Darkness Without Accountability: Guyana’s Power Crisis and the Price of Delay.

Darkness Without Accountability: Guyana’s Power Crisis and the Price of Delay.

OPINION BY: Staff Writer October 2026

Madagascar’s government removed an energy minister and later dissolved its cabinet when electricity and water failures ignited unrest. In Guyana, by contrast, the public has endured recurring blackouts while the Gas-to-Energy promise of cheaper, more reliable power has slipped years beyond its original deadline—and the national response has been more spending, more assurances, and still no clear personal accountability.

Madagascar’s electricity crisis offers a sobering lesson for Guyana: when a government cannot guarantee the most basic utility service, public anger does not remain confined to a technical explanation, a press release, or another promise of works to come.

There, persistent blackouts and water shortages sparked youth-led demonstrations. The government imposed curfews, dismissed its Energy Minister, and then dissolved the cabinet as the crisis deepened. Those steps did not solve the structural failures overnight, but they conveyed an essential principle: when essential services collapse, somebody in authority must answer. 

Guyana’s situation is different in circumstance, but the central question is uncomfortably similar: who is accountable when citizens are left in darkness almost daily?

The Wales Gas-to-Energy project was sold as the answer—a 300-megawatt development expected to improve reliability and support a 50 percent reduction in electricity tariffs. It was initially expected to deliver by the end of 2024. Yet the official schedule now places first power only at the end of 2026, with full combined-cycle operation projected for June 2027.

So Guyanese have not received the promised 50 percent reduction in electricity bills. Instead, many consumers are effectively experiencing what might be called a  100 percent reduction in electricity supply whenever their homes, shops, offices, equipment and livelihoods are cut off by outages.

That is not merely an inconvenience. It is lost production, spoiled food, damaged appliances, interrupted learning, disrupted health care, insecurity, unbearable heat, and mounting costs for every household and business compelled to purchase fuel, generators, batteries, inverters or other alternatives.

From deadline to delay

The issue is not whether a major power project can face technical challenges. It is whether a government that repeatedly advertised a 2024 delivery date can now treat a two-and-a-half-year delay as an ordinary adjustment—without a transparent accounting of responsibility, cost consequences, contractual remedies, or consequences for failures in project management.

Government statements now indicate that the initial gas turbine should be available by the end of 2026, while the full system is expected only in 2027. Moreover, the government has clarified that the long-promised 50 percent tariff reduction is tied to attaining at least 228 megawatts of GtE supply—not the limited initial power expected at year-end.

The public deserves direct answers:

⇒ Who approved the original timetable, and what evidence supported it?

⇒  What precisely caused the project to miss its 2024 delivery target?

⇒ What penalties, if any, have been imposed on contractors or project managers?

⇒ What additional costs—direct and indirect—has Guyana borne because reliable GtE capacity was not delivered on time?

⇒ On what published date can households and businesses reasonably expect the advertised 50 percent tariff reduction?

Until those questions are answered in documents, not slogans, Guyanese are being asked to bear the consequences of a project over which they had no control.

Another US$800 million

President Irfaan Ali has said the next six months will be critical, pointing to mandatory maintenance, generation overhauls, limited reserve capacity, and aged transmission and distribution infrastructure. He has also stated that GPL estimates close to US$800 million will be needed over five years to upgrade the transmission and distribution network alone.

That announcement should not pass without rigorous public scrutiny.

US$800 million is not a casual estimate. It is an enormous prospective public commitment—particularly when the country is already financing an overdue flagship energy project and citizens remain exposed to unreliable service. Yet the public has not been presented with a granular, independently reviewable scope showing how much is allocated to substations, feeders, transformers, dispatch systems, transmission lines, loss reduction, storage, maintenance, consultants, procurement, contingency, and project supervision.

Guyanese should not be asked to accept a US$800 million figure on faith while enduring daily shutdowns. If the grid’s deficiencies are sufficiently grave to require that scale of spending, then GPL and the Government must publish the engineering assessment, the project list, implementation timetable, procurement pathway, financing sources, performance indicators, and the names of those responsible for delivery.

The InterEnergy question

The InterEnergy Group consultancy raises an even more pressing issue. Government has publicly defended a proposed two-year arrangement with the Dominican Republic-based company at approximately US $15.6 million – in a no bid contract, describing its purpose as supervising projects, modernizing GPL’s management systems, overhauling the utility’s operations, and improving reliability and efficiency.

But that mandate demands measurable results—not broad language.

If customers continue to experience near-daily interruptions, the public is entitled to know:

⇒ What exact deliverables has InterEnergy been contracted to produce?

⇒ What reliability targets, outage-reduction benchmarks and reporting requirements apply?

⇒ Who measures performance, and will the results be published monthly?

⇒ What part of the US$15 million is for technical supervision, management reform, training, systems upgrades, or other work?

⇒ If the consultancy is meant to strengthen reliability, why has GPL not publicly set out its outage data, failure analysis, corrective-action program, and milestones for improvement?

A consultant cannot be paid millions merely to narrate a crisis that citizens experience every day. Its value must be demonstrated in a functioning system: fewer feeder trips, faster restoration, better reserve capacity, maintained generators, credible planning, and transparent reporting.

A question of leadership

The President’s stated plan is to stabilize the supply over six months through generation overhauls, additional capacity at critical points, and completion of the Berbice-Demerara interconnection.  Those may be necessary interventions. But necessity does not erase the fact that Guyana is being asked to endure another period of uncertainty after years of assurances that GtE would make power cheaper, cleaner and more dependable.

The country cannot build a manufacturing economy, attract energy-intensive investment, protect small businesses, or ask citizens to embrace a modernizing future while electricity remains a daily gamble.

Madagascar showed what happens when service failure becomes a national political crisis. Guyana should not wait for similar public desperation before embracing the standards that ought already to apply: full disclosure, independent oversight, enforceable timelines, contract accountability, named responsibility, and consequences when promises fail.

No nation becomes an energy powerhouse by issuing explanations during blackouts.

It becomes one by delivering power—reliably, affordably, and on time.