The Guyana Water Incorporation (GWI) has informed the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) that it is unable to pay some $7 billion for electricity usage.
GPL, is however, hoping that Government will offset part of the debt.
The revelations were made on Thursday during a hearing of the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) on GPL’s Operating Standards and Performance Targets.
GPL’s Divisional Director of Finance, Loris Nathoo told the hearing that the Water Company’s average monthly light bill is between $220,000,000 and 250,000,000.
The $7 billion electricity bill was accumulated over the past two years ending August 2020.
Nathoo said that GWI has notified GPL that it did not have money to pay its electricity bill.
He said that Government is aware of the situation and he hopes that some resolution will be arrived at very soon.
According to the Power Company’s Deputy CEO, Renford Homer, GWI’s non-payment is a major challenge. He reasoned that if GWI had been receiving payments it would have been able to meet its targets and overall production.
Junior Public Works Minister Deodat Indar recently revealed during the 2020 Budget Debate that the former APNU/AFC administration had not been paying the light bills of various government agencies.
Minister Indar had announced that “upon looking at the books of GPL, I have found that there is $13.1B that the government of the past five years owes GPL. It seems as that there was a national policy unwritten somewhere that you should not pay your light bill.”
