– Says power ship owners refused fuel, “that’s why we still having blackouts”
During Friday night’s sitting of the National Assembly, former Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson told the House that he simply cannot support the Oil Pollution Prevention, Preparedness, Response and Responsibility Bill in its current form. He suggested that the bill be sent to a special select committee where it can be strengthened and made fit for purpose.
While Patterson did not make any suggestions as to what are the components of the bill that can benefit from a strengthening process, he told the House of a troubling state of affairs that contributes to the steady blackout plaguing Guyana.
Patterson said that the same government registering its support for environmental protection before that National Assembly, insists on using a company that displays flagrant disregard for the environment. According to Patterson, the company supplies fuel to Guyana Power and Light (GPL) that is so dirty, it damaged several plants owned by that state agency.
Patterson then opted to taunt Prime Minister Mark Phillps who was listening to his presentation. The Member of Parliament asked the Prime Minister to challenge him to name the principals of the company that continues to undermine the integrity of key pieces of machinery with its dirty fuel.
Prime Minister Phillips did not take the bait. And so, Patterson continued by stressing again, “the fuel is so poor and so dirty the plants in Kingston are down, with the engineers saying that they have never received such dirty fuel… all they are being told is to buy new injectors.”
Further, Patterson alleged that the owners of the power ship have refused the fuel because it is so dirty. He said that this has pushed the ship owners to say, “We don’t want y’all dirty fuel, we want natural gas.”
Off the floor, Patterson told Guyana Standard that in the meantime, the ship is using fuel procured out of Suriname “that’s why we still have power outages.” He did not divulge the names of the owners of company supplying dirty fuel. But said, a cricketer and a medical doctor are involved.
When Prime Minister Phillips took the floor of the National Assembly, as the last speaker to the bill, he did not respond to any of the allegations made by Patterson or any other opposition member. Phillips told the House that it would be a waste of time to do so. The bill was passed when the government voted yes. There were too few opposition members in the House to even register their ‘no’ when the Speaker Manzoor Nadir put the question to the floor.
