GPL strengthening legal architecture to tackle electricity theft

The Guyana Power and Light (GPL) agency is working to strengthen its internal legal architecture in order to tackle electricity theft, which the agency noted is contributing significantly to energy and financial losses.
GPL is currently working in collaboration with the Housing and Water Ministry, the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CHPA), and the Guyana Police Force (GPF), to prosecute persons benefitting from illegal electricity connection.
This includes persons plying their trade at street corners, the sideline of main access roads, and on Government reserves.
GPL’s Divisional Director for Loss Reduction, Parsram Persaud, informed the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) last week that despite these efforts, legal convictions in these cases are few, and GPL is expending a significant amount of revenue to pursue prosecution. He added that electricity loss cannot be encourage when Guyana’s electricity demand is expanding quickly.
“The situation still exists whereby, as we make arrests, the time it takes to go through a court process (is) a problem for us; and now, to get the message across to the nation that theft is wrong, it’s illegal, and you can go to prison for it, we need to get cases that are reaching this final point of someone going to prison,” Persaud explained.

Legal capability
In an effort to increase the number of persons being convicted for the illegal act of electricity theft, GPL’s Executive and Management Committee member Kesh Nandlall said, the agency would invest heavily in its internal legal capability to play an integral role in deterring citizens from reconnecting illegal electricity connections when those are removed by GPL engineers.
“We are going to beef up our legal framework, our internal legal strengths, so that we can continue to place emphasis on this area of loss reduction. And as Parsram (GPL’s Divisional Director for Loss Reduction) alluded to earlier, one way of deterring this activity is to take legal action and continue to do so,” Nandlall explained.

“We are already working on putting that infrastructure in place. We have the technical infrastructure; we now have to bring that to the forefront, where we can really take on prosecution of these instances more seriously,” Nandlall added.
In 2023, there were reports that five residents of the Zeelugt Squatting Area, EBE, would face the courts over charges related to electricity theft. According to GPL, on September 3, two teenagers were severely injured by electric shock when they came into contact with an illegal connection at Phoenix Park Sea Dam Squatting Area, West Bank Demerara (WBD).
GPL revealed that the teenagers were returning home in the area when one of them came into contact with a live illegally connected cable. Fortunately, they received assistance from public-spirited persons, who rushed them to the West Demerara Regional Hospital, where they were treated.

Electricity Sector Reform Act
The Electricity Sector Reform Act provides for the regular, efficient, coordinated and economical supply of electricity, and for matters incidental thereto or connected therewith. Under this Act, a person who generates, stores, transmits, transforms, distributes, furnishes, sells, resells, or otherwise supplies electricity to any other person, premises or area shall be guilty of an offence, and shall be liable, upon summary conviction, to a fine of $1M and imprisonment for six months.
The Act further stipulates that if the offence for which a guilty person has been convicted continues after conviction, that guilty person shall be guilty of a further offence, and would become liable to a fine of $50,000 for every day on which the offence is continued.
Added to this, the Act stipulates that the subject minister shall take such steps and employ such persons as may be necessary to forcibly or otherwise enter upon, seize, take possession of, and cease the operations of any works utilised by such person for the unauthorised generation, storage, transmission, transformation, distribution, furnishing, sale, resale or other supply of electricity.
According to the Electricity Reform Act, any person who lays down any electric line or apparatus, or constructs any electrical installation outside the area or premises in or on which it is authorised to supply electricity by a licence or an exemption granted pursuant to this Act shall be guilty of an offence, and shall be liable, upon summary conviction, to a fine of $500,000. And if the offence of which he/she is convicted is continued after conviction, he/she shall be guilty of a further offence and become liable to a fine of $30,000 for every day on which the offence is continued.
GPL has said the theft of electricity continues to cost it millions of dollars every year. Thousands of people, mostly in depressed communities and squatting areas, climb utility poles and attach wires to GPL’s network, while many of them tamper with meters to decrease their actual energy consumption.
GPL has warned that placing energised wires on roadways or over trenches, dams and other places can cause electrocution and death of people and animals. Persons are accordingly being urged to report electricity theft on 225-5251 or 226-2600. (G1)