Guyanese do not want to be burdened with an increase in cost of electricity

Dear Editor,

I have read a report in the Guyana Times newspaper that the Gy$ 5 billion approved by the National Assembly as part of an assistance package for the Guyana Power and Light Inc (GPL) will certainly not be sufficient to help the company this year mitigate the effects of rising fuel prices on its service.

Does this mean the cost for electricity will go up? Already consumers are beginning to worry that because of the added pressure on the company, this cost will be passed on to consumers. Well, let me state clearly, consumers do not want to be burdened with an increase in their electricity bills and the hope is that both the government and the opposition will work to resolve this matter in the national interest.

Your news report quoted the head of the company as saying that, even the initial Gy$ 6 billion that was budgeted as part of 2012 estimates may have not been enough, as fuel prices on the world market have moved from US$ 114 per barrel to US$ 120 per barrel just over the first three months of the year.

What is worth noting is that the company had projected that even if there was a marginal increase, it would need at least Gy$ 25.5 billion to expend on meeting its need for fuel alone as opposed to the sum of Gy$ 22.4 billion which was spent last year.

Editor, there is no merit in the arguments put forward by the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance For Change (AFC) parliamentarians that the funds were to be used to fund GPL’s loss reduction programme. As I understand it to be, the monies budgeted in the national estimates for GPL were largely meant to purchase fuel.

I am therefore suggesting that since the company is in dire need of the Gy$ 1 billion that was chopped from the subvention initially budgeted, the decision must be reviewed urgently as I am not sure that the company was given a fair chance of explaining its needs and what the funds were intended for, even though the government MPs did try to plead with the opposition not to go that route.

In all fairness though, from looking at the debates and reading the coverage of the entire proceedings in the Parliament, I got the impression that some opposition MPs did not quite understand the challenges being faced by the company.

That aside, the opposition’s call for progress to be made in the area of loss reduction must not be ignored. Like many other Guyanese I feel that the company needs to step up and do more where reducing losses is concerned. We cannot continue paying the cost for those persons who steal electricity or are ‘doctoring’ their meters so that their true consumption will not be reflected on their bills.

One thing is for sure; is that at this moment, many ordinary folks would not be in a position to pay an increase for electricity consumption. The opposition must therefore rethink what they are doing to the working class.

Yours sincerely,

A Mangar