Dindyal is back at GPL

– years after board criticised his leadership
– to serve as management consultant

Six years after a Guyana Power and Light (GPL) Board moved a ‘no-confidence motion’ against him, Bharat Dindyal is back at the power company but this time as a Management Consultant.

Dindyal served as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GPL for a number of years but in 2014, the Chairman of the then Board of Directors, Winston Brassington, in a letter to the then Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, indicated that the Board did not support a renewal of his contract due to his poor management style.
“The CEO style of management has been autocratic and ad-hoc leading at times to an almost dysfunctional level of organization. Technical personnel are almost self-directed by the CEO with line managers typically over-ridden, ignored, or marginalized,” Brassington had said of Dindyal.

The former GPL CEO was accused of creating an environment where subordinates relied on instructions from him rather than their senior managers. “Line Managers feel that they are support rather than management and so simply leave the CEO to manage,” Brassington had said noting that there were cases in which some managers opted to resign.

The Brassington-led Board had also accused Dindyal of being dishonest – an action, which it said resulted in the then Deputy Chief Executive Officer (DCEO) tendering his resignation. Further, he was accused of failing to carry out the instructions of the Board.

“In general, the CEO is trained as an Engineer and not as a Manager. As such, the CEO has practiced management based on his experience in the organization, most GEC. While this has imbued the CEO with a good knowledge of the historical technical side of the business, he has not sought to ensure that there are clear structures for planning, designing, organizing, and execution. The CEO style is more one of operator rather than Manager,” the Board told the then Prime Minister.
It was also keen on noting that while GPL had seen substantial sums invested within an eight-year period, modern management techniques such as planning, project management, and a team approach, were generally absent. “There is also a bias in favour of technical rather than managerial. With over 1000 GPL employees, and most of these being in the technical area, a focus on technical rather than managerial, will tend to produce an organization driven based on doing rather than based on planning and management,” the Board had explained.

It was also under Dindyal’s stewardship that the country experienced widespread power outages despite substantial investments.
“In specific terms, GPL mostly failed to achieve its technical targets for blackouts,” the Board reported while adding that the company also failed to adopt international best practice in terms of technical operations.

While the power company had undertaken a number of major projects under the watch of Dindyal, such as pre-paid metering, Canefield expansion, Vreed-en-Hoop project, and upgrades to transmission systems, in all most all of the cases, there were no project plans prepared.

“The result has been the following: cost overruns. The most glaring one has been the Vreed-en-Hoop Plant but the Infrastructure Development Plan (IDP) also had considerable overruns. Time delays – longer execution times to complete and lack of clarity as to the expected outputs or results,” the Board complained.
Further, GPL was said to have experienced poor asset management and maintenance as well as poor customer service with Dindyal at its helm.
Dindyal was first hired by GPL in 2003 as Chief Operations Officer and was subsequently promoted to CEO in 2006. In all most all of his evaluations done in 2014, Dindyal scored extremely low points.

Notwithstanding his track record, he was returned as Management Consultant. The announcement was made on Monday, and he is expected to meet with the various departments within GPL during the course of the week.