Dear Editor,
Sixty years after Independence Guyana’s rulers have failed the people they purport to govern in numerous sectors. The most profound area of disaster is the Electricity sector: generation, distribution, management and cost. Added up this is a catastrophe that impedes students from studying and imprisons peoples’movement, security, comfort and safety.
Now, with no Parliament in place, the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) is embarking with a Dominican Republic company InterEnergy to provide consultancy services for the existing electric grid and future additions to the grid when(and if) the Gas to Energy project ( now two years behind scheduled and costs climbing) is completed . In usual surreptitious manner, the terms of this contract were not generally known until some details began to be leaked out. It transpired that InterEnergy was to be hired on a two-year basis at the princely sum of US$650,000 per month indicating US$15.6 million- enough to buy a brand new 20 Megawatts Wartsilla generator. The question naturally arises as to whether this InterEnergy “agreement” is in legal accordance with the procurement laws of this country and why such an entity would be capable to provide highly costly services nothing that the Dominican Republic is plagued with power outages. It’s like asking Elizabeth Taylor to provide marriage counseling.
Presently, the Guyana Power and Light (GPL), has performed a back somersault with another consultancy company, Method4, which was contracted to oversee the new network distribution grid. The US$7 million contract was not signed after investigations revealed that Method 4 is not a Canadian company, and was in fact a Guyanese person with a Canadian passport. To compound this mess, the records at the Registry revealed that the lawyer who incorporated the company is Manoj Narayan who is attached to Nandlall and Associates and sits as a Commissioner on the Elections Commission (GECOM) – a clear conflict of interest! Additionally, this hastily concocted ‘consultancy’ has scant expertise in the electric field while many of its ‘staff’ is present and former GPL employees. What a treacherous expedition coming from the very persons who are paid by taxpayers to oversee their wellbeing.
This scenario of signing contracts is all too familiar in the closing months of Elections where leaders of both past and present regimes endeavor to feast on the final serving.
Leyland Chitlall Roopnaraine
