THERE is not a single Guyanese, of matured age, who would have experienced those years of non-productivity, especially during the 1980s, and would not have remembered the numerous days and nights without power in their homes, and the serious socio-economic inconveniences that such prolonged periods of power outages would have wrought on their daily lives. Even businesses were impacted on, hampering their production, with many closing doors rather than endure continuous losses from an overburdened and decrepit service.

Not even the famous barge,‘towed’ into Guyana by the then People’s National Congress’s senior minister responsible for Public Utilities, Robert Corbin, saved the day. After functioning for a while, it caught fire.
Fast forward twenty years, with the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government in office, and the multi-billion that have been invested towards a modern power generation supply to Guyana. Therefore, to say that power supply has improved is an understatement – it is now four-fold in reliability and quality, although there are still a few issues.
From the utterances of a particular section of the political Opposition, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), there is both a gross lack of appreciation of what it has taken on the part of the PPP/C in terms of expenditure, to bring national power supply to the satisfactory levels it is at the moment; and, a further attempt at deliberately distorting what the Prime Minister said when he spoke at the commissioning of the $38.9 Ruimveldt sub-station on Wednesday.
The Prime Minister, very analytically, explained the still high non-technical losses in certain areas of the City, which is a fact, and merely called on that particular Opposition party which has a traditional support base in those areas, to urge that residents within those parameters do the right thing. And he is within his rights to make such a call, given his responsibility for such an important sector.
The following section of the Prime Minister’s address at the commissioning ceremony sums up his serious concern, and surely that of the Executive, at the reported 40% non- technical losses, which translates into an astronomical loss of revenue, because of consumer theft: “What I cannot bear at all is our losses on the non-technical side. I cannot bear that at all. I am totally embarrassed by it. We Guyanese are selling ourselves short. There may have been many reasons before, but it is time we change our view of (the) world and our view of the electricity sector in Guyana.”
Any justice-minded Guyanese will support such a brutally frank assessment of this specific aspect on consumer obligation to the power sector. It is shocking that there are still Guyanese who believe, and will reason, that they ought not to pay for such a utility! Of course, such a fact is known to even both political Opposition parties.
APNU’S senior chieftain, Joseph Harmon’s statement about “GPL getting off the backs of the people of Guyana” can only be described as ill conceived, sending an entirely dangerous message to those who are involved in this serious illegality, the costs of which continue to impede further efforts at generating improved power supply. And for the Leader of the Opposition, David Granger, to describe Prime Minister Hinds’ statement as “plain stupid”, testifies to his continuous display of horrible shallowness as far as critical matters of national importance are concerned. Where is the “stigmatization and racism” that he is alleging?
Finally, is not the Prime Minister entitled to speak on any issue that impact on the nation’s well-being?