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Engineer and former Minister of Public Infrastructure during A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) Government, Opposition Member of Parliament David Patterson, in an interview with this publication, said the Lamaha Embankment former ‘Old Railway Line’ “is a corridor of horror”.
The engineer said the former (APNU+AFC) government when they ascended to power in 2015, had enormous challenges with regards to several high-tension voltage lines suspended along the Lamaha corridor.” Patterson stated that “every time the wind blew, a car hit something that would trip the entire system and bring it down.” The engineer said the (APNU+AFC) government took the decision to move away from the dependence of those lines by redistributing the power supply to different locations.
Patterson noted, too, that the Peoples Progressive Civic Government has again not done anything about the suspended high-voltage lines since coming into office in 2020. Patterson added that even worse, “The PPP government has now turned the Lamaha Embankment, where the lines are suspended, into a parking lot where citizens daily traverse.”
The Member of Parliament explaining that the lines had been there since the 1950s with the old power plant said the PPP government never thought of removing it but rather added the Kingston Power Plant, then they built the Vreed-en-Hoop plant, which had similar challenges. He noted that “all the power that comes from Vreed-en-Hoop, which is 26 megawatts to the Kingston power plant, traverses the embankment.”
This, he said, is a danger to the public. The PPP government has opened up the area to vehicular traffic and citizens. The Member of Parliament believes that the government is in essence saying “People come sit here with all these high-tension transmission lines.” He said, “Robeson Benn, when he was Minister of Public Works, removed people because of the danger.” Several persons who had once squatted on the Lamaha Railway Embankment were in 2009 removed and resettled at Westminster on the West Bank of Demerara.
The then Chief Executive Officer of the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) Bharrat Dindyal had cited then that the 69 kv is very dangerous, a danger to vehicular traffic, and that the lines would be on an island, so they would be protected. Patterson said the PPP has now doubled down on it and made it a park. He added, “Whatever happens now, whether a high breeze, a car, or a tree branch hits, because they are so close and congested in the parking lot if a tree branch falls and hits one line it has a cascading effect on all of the seven high-voltage transmission lines suspended along that corridor.”
Patterson said, “The PPP has now made the system worse and a corridor of horror for the next five or six years.” This he attributes to the government and GPL’s incompetence at separating the lines. Patterson also said that he suspects the government is awaiting full operation of the gas-to-shore project. He explained the GPL’s incompetence at separating the lines, and Patterson said too that he rather suspects the government is awaiting full operation of the gas-to-shore project. He explained that “they (PPP) are hoping that when this holy grail project comes, they will shut down the entire system, so, therefore, they will just condemn us now to living with that corridor of horror for the next five-six years,” Patterson said.
According to Exxon Mobil’s Gas to Shore Manager, Friedrich Krispin, the expected completion ‘date’ is December 2024. When the process of integration into the Demerara Berbice Interconnected System (DBIS) will commence and be operable is anyone’s guess.
