Six Years and Billions in Oil Revenue, Yet Guyana Struggles for Reliable Power- APNU

By Mark DaCosta- Despite an unprecedented oil windfall and six years in office, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government has failed to deliver what remains one of the most basic expectations of a modern economy: a reliable electricity supply, the second-largest parliamentary opposition says.

The A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), which holds 12 of the Opposition’s 29 parliamentary seats, argues that the Government had ample warning that Guyana’s rapidly expanding oil-driven economy would place unprecedented pressure on the national power grid. Yet, it contends, the administration failed to put in place a coherent long-term strategy connecting generation, transmission and distribution to the country’s accelerating economic growth.

The result, the APNU argues, is a glaring contradiction at the heart of Guyana’s oil boom: a country generating billions of dollars in petroleum revenues but still struggling to keep the lights on.