President Dr. Irfaan Ali on Tuesday met with the Board of Directors and management of the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) – Guyana’s main electricity generating company – where he expressed his dissatisfaction of the entity’s performance. [PHOTO: Office of the President/ April 02, 2024]
Just as the meeting concluded, however, GPL reported another power failure. Earlier Tuesday, the company said customers in sections of Demerara were experiencing service interruptions because of “technical faults in two of the engines at the Kingston facility.”
There has been a need to invest in new generators locally as the power demand grows.
At the end of 2023, GPL acquired additional generating sets to guarantee that there would be enough power supply locally. The situation remained volatile, however. There were numerous power outages throughout March, prompting much public outrage. Last week, system failures at Kingston, Georgetown and Garden of Eden, East Bank Demerara, locations last week caused countrywide power outages.
President Ali on Monday told the News Room that widespread construction and the ongoing hot conditions have driven up power demand and GPL was forced to supply additional power. So he reasoned that there must be increased spending on additional generating capacity.
He, however, said then that he planned to be stern with the management of GPL during his Tuesday meeting.