ABSTRACT
Ownership by private Colombian investors characterized a second type of utility. In tine capital functioned the largest and most prominent of these, the Bogota Light and Power Company, which, because of its excellent management by the Samper family, was the richest and most profitable utility in Colombia until the mid-1930s when the national and municipal governments allowed its immense potential to be wasted. In the provinces, the most successful private utility was the Bucaramanga Electric Company under careful administration by the Paillie family, but here again mistaken policies of the provincial and national governments threatened its great promise. In the countryside electricity was virtually unknown except for small, isolated factories; of these, the Industrial Corporation of Garzon was a good example, but it too later set precedents for perverting the nature and purposes of state involvement.
