, even as he emphasised that the situation is further compounded by politics because the utility company is state-owned.
Against this backdrop, he pointed to a strategic plan he had complied while serving as Board Chairman for the overhaul of the power utility, which he submitted to the APNU+AFC government.
That plan, according to him, was shelved and no explanation given.
“You know the state of GPL since the 70s and 80s, you know of repeated blackouts. No administration has ever eliminated blackouts and none has ever ensured that there is a reliable supply of electricity and that is in the history of our country. On the other hand, GPL is a highly political organisation, owned by the state, polices [are] made by the state,” he observed.
Significant Progress
The former GPL Chairman said that voters at the 2020 general elections should trust his judgment in overhauling the company as he had made significant changes during the two years he served as Chairman and the vision he has for the way forward.
“I was Chairman for two years and as soon as I took over, I gave 20 per cent rebates on the cost of electricity within my first four months. I felt that lower rates affect the competitiveness of industry and GPL could have well afforded 20 per cent. In the two years, I added $7 billion to the cash flow of GPL. That has never been done in the history of GPL. GPL has always had to get bailouts and that was the first time it had money to add to the cash flows. Thirdly, adding to that amount of money, I bought three [electricity generating] units for Bartica. The units they had there was more than 30 years old and I bought three 1.7 megawatt [units] for Anna Regina. I also bought one for Canefield, because Canefield was totally closed and could not generate,” he said.
“Since 1992, East Berbice, Essequibo Coast and Bartica were all neglected by successive administrations. I put new units there, gave 20 per cent rebate, added $7 billon. I articulated a strategic plan of how to reorganise GPL which was submitted to the sector minister. That plan was never even considered. Before I left, I also authorised 50 megawatts [generating capacity generators] to replace all units at Garden of Eden with [liquefied natural gas]. That was shelved after I resigned. Tell me, look at the progress we have made at GPL there, look at the generating capacity we have built in three outlying areas…judge that. In reorganising a company, it takes time. It takes a lot of strategic planning and execution and something like GPL that has always been in this predicament, you can’t do it in two years but I have attempted and made significant progress,” he declared.
Other areas of progress which Badal highlighted were the recruiting of current GPL Chief Executive Officer Albert Gordon, and the filling of other executive positions that had been vacant for long periods.
Pouring blame on successive governments over the years for shunning proposals and making bad decisions, the businessman said that it is unimaginable that this country would be without reliable power for more than three decades.
“The state of GPL is because of bad planning and bad decision-making over the years. They did the generating house at Vreed-en-Hoop there. They put 26 megawatts of power there. The demand there, they only need 16 [megawatts] and so they run a submarine cable on the river bed to bring it. When you are doing power planning, the closer you are to the load centres, the better. The more you eliminate risks under the river, where you have a lot of river traffic, the better or you will end up in a lot of problems. They could have put that 16 [megawatts] right in the old facility at Kingston. They have space. They want to do one big grand thing but they didn’t understand to put it at the load centres. Now, every single year, that submarine cable is being damaged and it will damage further because of the increased traffic on that river because of oil services,” he said.
Badal also singled out GPL’s procurement practices.
“Of course, there are a number of other bad decisions over the years. Just look at GPL’s procurement policy. When I joined there, they used to buy a whole year’s supply of equipment …. A whole year’s supply and pack it at Sophia. When I visited Sophia, there are vines and bushes growing over a big inventory of transformers and all these kinds of things. What I did is say we can plan and buy a year’s supply but the supplier has to deliver in quarterly tranches or as we need. It saved a lot of cash flow for GPL,” Badal, who was trained as an accountant, said.
Further, he added, “We started buying, not brand names but first world quality. I made a decision that we select the brands that are recognised brands and buy directly from the supplier or their authorised distributors, like in Miami where the freight to here is low. Those are decisions we made that could take GPL further.”
‘Old’
GPL’s old system is another factor that contributes to the current state of the company and the issues with power outages across the country, Badal said.
“One of the problems that GPL has is that the grid is very old. There is no modern day technology, it still uses 69kv lines when we could use 138 to give you lower transmission losses,” he said.
Badal highlighted the efforts made during his tenure at the utility and said that reliable power is possible. “During my period, the planning, the procurement, the decision-makings, the executive staff hiring we did and we were getting there,” he said. “I visit countries all the time that doesn’t have blackouts. It is not a mystery and surely Guyana can have reliable power. You have to get sufficient generation to modernise the grid. We have some very talented people at GPL. I met some young engineers that can fix anything but the planning and strategic direction has to be there.
“You can fix any business. When I took over Pegasus, it wasn’t like this. Look at what I am doing. The fundamental principle is the same; you look at the problem, you dissect them, you deal with each one, you recruit the best staff, you use the best materials, you have low cost financing. The principles are the same. I never knew anything about feed but when I decided to buy the company [Guyana Stockfeeds], I visited feed mills throughout the Caribbean. I didn’t know anything about hotel, I didn’t know about feed but I learned. All my businesses are market leaders in this country; second to none. That is what Nigel [Hinds] and I will deliver to this country. GPL needs good leadership and we have the experience to do that,” he added.
