Change Guyana (CG)’s Presidential Candidate, Robert Badal, is promising the restructuring of the Guyana Power and Light (GPL)’s financial and power generation capacity, should his party win the March 2 polls, or have any stake in the National Assembly. Badal is a former Chairman of the GPL’s Board of Directors, a position he held under the current regime.
Today, during a press conference at this hotel in Kingston, Badal said that an overhaul is needed at the company for it to be more efficient.
“We will do a financial restructuring of GPL to enhance borrowing capacities so that there is no reliance on the State for bailouts. GPL’s management must be efficient and must ensure that they’re competitive…We will invite a strategic investor to lead the modernization of its transmission and distribution grid, so that there is a smart grid that will finally end the blackouts,” he said.
Badal also spoke about the privatising of GPL’s generating assets, and the alteration to the power generation apparatuses to accommodate the use of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG).
He criticised both the current and former regimes: the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) and the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) respectively, for not having “pragmatic solutions” to the problems being faced by company and its customers.
He said that the PPP/C’s plan for the completion of the Amaila Falls Hydro Power facility is not a feasible one.
“Well, I’ve said that before and I’ll say it again: Amaila Falls is not our priority, and should not be a priority of any government…The cost of bringing the power, alone, with the transmission lines will incur losses of more than 7% of 65 miles. The investment costs $2B. The maintenance of that transmission – high maintenance cost! And we have droughts, there will be no electricity,” he said.
Badal noted that instead, 10% of the $2B ($200M) will only be required to modify GPL’s generating assets to cater for LNG.
“…[LNG] will provide more cost-effective, more reliable electricity going forward. Why spend $2B? But this is the focus of APNU and PPP and it shows you clearly: despite a manifesto and being in office for so long, there is no pragmatic, rational solutions to the problems,” Badal lamented.
He said that during his tenure as the Chairman of GPL, he had tendered out for 50 megawatts of LNG power, however, that project, he said, was “scrapped” by the administration.
“…[It]was based on LNG with an LNG terminal at Garden of Eden. If we had gone through with that, two years now, those would have been in existence now,”
