Our nation’s electricity supply greatly improved under Jagan, PPP/C (Part 2)

Dear Editor,
I write this letter responding to the editorial entitled “GPL” in the Sunday Stabroek of November 12th. It seems to me that the Editor set out not wanting to appear to be on either side — neither the PPP/C nor the PNC/APNU&AFC Coalition — thus he used a broad brush, which obscured significant details with the risk that we would miss some important lessons, much of which we have paid for and continue to pay for in adverse experiences and in much frustration.
Mr. Editor, I hope that you have been persuaded that Cheddi could hardly have given more useful time to the problems, challenges and hopes for GEC. And please allow me to add that the time he spent (much later) on developing and formalising his ‘New Global Human Order’ was all to the same end: all part of seeking and justifying debt forgiveness, to allow us Guyanese a real chance for a better life.
Mr. Editor, we, the PPP/C, would be among the first to admit that, over our period in office, we did not reach where we aimed for GPL (and for many other aspects in our Guyana); but we steadily and greatly improved the supply of electricity across our country, improving average supply time from about 60% to about 95%, at the same time increasing the number of customers from about 75,000 to 175,000.
After Cheddi’s passing, we added a further 60MW in generation in two new plants, one at Kingston and the other at a new site at Vreed-en Hoop. It was timely then to turn to major upgrades of the transmission system, installing almost 100 kM of new 69kV transmission lines, which completed at long last the Demerara-Berbice Interconnection.
Eight new substations were installed at calculated locations in the network, enabling 27 additional distribution circuits, allowing shorter runs and greater isolation of local problems. Three existing substations at Sophia and the two main generating stations were upgraded. A new Control Centre was built at Sophia, with a new Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System linking all substations to the Control Centre.
Mr. Editor, after some delay, the Coalition Government is getting the new generating stations required for Anna Regina and Bartica. We paid on average US$ 1.0 million per MW over 1993 to 1997, and US$ 1.1 million per MW over 2009 to 2014 for complete power plants, inclusive of cost over-runs but excluding any cost for land.
Recalling all their allegations of hundreds of billions of dollars of annual corruption, may I be wicked and enquire what is their total plant cost per MW? If they are without corruption, it shouldn’t be more than ours!
We greatly regret not being allowed to proceed with the construction of Amaila, which was contemplated even in the Burnham years of the mid-1970s. By now we would have started receiving electricity (165MW) from Amaila at a sustainable, lifetime average price still much less than the current prices lowered by low oil prices, and our Coalition Government could have claimed Guyana’s first big step to a ‘Green’ Guyana and effecting half of its commitment towards making Guyana a Green State. Natural gas may not be much cheaper than HFO. It would be low carbon, but not ‘Green’.
We neither forgot nor ignored our interior. We reached nearly every home. We provided an initiating degree of electrification across our hinterland with the provision and installation of nearly 20,000 photo-voltaic solar home electrification systems in spread-out communities, and a number of mini-grids with 24×7 electrification at their cores and across denser communities, an essential plank for their subsequent proclamation as towns.
Mr. Editor even as I acknowledge that I am partisan and personally involved, I nonetheless urge you to reconsider your painting of our 1992 to 2015 period in office with the same broad brush as you paint the preceding and subsequent periods.

Samuel A. A. Hinds
Former Prime
Minister,
Former President,
and Former Minister
Responsible for
Energy and
Electricity.