By IPS Correspondents
GEORGETOWN, May 2 1996 (IPS)

It is 11:30 p.m. on Saturday in this South American republic. Thousands of boxing fans are sitting around their television sets waiting for the feature presentation to be pirated from U.S. satellites when suddenly, and without any warning the entire city is plunged into darkness.

Cries of ‘not again’ echo in many households. Machines stop spinning in factories, other activities will once again come to a standstill as this heralds the onset of some 17 hours electricity outage as the state-run Guyana Electricity Corporation (GEC) experiences one of its regular mechanical failures. The shutdown which has become an almost everyday occurrence will paralyse the entire capital and areas stretching some 80 kilometres along the coast and beyond before engineers manage to get the system up and working again. Government’s call for patience in the face of these occurrences is beginning to fall on deaf ears as people are starting to believe that unless the system is revamped nothing will change.

Meanwhile, frustrated investors wring their hands in despair wondering when it will all end and people, not at home or at the worksite to unplug electronic equipment when these blackouts occur say they constantly worry about irreparable damage to equipment.

Abnormally high voltage surges after an outage resulted in the destruction of three houses in northern Georgetown earlier this year.

To many Guyanese, life in the dark has been the norm since 1978 when the 30-year-old power station in the city began showing signs of aging.

Despite the contribution of some 70 million U.S. dollars from the Inter American Development Bank (IDB) and other funds from the government to ensure a reliable power supply the situation has not changed much.

The money spent on keeping the “dead alive” could have been better used on new equipment and improving transmission and distribution systems, says one critic.

One of the campaign promises of the Cheddi Jagan administration during the 1992 election campaign was that all blackouts would come to an end, but critics say that this government has made the same mistake as its predecessors in that it has been trying to “patch up” the system when what is really needed is an entirely new system.

Until last month the government had strongly resisted domestic and international calls for privatisation of the system. Instead it has publicly accepted the advice from trusted party advisors, including former Corporation Chairman Raymond Gaskin that the company could be profitably run if only the right management could be found, corruption weeded out and an attitudinal change among workers achieved.

But with an anti-corruption campaign in full swing and with the replacement of top management in recent times, the Guyanese people are continuing to experience daily power outages of up to eight hours.

So the government seems to have finally decided to give in to urgings from private investors and multilateral lending agencies such as the International Monetary Fund and explore the possibility of selling off the utility company.

Prime Minister Sam Hinds says government is ready to consider a good offer. Florida Light and Power Company and Leucadia of Salt Lake City, Utah are among a number of companies lining up to take the company off the hands of the government.

Critics say they hope government will act quickly as public outcry for privatisation has become more forceful in the last few months.

The privately-owned Stabroek News, taking what some observers have called a cynical approach, has called for the company to be sold for one dollar, while former U.S. president Jimmy Carter on a recent visit to the country told the government that if quick action is not taken to assure a regular supply of electricity, investors will begin to put their money elsewhere.

Between 1988 and 1993 Guyana attracted almost two billion U.S. dollars worth of investments, mainly in the mining and timber industries.

But last year, overseas investments dropped to a paltry 53 million dollars, garnering for the government a spate of criticism from opposition members.

“Until government stops giving mixed signals about its approach to foreign investment and until it provides a new investment code, the situation will be the same,” says Kenneth King, a former Trade Minister in the previous Peoples National Congress (PNC) government.

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