At last, power deal signed
The Guyana Power and Light Company (GPL) was finally born last night at a signing ceremony that only briefly interrupted a lavish cocktail party, replete with an ice sculpture of the GPL logo, to celebrate the new company's launching at Le Meridien Pegasus Hotel. The ceremony was delayed somewhat because of the reams of documents that needed to be initialled prior to the official signatures. Signing on behalf of the government was Prime Minister Samuel Hinds and for the investors Andrew Aldridge for CDC and John Lynn of ESBI. It was announced at the ceremony that the new board members of GPL will be Ronald Alli, chairman of the old GEC, Winston Brassington, Head of the Privatization Unit, Aldridge, manager of power at CDC, Lynn, manager of utility investments at ESBI and Adam Hedayat formerly with Canada's Sask Power which pulled out of the agreement to acquire 50% of GEC last year. The Prime Minister in brief remarks thanked all the participants in what had been a long and arduous journey to find a suitable investor and a working arrangement for the troubled utility. Earlier in the day, Dr Roger Luncheon, Head of the Presidential Secretariat at his weekly press conference announced that Cabinet had approved the appointment of Roshan Habibullah as the chairman of the board of the Guyana Electricity Company, essentially a paper company, which was formed to keep ownership of certain generators donated by the Japanese government. Other appointees to the board of the holding company include Deochand Narain, Edgar Heyliger, Mursaline Sankar and Maxine Alexander Nestor. 
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