GWI refuses to pay for PPP Campaign billboards; Advertising agency left counting losses

A city advertising agency may be forced to count its losses as the Guyana Water Incorporated has refused to pay close to $7 Million for 20 billboards that were reportedly ordered by officials of the People’s Progressive Party for the just concluded elections.

A senior official of GWI confirmed that the advertiser approached the agency a few months ago seeking text and photographs for a government project that had reportedly been approved by the former Minister of Housing and Water.

The text and photographs of water development projects were delivered to the advertiser but staff at GWI were left shocked when they noticed the same photographs and texts on several billboards across the country, but with the “Vote PPP Civic” slogan attached to them.

GWI staffers were left even more confused when the water agency received invoices totaling just over $6 Million from the advertiser for the billboards that were completed and erected for the PPP Civic’s campaign.

The Procurement Officer at GWI made the decision against paying the bill because the agency did not order any billboards and would not have ordered billboards for any political party.

The advertising agency Impressions Advertising, has been pressing GWI for the payments and even submitted artwork with the GWI logo as evidence of the work being done for GWI and not the PPP.

However, GWI staffers had already snapped photographs of some of the 20 billboards that were erected across the country with their artwork and the PPP Civic logo.

When contacted, the Managing Director of Impressions Advertising, Neil Sooklall told News Source that he did billboards for GWI and should be paid for them.

He said he has no clue how the artwork that his company got from GWI ended up on billboards also made by his company with the PPP logo.

Sooklall said “someone probably stick the PPP logo on there”.