Please see full release from the Office of the Prime Minister, Mark Phillips:
We have already set the record straight with respect to our inherited burdens in August 2020 of a mismanaged and bankrupt Guyana Power and Light Company (GPL) under the portfolio of former minister, David Patterson.
In his desperate quest for relevance following his stupendous ouster from the Public Accounts Committee of the Parliament, Patterson continues to unabatingly promulgate smokescreens and downright falsehoods about the surreptitious operations he personally orchestrated at Guyana Power and Light (GPL) and Power Producers and Distributors Inc (PPDI). This was done by the absence of a Board of Directors at GPL for almost two years, where Mr. Patterson was the sole decision-maker at GPL and the results of these decisions were disastrous.
Upon PPPC government entry into office, we found GPL had receivables of approximately G$13 billion outstanding, which was owed by government ministries and agencies causing a crippling effect on the company.
Again, we reiterate, that under the leadership of Mr. Patterson we saw the lack of maintenance on the transmission lines coupled with the little to no investment in baseload generation capacity, which are the main reasons for the blackouts we are experiencing.
As has been the hallmark of successive PPP/C Administrations, the problems and burdens created for our citizens by the selfish, elitist machinations of the failed PNC of yesteryear and more recently, their cloak and dagger replacement, the APNU/AFC regime, are being permanently corrected by us for the medium and long-term.
Our government has been working tirelessly to restore the progressive outlook of GPL within a broader framework of cheaper and more sustainable energy production to improve the daily lives of our citizens.
Already, we have reinstated the uncompromising, robust maintenance regime at GPL, reverting to the above-board procurement practice for the use of original spares directly from source; and getting back to the well-established pre-2015 schedule of maintenance of transmission lines across the entire grid system.
In the medium term, significant increases in the generated power will be achieved in response to the demand, with the internal introduction of nine additional sets, and a request for proposals (RFP) that can potentially see the external addition of 50 megawatts to be added to the grid.
Meanwhile, the one hundred and sixty-five (165) megawatts to be generated through the ground-breaking Amaila Falls Hydro project foolishly scuttled by Patterson and others under the Granger Administration, is coming back on stream shortly, while the three hundred (300) megawatts of power from the Wales Gas to Energy project will be a game-changer for our country and our people.
While David Patterson continues his struggle for relevance with smokescreens and veiled attempts to reconstruct his disastrous legacy, our government is putting the pieces back together to rescue our citizens from every last one of the albatrosses placed around their necks by the APNU/AFC mismanagement.
