and other municipal facilities.However

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By Leonard GildarieAs the Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL) moves to recoup some $611M for electricity provided to the Mayor and City Councillors of Georgetown (M&CC), a key meeting to resolve the issue yesterday ended with no progress made.GPL had threatened to cut power to a number of prominent facilities under management of M&CC if no arrangements for the payments were made by the end of yesterday.GPL contends that while it would effect disconnections it would ignore street lights in the interest of security. The disconnection hammer may fall on City Hall, the abattoir, the municipal markets, and other municipal facilities.However, according to Mayor of Georgetown, Hamilton Green, there is more to the story than is being told.M&CC records are showing that GPL owes it almost $700M in taxes and interest, the Mayor said yesterday.But GPL says that its indebtedness is no more than $250 million.“Some of that money that GPL says we owe them include charges for street lights that are not even functioning,” Mayor Green said.Yesterday, a meeting between M&CC and GPL failed to meet any compromise and the Mayor said that he is preparing to write Prime Minister, Sam Hinds, and GPL’s Chief Executive Officer, Bharat Dindyal on the matter.“I was hoping that we could have met on middle grounds but obviously that did not happen.”Calls to GPL yesterday failed to determine what the next step in the standoff would be as officials were tightlipped.In a letter Wednesday, GPL warned M&CC that it had up to yesterday to make payment arrangements for almost $611M owed in electricity costs or face disconnections and legal proceedings.According to GPL, the massive amount is what M&CC owes as at August 31, 2009. The last amount paid was $7M on October 17, 2008.Failure to make the arrangements will result in the immediate disconnection of electricity supplies at all M&CC locations “without further notice” with the institution of legal proceedings, GPL wrote to City Hall in a letter dated November 11, 2009.Kaieteur News was told that GPL was not contemplating disconnecting the power to the city’s street lights for obvious security reasons.GPL, in a letter dated October 21, and addressed to the Town Clerk (Ag), said that “this extreme level of tardiness in meeting your obligations to GPL has adverse impact on our operations. Your level of indebtedness is unprecedented and the fact that absolutely no payment has been made for over two years indicate that there is no effort to pay GPL and/or reduce the scale of the problem.”GPL said that repeated efforts in the past to exchange cheques to clear outstanding rates and taxes have been frustrated by City Hall.“We urge again that this be done. If arrangements are not made to settle a reasonable portion of the outstanding arrears within 14 working days from the date of this letter, we will have no alternative but to disconnect your electricity supply.”In a follow-up letter dated November 11, GPL said that no payments had been received despite the previous letter.“You are hereby informed that if a payment arrangement to settle the indebtedness is not entered into on or before 13th November, 2009 (Friday), the GPL will disconnect the electricity supply at all of the Georgetown Mayor and City Council’s locations without further notice and institute legal proceedings.”M&CC has been facing a serious financial situation for some time now with contractors unpaid and government being forced to step in time and again to advance its share of taxes to the council.