Thirteen years. Thirteen long years since activist Mark Benschop stood with a handful of protesters outside Prime Minister Samuel Hinds’ office, warning that Guyanese could not afford the burden of a failing electricity company. Today, his words ring not as a warning, but as a prophecy fulfilled. Under the watch of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) government, the Guyana Power and Light Company (GPL) has not only failed to improve, it has regressed into a state of abject dysfunction, leaving the nation to swelter in darkness.
The recent report from the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) confirms what every Guyanese already knows: GPL is failing. The company met a paltry 2.5 out of 8 performance targets for 2025, raising “significant concerns” about reliability and financial health. System losses actually increased to 25.43 percent, well above acceptable benchmarks, meaning millions in revenue lost to inefficiency and theft while consumers bear the burden. This is not a company on the brink of transformation; this is a monopoly stuck in a cycle of “partial progress and recurring failure”.
The PPP government’s response to this crisis has been one of deflection and political theatre. Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo’s recent expressions of “frustration” with GPL and promises of a “management shake-up” are nothing more than a smokescreen. For over two decades, successive PPP administrations have poured billions of taxpayer dollars into GPL without producing meaningful improvements. As one observer recently noted, “GPL’s dysfunction is not just a utility problem, it is a leadership problem and the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of the government”. It is the height of hypocrisy for a government that has been at the helm of GPL’s decline to now feign outrage and campaign on fixing the very problem it created.
There was, however, a flicker of hope that was quickly extinguished. Under the brief tenure of Minister David Patterson, who oversaw the sector during the coalition government, there was a noticeable effort to restore transparency and accountability. The Power Utility Upgrade Programme (PUUP), co-sponsored by the Inter-American Development Bank and the European Union, saw over USD $37 million invested to reduce electricity loss and improve the transmission and distribution systems. Progress was being made. But when the PPP returned to power, these efforts were apparently abandoned.
The public has reason to question whether the government’s interest in transparency was ever genuine. While Minister Patterson’s leadership saw the beginning of reforms, the PPP administration, under President Irfaan Ali, has peddled “deception” about GPL to cover up its mismanagement. The government failed to complete and publish vital annual reports for nearly a decade, fostering a deliberate lack of accountability. As a former minister noted, the failure to publish these reports from 2013 to 2023 is tantamount to “deliberately fostering a lack of transparency and accountability”. This lack of oversight has allowed the rot to continue unabated.
Last Night: The Nation Sweltered in Darkness
The human cost of this governance failure was on stark display last night as the nation endured a nationwide blackout lasting five excruciating hours. In the midst of El Niño, with temperatures soaring, GPL’s grid collapsed.
For most Guyanese, the night is a time of forced seclusion; doors and windows are locked tight for security, leaving homes airless and stifling. Without electricity, the humble fan, the only respite from the oppressive heat, became useless. Parents fanned their children through the night, trying in vain to soothe their cries as the heat became unbearable. The elderly, whose bodies are less able to regulate temperature, endured in silence, praying for the relief that never seemed to come. This was not an inconvenience; it was a nationwide act of cruelty perpetrated by a utility that has become a tool of state incompetence.
The Excuse Factory: Contractors, Weather, and Leniency
Instead of solutions, GPL and its political masters offer a litany of excuses. The company blames outages on “vehicular accidents and construction equipment colliding with transmission lines”. While damage by contractors like S. Joseph Transportation & Machinery Rentals and China Railway First Group is a real problem, it is a problem that requires robust enforcement and preventive measures, not an acceptance of the status quo. The PUC itself has cited “vehicular damage to infrastructure, global software updates, and the migration of skilled workers to the oil and gas sector” as excuses. At what point, one must ask, do these explanations become excuses? The PUC, the very body meant to enforce standards, has been complicit in this failure by repeatedly opting for “regulatory leniency” instead of imposing firm penalties. As one commentator put it, the PUC’s response to GPL’s failures is “not just disappointing, they are damning”.
Meanwhile, Guyanese continue to face the double burden of “estimated billing,” which leaves them with “unexpectedly large balances that place financial strain on both households and businesses”. They are paying more and more for less and less.
The situation is unsustainable. The gas-to-energy project remains a distant promise, but the reality on the ground is that GPL is “operating at 30 percent efficiency”. The people of Guyana deserve better than darkness, better than empty promises, and better than a government that treats its citizens with contempt. As the nation endures yet another sweltering night under the PPP’s watch, it is clear that the light at the end of the tunnel is not a solution, it is the headlamp of an excavator driving into another transmission line.
