While trumpeting plans for hydropower and natural gas, Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh on Friday announced that government will put $2 billion into the Guyana Power and Light Inc (GPL) to clear inherited arrears even as it works to position the company to meet expanding demand on the national grid.
During his national budget presentation on Friday in the National Assembly, Singh said successive PPP/C governments have long recognised that the single biggest impediment to accelerated economic and social development is the absence of adequate, affordable, and reliable energy, with dependence on aged fossil-fuel based generation, inadequate generating capacity, a porous transmission and distribution network resulting in high technical losses, along with high levels of commercial losses being among the key challenges.
Against this background, he said the government would once again seek to make the controversial Amaila Falls Hydropower project a reality to ensure “sustainable, cheap and reliable hydropower,” while also mentioning previously announced plans for key studies to inform government’s technical considerations to land the gas-to-shore project and bring an associated power plant into operation by mid-2023.