After hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent by government on the electricity sector, Guyanese are still plagued with frequent blackouts and power fluctuations. It appears as though the government and its administrators at Guyana Power and Light (GPL) are incapable of providing Guyanese with stable and reliable power 24/7. In 2013, 21 years after the PPP government have been in control of Guyana, blackouts remain a very dark and frustrating part of life in Guyana.

Political actors supportive of the government are always very keen to seize every opportunity available to extol the progress and development Guyana has made under PPP rule. Actually, the last election slogan the PPP chose for campaigning was: “Let Progress Continue”. And with that, blackout continues.

It is abundantly clear that something is significantly wrong with the management of GPL. Guyanese cannot accept that in 21 years there can be no stable and reliable power from the country’s only power company. With electricity bills among the highest in the Caribbean, GPL provides arguably the poorest service to its consumers. Blackouts and power fluctuations occur with alarming frequency. And in keeping with its outstandingly poor customer service, Guyanese are left in the dark to figure out the causes of such interruptions.

If the chairman, board and executive management of GPL cannot get it right, then they need to be replaced with competent personnel capable of fixing the company.

The Guyana government might also want to realign its strategic thinking in the way it invests taxpayers’ dollars. It has been discussed many times that rushing to waste money on building a hotel in Guyana –a country that cannot fill the meager number of hotels existing - is not economically sensible. Perhaps that money and others wasted in other such ‘vanity’ project could have been used to permanently fix GPL.

Government argues strongly that the proposed Marriot hotel project will attract tourists. Apparently it has not dawned on the government that it needs to first create a tangible and viable tourism product and ensure it has the infrastructure to support that product before it attempts to market that product. One key component in the support infrastructure for any viable tourism industry is stable and reliable power.

It is long past the time that Guyanese enjoy stable and reliable power from GPL. It is the right of Guyanese people to have access to stable and reliable power. If there are extreme circumstances that result in power failures, then consumers must know why there was a power outage and what measures were taken to rectify the problem to ensure it will not reoccur. But to have blackouts several times throughout the day most days of the week without even the slightest of explanations is grossly unacceptable.

The combined opposition might want to vigorously use its energies not on determining who should speak or not speak in parliament but on national handicaps like GPL that continue to bring hardships to the lives of many Guyanese, while its administrators enjoy the benefits of super salaries for incompetent work.