-but will work to make GPL, GWI more efficient
The PNCR is seeking to assure citizens that any government led by the party will continue to maintain water and electricity subsidies and has no intention of scrapping them as may have been suggested otherwise.
In a release yesterday, the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) stated that it has noticed the efforts of “PPP-aligned entities” to deliberately misrepresent what Leader of the Opposition Aubrey Norton said at his last press conference on Friday, July19, regarding the need to maintain subsidies for utilities.
It asserted that Norton’s entire response to the question posed by the news media outlet, Demerara Waves, on whether a PNCR-led government would scrap subsidies “is crystal clear.” It pointed out that he had in fact stated that while a PNCR-led government will work over the long term to make GPL and GWI efficient and less of a burden on the national treasury, “his government will maintain subsidies in line with its long-stated position that electricity and water must be made free or affordable to low-income households and vulnerable groups.”
Therefore, the release argued, to suggest that Norton said or implied otherwise “is an act of pure panic by the PPP and its acolytes to undermine the popularity of the PNCR’s people-centred national development strategy and its comprehensive womb-to-tomb social protection agenda.”
And to dispel any doubt, it quoted one of the earlier statements Norton made on subsidising utilities at his press conference on November 25, 2022. “We believe that water and electricity services for low-income households should be subsidized by the government to ensure no household in need is denied these essentials.” The party recalled that earlier this year, it had specifically called for the national budget to cater for this provision but lamented that these calls fell on deaf ears.
“More generally, we are already on record as promising the Guyanese people that, as the next government, we will ensure a livable income for all households by creating good-paying jobs and more small business opportunities, and by implementing such socio-economic programmes as paying monthly childcare allowances, banning income taxes for low-to-medium income earners, providing rent assistance, providing free tuition for tertiary education with student stipend, providing two hot school meals a day, and granting large increases in salaries and pensions, among other measures.”
Aside from the issue of subsidies, the PNCR accused the PPP of so thoroughly mismanaging GPL, that the utility was forced to bring in an emergency power ship at an exorbitant cost, thereby requiring even more subsidy to maintain current electricity tariffs. All this, it said, after it spent US$27 million to acquire 17 used generator sets of dubious functionality.
As far as the PNCR is concerned, the current government must take responsibility for allowing the situation to deteriorate to this point. It opined that government is clearly hopeless and is still groping in the dark, pointing out that blackouts have not ceased and the power ship is now the butt of endless jokes, as hundreds of comments on GPL’s page can attest.
The party expressed its belief in effective management and spoke out against incompetence, and corruption.
“We believe that effective management can bring down operating costs and improve operations. We, in the PNCR, do not accept such waste, mismanagement, incompetence, and corruption as norms in the country’s public affairs.”
The party cautioned that the need to maintain subsidies on utilities should not distract it from the necessity to make GPL and GWI more efficient service providers, the release added.
