Last Updated on Saturday, 20 July 2024, 8:21 by Writer
Leader of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), Aubrey Norton said if his party wins next year’s general and regional elections, efforts would be made to ensure the state-owned electricity and water companies become profitable and weaned off government subsidies.
“I do believe if GPL (Guyana Power and Light) is properly managed, then we can remove the subsidy. Our approach will be to work towards ensuring those entities are economically viable. While you subsidise them as you move them to viability, your focus has to be on making them economically viable,” he said in response to Demerara Waves Online News on whether a PNCR-led government would scrap the subsidies to the power and water companies.
Official GPL figures show that the cost to produce one kilowatt per hour of power has moved from 9 US cents in 2020 to 15 percent in 2024, marking a 75 percent increase. Fuel cost has increased from US$75.13 million in 2020 to more than US$228 million in 2024.
The incumbent People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC) administration has reduced fuel taxes at the pump to zero, and has been subsidising the cost of fuel that GPL purchases t0 generate electricity as well as the Guyana Water Incorporated’s (GWI’s) electricity bills. Government said those subsidies were being provided to avoid consumers from paying the market rates for those services, as a means of keeping the cost of living in check.
Mr Norton made it clear that the subsidies would continue while a new government maps out a strategy to turn around the fortunes of those two utilities. “Cognisant of the fact that there is need for subsidies at this point because you’re taking over institutions that were mismanaged, we will have to have the subsidies and a clear plan to move it from being subsidised to being financially viable,” he said.
While state entities sometimes receive hefty financial support from governments, Mr Norton remarked that the aim is to always “make them economically viable so that they don’t become a burden on the nation’s resources.”
The PNCR Leader said individual customers would receive water and electricity subsidies after studies to determine the basis for subsidies “I’m saying to you everything we do will be data driven so we anticipate there will be surveys and means test and once we identify their eligibility in keeping with the criteria, those to be maintained will be maintained, those to be removed will be removed but in addition, there are other vulnerable groups we intend to subsidise and help,” he said. The vulnerable, he said, include child and adult beggars.
