Dear Editor,
I wish to bring to the urgent attention of the subject minister and the public the deteriorating state of the Internal Audit Department at the Guyana Power & Light Inc. (GPL), a situation that has long reached a level where it threatens the integrity, efficiency, and financial stability of the company. Despite a visibly alarming staff turnover rate, neither Executive Management nor the Human Resources Department appears to have taken notice—or worse, they have chosen to ignore the problem. It is the view of many staff who have either requested transfers from this department or have left entirely that the latter is indeed the case.
Within the past year alone, the department has seen the departure of three senior managers and two junior managers. Junior positions remain perpetually vacant because staff do not stay. New hires have resigned in less than a day. The department is trapped in a cycle of constant recruitment and training, with no opportunity to build a seasoned, stable team capable of executing audits for a company of GPL’s size and national importance. This is not normal attrition; this is systemic failure.
Editor, in a company such as GPL—where operational reliability, financial stewardship, and public trust are paramount—the role of an effective Internal Audit Department cannot be overstated. Energy utilities operate complex systems involving procurement, fuel management, generation, transmission, distribution, revenue collection, and regulatory compliance. Each of these areas carries significant financial exposure and operational risk. A properly functioning audit department ensures that internal controls are robust, that public funds are safeguarded, that procurement processes are transparent, and that inefficiencies or irregularities are detected early before they escalate into costly failures. Without a competent audit function, GPL becomes vulnerable to fraud, mismanagement, inflated contracts, technical losses, revenue leakages, and regulatory breaches—any of which can destabilize the company and directly impact national energy security. The audit department is therefore not merely an administrative unit; it is a critical pillar of GPL’s governance framework and a frontline defence against systemic risk.
The concerns raised by staff point consistently to the management style of the current Director of Internal Audit at the organization. Additionally, staff have reported a troubling pattern in which, after belittling or speaking disrespectfully to employees, the Director dismisses this behaviour as a “joke.” Employees have made it clear that they do not find these interactions humorous, nor do they consider them appropriate for a professional environment.
Further, many of the Director’s internally-created rules are described by staff as arbitrary, inconsistent, and rooted more in personal distrust and insecurity than in any recognised audit standard or operational best practice. These rules have not improved efficiency; instead, they have hindered workflow, created confusion, and reinforced an atmosphere of fear and instability. Such practices are incompatible with the leadership required to manage an Internal Audit Department in a major public corporation.