As GPL gets upgrades, President says skilled staff badly needed

The Guyana Power and Light (GPL) grapples with the need for constant infrastructure upgrades across its generation and distribution network but President Dr. Irfaan Ali says the company also needs skilled staff urgently.

As he has been saying throughout the week so far, Dr. Ali acknowledged that GPL, and the main power grid it runs (the Demerara- Berbice Interconnected System), did not have enough investments from 2015 to 2020 while the former APNU+AFC government was in office.

So, with demand outstripping supply, Dr. Ali said his government has the herculean task of rapidly investing in GPL’s expansion. That task is further complicated by vehicles crashing into the network and increased construction activities, he however added.

But on Wednesday, the President told reporters that the company has a huge need for workers.

“We have to get more engineers, more technicians (and) more linesmen urgently because of the demand in the system because of the use in the system, the expansion of the system and transmission.

“All of the issues are being dealt with because one affects the other,” President Ali said at the sidelines of an event on Wednesday.

Technical personnel are being sought locally but there have been little to no responses. The President said GPL may have to seek foreign personnel to fill the positions in need.

Outside of staffing challenges, the President said the government is already engaging the United Kingdom Export Finance (UKEF) body for financing to pursue transmission solutions for the existing network and to connect Linden.

Most Guyanese live on the coastland, where almost all economic activities take place, are supplied power by the State-owned electricity company which generates power from diesel engines, most of them old and need replacing.

The country has forever been beset by power outages, frustrating manufacturers, many of whom have opted to generate their own electricity.