THE Guyana Power and Light (GPL) company has acquired US$5M in key financing to improve its output of electricity.

This will enable the power company to get an additional 10 megawatts of electricity in the short term by next week, officials reported yesterday.

At the signing of the deal for the funds, top company representatives assured they were moving to improve the reliability of supply.

Chairman of the GPL Board of Directors, Mr. Adam Hedayat said that despite the many difficulties and challenges, the company will be a success, with the achievement of its key goal of customer satisfaction at the end of the day.

"The road has been full of challenges but I know that the management, the board and the shareholders are committed to making a success out of GPL and despite all the difficulties and challenges, I am sure that we will endure these challenges and deliver, with the key goal of creating customer satisfaction at the end of the day," he said.

Hedayat said that every customer should be satisfied with the services of GPL.

"...that is the commitment that the management, the board and the shareholders have for Guyana."

The US$5M is being made available with the closing yesterday of the third tranche of the investment by Americas and Caribbean Power Limited (AC Power) as a 50 per cent partner in GPL.

The signing of this third of four tranches was in the office of Prime Minister Sam Hinds.

Mr. Hinds, Hedayat and Director of AC Power, Mr. Andrew Aldridge signed the document.

The Prime Minister said he was pleased with this next step in the transaction with AC Power.

AC Power is to pay US$23.5M for its 50 per cent participation in GPL.

"We have arranged that the money will be paid in four tranches and we are going along that process (and) we made that arrangement so as to cushion the impact on tariffs," Mr. Hinds explained at the signing.

"We made the arrangement to bring money in a phased way so as to cushion the impact on the tariffs because once it was in the system it would have to be recognised and it would have to attract some interest," he said.

"So I am very pleased that we have taken this next step and I look towards next year to the completion of this process," he added.

Aldridge said the company was pleased to be associated with the Guyana Government in running the electricity utility.

This third tranche, he said, was again a signal of AC Power's ongoing commitment towards the development of GPL.

He admitted that AC Power knew of the "challenges involved" in developing GPL when it got into this transaction.

He said the injection of the third tranche of equity "will go a long way" to helping the company improve its power development programme which includes the commission of about 10 megawatts capacity to boost security of supply of electricity in Demerara and Berbice where there have been some problems with the reliability of supply.

GPL Chief Executive Officer, Mr. John Lynn confirmed that the GPL Board at a regular meeting yesterday, approved the short-term acquisition of 10 megawatts of additional capacity.

He said this will help to improve the reliability of power supply in the Berbice areas and additional units will be installed in Georgetown and other parts of Demerara.

Lynn said the order for the 10 megawatts equipment will be out this week and delivery is expected by next week.

He also assured that GPL was moving towards a position where it can satisfy its customers with an efficient and uninterrupted supply of electricity.

GPL was working very hard to make the necessary improvements that customers were demanding, he said.

In this regard, the company has embarked on a programme to have a new generating, distribution and transmission system, he said.