Three Opposition Members of Parliament on Thursday morning staged a protest in front of the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) head office on Main Street demanding something be done about the continuous blackouts.
APNU+AFC parliamentarians Christopher Jones, Annette Ferguson and Simona Broomes railed at what they said was the “incompetence” of GPL and called for the management team to go.
Jones relayed that he was protesting as a citizen of Guyana and on behalf of all those who have been experiencing difficulty with the constant power outages. Further, he said that GPL is yet to properly compensate for damaged equipment caused by power outages in Guyana.
“…night before the last I’ve had no less than six blackouts within a space of 45 minutes. And I chronicled that on my Facebook page when the blackouts happened and so forth. I mentioned that the Guyana Telephone &Telegraph (GTT) Wi-Fi system comes with a backup battery. GTT replaced that battery for me like four months ago. Since this new wave of blackouts that is happening, the battery has now failed. And, likewise, I know there are thousands of Guyanese out there who have had equipment that since has been damaged. There is nothing coming out from GPL to say to Guyanese, if you have damaged equipment as a result of the blackout please come, we have a help desk that will assist you with that. There is nothing like that, and then we heard the president speaking about, under the last administration there is failure… [in relation to the electricity grid]. That is a foolhardy statement”, he declared.
He added that “the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), they are now in their fourth year of governance, they came in and inherited the oil wealth because they are receiving the actual oil resources. We have had successes in budgets that have been passed and supplementary budgets in the parliament. The PPP/C has been boasting about each budget being the largest budget ever in Guyana’s history but it appears clearly that those monies, the peoples’ money, have not been spent to upgrade the electricity grid and it speaks about their incompetence, because, if you have new hotels here and businesses being established in a country, you have all of these roads that the government put down and with all of these street lights, it would put a strain on the electricity grid and it is there incompetence and their failure to improve the electricity grid ahead of these projects that are coming into being, is a result of, what the Guyanese people have to experience now.”
Jones noted the concerns that have arisen in schools and homes for the elderly about the severe heat.
“I speak about my concerns about what have been happening in the schools. We know for the past three or four months now, there is a heat wave, intense heat. What is happening in those schools where you have hundreds…of children packed together, then there is a power outage, for example, the teachers have a fan that they would use to help keep the classroom cool. I speak about what is happening in the elderly homes. I know many of those elderly homes don’t have back up, power support for those elderly people. We don’t know how many of them would have died over the last four months as a result of heat exhaustion. We don’t see any publications speaking to that. I gave the example of the Campbellville health centre. On two occasions, I went to the Campbellville health centre and there was a power outage and the nurses and doctors could not administer anything to me because they can’t see. Now take for example, in one of these far-flung villages, you have an elderly family member who falls ill and you take them to the health centre, and then learn there is a blackout. As a result, they can’t get any medications. You attempt to rush them to Georgetown Hospital… Leonora Hospital or … and only learnt that on the way they died. It is a serious situation and like every serious situation that confronts this country, the PPP/C treats it lightly. Why?”, he asked.
Ferguson, former minister and current MP said she hoped GPL holds a press conference to let the public know exactly what is happening. “I’m just out here to lend my voice to currently what is happening in the country. We, as Guyanese, deserve a better life and every single day… households are experiencing lengthy hours in blackouts… We are yet to hear from the management of GPL as to what is causing this problem. We are, also, yet to hear from the ministers who are responsible for this sector. Once they remain silent, I can only conclude that they don’t know what they are about. Well, I hope that this simple demonstration this morning would egg them [GPL] to come clean with the nation, I trust before the end of the day, they would host a press conference and let the public know exactly what is happening.”
Later Thursday, GPL and Minister in the Ministry of Public Works Deodat Indar did hold a press conference to reiterate what had been said in a press release that relief generators were coming by the end of this month and should be operational by the middle of December. GPL also said that current generation was below the peak demand and that one generator was offline and this had resulted in load shedding in various parts of the grid.
Meanwhile Broomes said: “I’m a resident of Lodge Housing Scheme and Bartica. I live all over Guyana and I’m a Guyanese. GPL is incompetent and the government is robbing us, as a people, and GPL is not doing us any favours. I believe we don’t have competent management and it keeps getting from bad to worse. Under the coalition Government, blackouts were something in the past, so we know it can happen. All I’m saying we going backward. We are not going forward. I’m saying that Minister Deodat, Minister Edghill, the CEO, all of them, they must go, because we have a good staff working at GPL. Management is the problem; they are not giving them a proper salary. Not even fixing the engines, look at Bartica. Brand new engine, brand new station was outfitted and what happened? The PPP/C since they came back in office, is blackout…peoples’ meat spoiling…”