MINISTER of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson, will be focusing on addressing many of the problems affecting the Guyana Power Light (GPL) company during the parliamentary recess, Minister of State, Joseph Harmon said.

“In the parliamentary recess there is a little more time and space which the minister can use to give his undivided attention to the problem GPL face,” Harmon, speaking at the post-Cabinet briefing on Friday, said.

He said the problems facing GPL has reached the level of Cabinet.

“The Minister of Public Infrastructure is intimately involved, he is very careful about these things and I know he going to use this opportunity in the recess to actually go and visit sites and to give on the spot guidance, and to ensure that GPL acts in a timely manner to ensure citizens are not discommoded in any way by the absence of regular electricity,” he explained.

There have been countrywide power outages and many citizens have been complaining of poor service from GPL.

GPL earned $17B in revenue in the first half of 2017, up from $14.7B for the same period in 2016 as a result of more timely payments, according to the mid-year report produced by the Ministry of Finance.

The report also states that similarly, expenditure increased from $9.3B in the first half of 2016 to $12.6B in the same period of 2017.

The expenditure increase is driven by higher cost of Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) for which the weighted average cost rose to US$48.70 (for the half year) from US$30.50 as at June 30, 2016.

Additionally, GPL has repaid the government $500M on the Government of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana (GCRG/GPL) on-lending loans for the first half of the year.

The company’s outlook for 2017 has improved, with the budgeted deficit of $5B now expected to improve to a lower deficit of $771M.

Despite this improved cash performance of GPL, the report revealed that the company’s technical performance remains plagued with inefficiencies.

It shows that the production of electricity increased marginally to 394,832 MWh in the first half of 2017, from 387,864 MWh for the first half of 2016.

The report also noted that total losses were 29.6 per cent, a slight increase from the half year for 2016 when the total losses were 29.3 per cent.