SECRETARY to the Cabinet, Dr Roger Luncheon, yesterday said that had stakeholders come out in force unsupportive of the cuts made to the Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL) allocations, the political Opposition would have been propelled to do something about it.

He was responding to questions following his weekly post-Cabinet press briefing at the Office of the President, New Garden Street, Georgetown.
“I laboured, and I suspect like many others, under the assumption that the reactions of stakeholders (would have been) sending a powerful message to the parliamentary Opposition with regard to the cuts.
“I equally laboured under the impression that what happened in the Ministry of Public Works was something that the Opposition did not feel proud about, and were busily assigning blame to others for that outcome.
“For me, those two led seamlessly to what would ordinarily be an effort to do something about it if the stakeholders came out in force unsupportive of those cuts, and if those who did the cuts were now blaming others,” Luncheon observed.
He said at the end of the day, he felt that it would have been most decent and logical to undo the cuts. “I thought that the Appropriation Bill would have been the precise instrument to be used to effect some remedy (to) this situation.
“I am enlightened that this was not possible, and so it is left to the parliamentary political parties, it is left to the architects, those who actually define (and) interpret parliamentary procedures, to consider (and) formulate options on the way forward.
“I laboured under the impression that a case has been made for interventions, that the case has been made for remedying that situation. It is essentially our resolve, the parliamentary political parties and the other stakeholders, how to go about remedying that situation,” Luncheon said.
He said concerted efforts are being made to undo or mitigate the impact of these cuts, particularly when they involve transformative projects.

WILLING TO SIT DOWN
Meanwhile, officials at GPL said they believe the decision to effect the cuts was made in total ignorance, and therefore they are willing to sit down with the Opposition and provide it with factual information in the hope that the decision would be reversed.
“We are trying as hard as possible at our level to provide factual information to them which we could sit with them and discuss if they so desire. It is basically up to them to say now that they did not understand certain things. The opportunity is still there for them to revisit the cuts. We think that good sense should prevail because we are still convinced that this was not done in knowledge,” GPL Chief Executive Officer, Bharat Dindyal told this newspaper Monday.
For one thing, Dindyal said an “enormous amount of time, effort, sweat and tears,” went into major projects that are at an advanced stage but would immediately have to be halted should the cut not be reversed.
“The main programmes which we are currently implementing…some of them as far as 85 percent complete. Imagine at this stage they are saying sorry you not going to receive any money to complete these facilities,” he highlighted.
The media was shown photos of these projects on a projector.