AFC calls for competent staff to be hired at GPL
Apr 18, 2025
Kaieteur News- The Alliance For Change on Thursday has lamented the blackout situation Guyana, saying that pumping billions into the Gast-to-Energy Project without fixing the issues at the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) will only produce excuses on the government’s part instead of solutions.
Former Minister of Public Infrastructure and Chairman of the AFC.
During the party’s weekly press conference, Former Minister of Public Infrastructure and Chairman of the AFC, told the media that despite the presence of 27 containerised generator sets and two powerships, Guyana continues to face a blackout crisis on a daily basis. The excuses provided by the government are comical and have “become a running joke to the citizens, if it is not birds on a wire, it is batteries in the power station to excavator drivers and order such simple, preventable excuses.”
Looking at last year, Patterson highlighted that a $16B subvention was given to the GPL which translates to US$80M to offset the cost of the equipment mentioned earlier; in 2025, the amount has increased by UD$10M, equivalent to a whopping $18B in local currency, which was approved in February.
He argued that in spite of the huge amounts of money, there has not been anything accomplished, as the management remains intact, with financial and commercial losses on the all-time high above 30%. “Daily blackouts continue, the Alliance For Chance, on behalf of the country, is demanding that the government immediately employ external as well as local, competent staff, as the country can recall in 2020 most of the competent staff would have been let go on resumption of the PPP tenure, and the result is exactly what we are seeing now…,” he said.
He stressed that the much-vaunted Gas-to-Energy project which he termed as the government’s silver bullet is languishing, and the AFC has maintained that it will not solve the electricity issues. “Now, the PPP has boasted that with the two powerships, the 27 generators, containerized generators, as well as the existing generation stock that we have doubled the capacity needed, yet every single day the country is faced with blackout. So the challenges and the problems are obviously not limited to the generation alone,” he added.
With the government pumping in excess of US$3B into the gas project without fixing the underlying issues that the GPL is facing, “we can expect nothing else but excuses from the PPP and the GPL cooperation going forward. So, it is our demand that the time is here for them to employ competent staff to advise them. Some of the staff in GPL, we do know have the competence, but it’s time that new ideas, new staff, new thinking are injected into GPL,” Patterson said.
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