FORMER Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Guyana Power and Light Incorporated (GPL) Bharat Dindyal received close to $74M a year in salary and other benefits, according to Public Infrastructure Minister David Patterson. The minister, addressing the National Assembly Thursday, was at the time refuting calls from the Opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP) that the A Partnership for National Unity+Alliance

For Change (APNU+AFC) coalition Government was engaged in “ethnic cleansing” at Government agencies.
Patterson said Dindyal was paid a monthly salary of $3.8M, along with other benefits such as gratuity, an accommodation allowance, security, leave passage allowance, and medical expenses to a collective sum of $2.3M. Dindyal was the recipient of some $74M in benefits for any year.
Although the Board of Directors of GPL had voted not to renew Dindyal’s contract with the company from December 2014 onward, since he was deemed as doing unsatisfactory work, he was kept on the job by the then PPP/C Government on a word-of-mouth contract, ignoring the recommendation of the electricity company’s board.
Patterson explained that he derived no pleasure in sending the former GPL boss home, and as such cautioned the now Opposition PPP about making further statements about “ethnic cleansing.”
Dindyal’s dismissal came on the heels of a video which surfaced on Facebook social media showing him in a heated verbal, expletive-laced exchange with one of the senior employees of the power company.
Dindyal had communicated to Minister Patterson that he’d intended to part ways with GPL, but was prepared to remain as CEO for an interim transition period.