HEAD of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon sees a return to Parliamentary engagements as the best approach to the dilemma facing the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) to

improve service delivery in the absence of a budgetary subvention.
Only recently President Donald Ramotar, after meeting the Board and management of the power company, had instructed them to put on hold intentions to hike the electricity tariff, hopeful that the cut to the company’s subvention will be reversed.
The President had said that the restoration must be expeditious, and that the ruling party was willing to return to the Parliament once it is guaranteed support in the passage of the legislation.
The Opposition had rejected $5.2B that was allocated to GPL this year forcing a proposed decision to increase the tariff to garner revenue for completion of key infrastructure development projects.
Dr Luncheon regarded the President’s recent instruction to the power company as a strong indication by the administration to have Parliament intervene and arrive at a consensus satisfactory to all parties.
“We all have identified what is the ultimate cause of this situation and we will have to go back at the level of the Parliamentary Opposition and sort out this matter. That is fundamental,” Dr. Luncheon said.
GPL has submitted its Final Return Certificate (FRC) to the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) for a 26.7 percent hike in the electricity tariff which many, including the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance For Change (AFC) have opposed.
Their denial of the company’s subsidy forced the proposed hike, and was met with surprise and disappointment by GPL’s Chief Executive Officer, Bharrat Dindyal who had pointed to a number of projects that are in jeopardy.
Among them is the 26-megawatt plant at Vreed-en-Hoop which requires foundation work and equipment, substations under the Chinese infrastructure development projects, and frequency conversion interventions.
Dindyal had echoed the sentiments of many concerned that the tariff hike will bring significant hardships on consumers, but could think of no alternative to garner the funds needed to complete them and improve efficiency and service quality, and address technical and commercial losses.
Concerns were also expressed by the Private Sector Commission (PSC) and the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Guyana (FITUG) which had engaged GPL and the President in talks.