Cabinet has approved the appointment of a new Board of Directors for the Guyana Power and Light Inc (GPL).
New GPL Chairman, Maurice Gajadhar
The appointments were published in the Official Gazette under the hand of Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira and took effect Thursday, August 27, 2020, for a period of one (1) year.
The Chairman of the new GPL Board is Maurice Gajadhar. The other members are Alfred King, Dr Mahender Sharma; Nicholas Boyer; Marcel Gaskin; Komal Ramnauth; Shabeer Hussein, Dr Sixtus Edwards and Godfrey Washington.
On August 11, Chairman of GPL, Rawle Lucas resigned from the post. Lucas was appointed as GPL Chairman in May 2019 by the former A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Government. At the time, however, the coalition Government was in a caretaker status having lost a No-Confidence Motion in December 2018. As such, it was not supposed to be engaged in political appointments or the signing of new contracts.
The former Government, nevertheless, disregarded this convention, appointing not just Lucas and the GPL Board but a number of other Boards.
Since being sworn in on August 2, President Ali has taken a stance against political appointees, who this publication understands proliferate throughout the various Ministries. So much so that the former APNU/AFC party that hired these political appointees has raised concerns over their removal.
But in a brief statement, President Ali had made it clear that no public servant has been fired since he took the Oath of Office on Sunday, August 2, 2020. The Head of State had revealed that a number of APNU/AFC political appointees tendered their resignation and several others have been advised accordingly.
Similar sentiments were expressed by Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira, during a virtual update earlier on Friday. She assured that public servants are not being targeted by the new Administration – as is being claimed by the APNU/AFC coalition.
