PUBLIC Works Minister, Robeson Benn has said that last evening’s lengthy power outage was due to difficulties encountered by GPL in transferring fuel at the Kingston Power Plant. Among the areas affected by last evening’s power outage were Diamond/Grove, South and North Ruimveldt, Tucville, Meadowbrook, Bel Air Village, Kitty, Campbellville, Bel Air Park and Queenstown.

Speaking with this publication via telephone last evening, the minister said that there has been a delay in arrival of a shipment of fuel at the Kingston location, and that had resulted in severe power fluctuation. But from what he had been told at the time, the power had been scheduled to return at approximately 21:30 hrs.

Last evening, this publication tried for almost one hour to make contact with any official of the power company. We were, however, finally able to contact the GPL Chief Executive Officer, Mr Bharat Dindyal. When asked to apprise us on the situation, the CEO did not go into details, but mentioned that the power company will be issuing a statement sometime today.

Meanwhile, this publication received several telephone calls expressing callers’ dissatisfaction with the alleged impoliteness of persons who answered the GPL telephone lines. When we attempted to inform Mr. Dindyal of this, his retort was that conversely, members of the public have also been rude to staff when calling to enquire about the power outage last evening.