quote:

Originally posted by BONUS:
Thirteen hours
November 5, 2008 | By knews | Filed Under Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I wrote a few months ago that there is an uncanny happening within the Caricom Secretariat and GPL. I live next to the Caricom Secretariat and this area is visited with daily blackouts. In that column, I lightly enquired whether these outages are not designed to irritate the Secretariat people. Could it be true?

We get electricity disruptions every day. In some instances, it may last for just about twenty minutes. But you bet your last dollar, blackout will come everyday. On Monday, it lasted for thirteen hours.

When it goes beyond five hours, I would normally call one or two persons I know at GPL. I do not use the emergency numbers. The GPL's emergency numbers are impossible to reach. For over a year, it has not been accessible in terms of getting through.

On Monday, the blackouts came just about 2 a.m. At around 8 a.m., I thought that was too long so I decided to resort to the emergency lines. GPL has six emergency numbers for Central Georgetown. When you dial, a taped voice says; "If you now your party's extension, please dial it now. If you have been without power for more than an hour, press 1; to make a complaint, press 2; to speak to an operator, press 3." When you press any of these numbers, the message repeats itself.

I then tried to make contact with all the GPL numbers that relate to customers' service. The taped voice came on again. I tried seventeen GPL numbers in the telephone directory including the six emergency ones but they rang out or were persistently engaged or the dreaded recorded voice came on.

GPL has one emergency number for the entire East Coast. It is located at the company's Victoria station. That emergency number is the same line that you have to use when you want to contact GPL at Victoria for any other type of business. That number either rang out or it was busy all the time.

At midday, it meant that we had ten hours of blackout and I needed to know what was going on because I had to use my computer. I eventually got a direct line to the CEO. I was told he was out of the country. A friend gave me the direct line to the Director of Technical Operations, Colin Singh. Mr. Singh was very polite but told me he was up since 2 a.m., was burdened with work and could only give me two minutes of his time. He was very apologetic. He indicated that he was right about to have a meeting with the GPL Chairman.

I told him where I lived and that power was gone for more than ten hours. He explained that a troublesome fault occurred and within three hours time power would be restored. He kept his word. Thirteen hours of disruption finally ceased.

The Caricom Secretariat was out of power for 13 hours. These people have to face daily interruptions. Even though the Secretariat has a generator facility, it must be annoying to have to face this daily harassment. It is interesting to know that right in this area live a number of foreign Caricom officials, and diplomats from different embassies. What do these people think of Guyana?

What about the young people who live in Turkeyen? How do they feel about staying and work in their country when they have to endure daily power outages?

Every occasion when blackout comes, I immediately think of the people who run this country. What have they been doing for the past sixteen years? That is the period the ruling party has been in power. Isn't this the very question these young people are going to ask?

They know their parents had to spend their youthful days in Guyana living with blackouts. Now they too have to taste the pangs of primitiveness. There has to be a deadly cynicism that has enveloped the PPP. To think that on Sunday evening the PPP monarchs were at Everest Sports Club enjoying duck curry (the party sponsored the annual duck curry competition – see my column for October 30) , then the next day, residents of Turkeyen were visited with thirteen hours of power withdrawal.

The return of blackouts is the largest indication to date that incompetence stalks the corridors of power. But more than that, it shows what the obsession of power does to Guyana. Instead of isolating and studying the major line faults of Guyana when it came to office, of which electricity supply was one, the PPP used all its time studying what the PNC and its other critics were doing. And blackouts returned with a vengeance. When will it end?