Already facing a deficit of $5 billion annually through electricity theft, the Guyana Power and Light(GPL) still finds it difficult to deal with the issue. Experts from around the world have concluded that they never saw a situation like the Guyana one.
Over the years, GPL has been facing an uphill battle when it comes to dealing with electricity theft. This problem is being compounded more and more, as the years go by.
According to the GPL, the company has invested millions of dollars to deal with lost reduction, specifically dealing with electricity theft.
That investment came in the hiring of six experts from Latin America Countries and other countries facing similar issues and the said team has concluded that Guyana remains unique in the manner in which electricity theft is done.
“We brought in experts from many of the Latin American countries that are dealing with this problem. We hired a team of about six experts to undertake the problem of the loss reduction project. They had already done the same thing in the Dominican Republic.
“Over US$600M has been expended on loss reduction. We took all their advice and actually embarked on a massive loss reduction programme.
“The public utility upgrade project which is winding down now, US$40M US for network upgrade, metering upgrade to deal with technical and non-technical losses were part of the programme. The experts who heard the facts basically contended in the end that they have never come across a country quite like Guyana when it comes to electricity theft,” Central Executive Officer, Bharat Dindyal said.
Even with all the investment of millions of dollars so far GPL seems not to be making any progress in the matter. The situation worsens each year and millions of dollars continue to be lost.
When addressing the problem of disconnection, the company has been always faced with many adversities even when the system is upgraded. Those stealing would usually find a way around it to steal.
The company noted that even the employees of the company have been working with the consumer in stealing GPL equipment and power.
GPL cannot continue to face this issue at a large level going ahead, CEO Mr. Dindyal pointed out. There is a need for a culture change since there is nothing the company’s can do at the moment.
“It calls for across the board culture change. Policing this has not been successful. We have thousands of people who have been caught, gone to court where the matter languishes because we can’t dispense of three, four thousand cases.
“There is nothing to do on our side. We have employed coercion, we have done public education, we have appealed, we have brought technology but what we have is not a change in attitude,” Mr. Dindyal said.
However, even with the prosecution not working, Mr. Dindyal said that in the coming year, GPL intends to start back the very prosecution programme for staff and customers.
“We have resumed prosecuting people for electricity theft and that’s going to be our major focus next years,” Dindyal maintained.
