Mathews Ridge gets electricity after five months

The Hinterland Electrification Company Inc. (HECI) has finally completed repairs on a generator at the Mathews Ridge Power Station to restore electricity to the residents of the community.

Mathews Ridge, with a population of just under 1,000 residents, has been without power since March.

Chief Executive Officer of the HECI told the News Room on Thursday that the prolonged period of power outage stemmed from the COVID-19 restrictions which hindered the company’s ability to fix the generator sets in a timely manner.

He explained that the Power Station had two generators but the second one experience mechanical issues just as they were attempting to fix the first.

“One had a failure and while we’re trying to fix that –because the procurement process took a bit longer because of the pandemic and restriction of flights, etc, restrictions on the movement of people at the time –it took a little longer so one of the machines was working. So during that time, before we were able to get one machine fix, another one went down,” he told the News Room in a telephone interview.

Only one generator has been fixed at this time.

Regional Chairman Brentnol Ashley and Vice-Chairman Sarah Browne had travelled to Georgetown on Monday where they reported the matter to Minister of Public Works Juan Edghill.

They felt that no one was treating the issue as urgent.  Mathews Ridge is located in the North-West District of Region One.