Dear Mr. Editor,
Please permit me a few lines in your newspaper to highlight some of the brazen acts of self-enrichment and corruption that’s taking place at the state-owned Guyana Power and Light Inc. A friend of mine recently applied for electricity to his building where an assessment was done by the utility company GPL. He was told because of the distance from his premises to the existing power lines that he would need to finance the construction of lines to his building. He was advised to go meet with a senior manager at Middle Street Georgetown for guidance on the way forward. My friend went and see this senior official at the Middle Street office where they would do an estimate and he would pay the necessary fee and the corporation would have the job done through its employees or a contractor. This is where it gets strange. This senior official then proceeded to tell my friend that works will be done through a contractor of which this manager has an interest in and a close affiliation to. That Design department will do the necessary visit to the location and drawings after which, the manager office will take care of all the paper works, but payments will be made to a contractor instead of GPL. This manager even went as far as to provide details of the materials that would be use which was shipped into Guyana by the said personnel.
My friend told me about his dilemma knowing that I’m familiar with the inner workings of this Public utility company, after serving for a few years and then being a contractor also. I know this official of whom he is accusing of corruption and using there office for personal gains. Some of this is very true Ive had similar experience with this said person, lots of people in the corporation has also know this for a very long time, but everyone seems to turn a blind eye. Contracts are being awarded especially these capital jobs, network maintenance and emergency service are being given out to the said company on a daily basis of which this official is a part of. I’m calling on the authorities to investigate what is really going on at there middle street office because for a long time i believe tax payers are being shortchanged.
May 11/ 2015 Guyanese cast there vote to stamp out this type of behavior by our bureaucrats, but these actions of self serving nepotism is still prevalent in the public domain. There have been several tenders from GPL that this office handles, some of which have been close to a year now without any award. Some inside sources told me this manager is using the tendering process just to get quotations and the fixing the prices for the company of which they have an affiliation with. We as contractors and a citizen of this country deserve better, I’m calling on the authorities to investigate the awards at Middle Street. Mr. Editor this is a concern which needs some sort of investigation by the Minister of Public Infrastructure , The Board or the CEO. GPL is under fire lately for the handling of contracts worth million of US dollars. Most recently questions are being ask about why the company is taking so long to announce the award of a GPL/IDB/EU funded project to upgrade distribution networks which would save them millions of US dollars per year. Contractors have been crying out for answers from the corporation but all we seems to get is silence.
It is my hope that someone in authority or the media especially the likes of Kaietuer news and the other media houses will launch an immediate investigation into this matter of blatant cronyism that taking place under this new government watch, this has been going on forever and it time we put a stop to it and say no more. Look around at all these public officials that’s living above their pay cheque.

Regards
Michael Persaud