Debts to suppliers reduced from $800M to $50M; GWI achieves financial stability - Baksh

Chief Executive Officer of the Guyana Water Incorporated Shaik Baksh said millions of dollars had been spent at the company under the previous administration. Now the company has finally achieved some level of financial stability and sustainability. He made these statements during a press briefing held on Friday.

“Importantly payment to suppliers which was about $800M prior to september 2020 is only now about $50M owing to suppliers, great achievement we feel, that’s what we call financial stability and sustainability,” Baksh said to the press. He said the company is also able to save up to $240M annually with the reduction in the number of employees at the company. It has decreased to 998 from 1320.

“We were able to identify the new organisation chart for each department and unit and over the last eighteen months, we were able to bring down the employment numbers to just under 1000.

GWI in 2021 began laying off employees because of high expenditure in employment costs. The utility company also further clarified that the "termination exercise only targeted 77 personnel, many of which were redundant positions. The remaining 223 departed the company's employ as a result of resignations and retirement."

The reduction Mr Baksh explained did not have any adverse effects on the performance of the company.

Meanwhile, millions of dollars in inventory has gone unaccounted by the Guyana Water Inc during the years 2017 and 2018 which was in the financial statements for the two years. According to CEO Baksh this points to poor inventory management by the previous management board.

“Poor inventory management, they could not account for the inventory in some areas and this was so large that it led to a qualified opinion by the auditors both in 2017 and 2018[...]also the customer debts, a lot of grey areas and what was the debt” Baksh said.

The utility company is looking to complete their financial statements for 2019 by September or October this year and 2020 and 2021.