…in proposed reform plan
HEAD of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon, has said that from July 1, 2012, the revised electricity tariffs in Linden would kick-in, but the Appropriation Act of 2012 has made provision of $1.8B for the 2012 electricity subsidy in Linden. He made this disclosure yesterday at a press briefing held at the Office of the President, and added that the move was, of course, a reduction of about $1B in the actual subsidy provided in 2011, which was much closer to $3B; so the cut of about $1B in the subsidy would logically lead to increased tariffs in Linden.
Dr. Luncheon stated that during the early days in the policy debate of the 2012 estimates of revenues and expenditures, government had unveiled a model for those tariff increases that had been hammered out in conjunction with A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and was subsequently renamed.
In the context of the 2012 Appropriation Act and the provision of $1.8B subsidy of electricity in Linden, the government, he added, would soon be unveiling the model to be implemented in Linden.
He said that in 2011, the treasury put $2,576,320,000 towards subsidizing electricity costs in Linden, and that money came from taxes and revenues of all of the people of Guyana. That was a subsidy of $60.81 per kWh billed to the community; a subsidy of $17,000/month ($204,000/year) for the average domestic consumer; a subsidy of $50,000/month ($600,000/year) for the average business customer in Linden. If the continued growth and development of Linden is to proceed on a sound basis and without constraints, electricity costs in Linden would need to be standardised with the rest of the country. It is widely recognized that it is indeed unsustainable to indefinitely continue subsidising electricity costs in Linden.

The Proposed Reform – Phase One
The reform, in the supply and pricing of electricity in Linden, effective from July 1, 2012 – that is, for the second half of this year – will be implemented as follows:-
(i) Merging the supply area of Linden Utility Services Co-op Society Ltd. (LUSCL) into Linden Electricity Company Inc. (LECI);
(ii) Aligning the classification of customers in Linden with that of GPL, and adopting the tariff schedule of GPL;
(iii) Calculating the monthly electricity bill of each customer in accordance with the GPL tariff; but, (iv) each customer will pay only half of the bill, as calculated for the remainder of 2012; and,
(v) Bauxite pensioners will receive the first 100 kWh each month at no charge, and will pay according to (iv) above for consumption beyond 100 kWh/month.
Even with the reform outlined above being implemented, $1,865,844,000 is provided in the budget of 2012 as subsidy to consumers of electricity in Linden, he said.