Power Outage Crisis
Statement by Political Leader of the People's Action Movement Lindsay Grant
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Lindsay Grant
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Fellow Citizens,
I sympathize with the community at large who now suffer from the lack of electrical power and who on a daily basis are the recipients of load shedding for hours. The inevitable has happened.
We have constantly and consistently warned the public about the prototype generators that were purchased for over $30 million and were no good. Now we are hurting because of the irresponsible spending of taxpayer’s money on faulty generators.
For the mistake of the government led by Denzil Douglas we the taxpayers now have to pay. We have to pay because we are left without a constant supply of a basic necessity in addition to the fact that significant sums of our taxpaying dollars now have to be spent to right the wrong.
The recent catastrophe at the Power Generation plant resulting in extensive damage to the two Mirrlees Generators is another example of Governmental Incompetence and the absence of the core principles of Good Governance.
We have argued for years that the taxpayers of this country have been shafted by the government, for an expenditure of 30 million dollars on the procurement of two distinctly different Prototype Generators, representing 6 million dollars more than the second highest bid.
We the taxpayers of this country must agree, that no reliable service has been provided to us as consumers by the said Generators since being commissioned in 1999
You and I as taxpayers of this country as of September 2004 have been burdened with a further expenditure of over $571 thousand dollars per month for the rental of generators from Barbados and the management of the Needsmust power plant by a foreign entity. MAN B & W Ltd. This is a travesty especially when we have never in our history had so many qualified engineers.
Do you recall that just before the 2004 general election we had the same electricity problems; we got $500 and a promise of a Commission of Inquiry by Denzil Douglas. We are still waiting on the Commission of Inquiry.
Today the same Generators for which you and I have suffered huge financial burdens through procurement, maintenance and performance, have plunged us once again into the bottomless abyss of financial hardship, social and economic distress at a moment in time when our Nation is the most indebted Nation in the world per capita.
It is quite obvious to me that the Government is complicit and cannot and will not exercise Good Governance in providing or seeking remedies in this matter.
As citizens of this Nation feeling the adverse effects in a myriad of ways I urge you to demand that our Government conducts itself with transparency and integrity and further demand that the Government commissions a full Public Inquiry into this matter for the good of all as promised by Prime Minister Douglas just before the last election.
As a citizen of this fair land of ours, I call on you to recognize that we cannot wake each morning and set about doing the same things again and again and expect that change will take place.
As Leader of the Peoples Action Movement I assure you that I will restore Good Governance to our Federation.
I will guarantee that the financial and legal remedies are achieved and that persons are held to account for their role in this Electricity fiasco within six months of my Government taking office.
I will assure you that we will return to the reliable supply of electricity that we have come to expect and enjoy during the PAM/NRP administration between 1980 and 1995.
What can we do for starters? I have said for years over and over that a generator sits down at La Valley corroding away with constant attack by sea blast, paid for by the taxpayers of this country while we suffer from an unreliable supply of electricity for years. At a press conference last week the Prime minister when questioned about this generator seemed perplexed and did not know. Someone needs to go down to La Valley and find the generator which I see everyday, get it commissioned and put it in the national grid to alleviate part of the difficulties we are experiencing. I dare say that if this were done sometime ago we may not have been in this situation.
You need a government that is proactive not reactive, I therefore urge you to seek change, embrace change and expect change and I promise you permanent, real and lasting change that will add value to the lives of us all.
