There is obviously something wrong here

Apr 04, 2010 Sports

Dear Editor,
I read with great surprise that a US-based company Synergy Holdings apparently headed by a Guyanese Mr. Fip Motilall was awarded a US$15 million to build the access road to Amaila Falls. This came as a surprise.
I was made to understand all along that Synergy was in the energy business and was awarded the contract to build Amaila Falls Hydro, but now it seems that this company can also build roads. Now it is possible that large construction companies like Bechtel can build anything. They have the financial resources, expertise and equipment to do so.
Right here in Guyana, construction companies do civil construction, D&I, Sea Defence and roads etc. But it is odd that a US-based energy company can win a contract over the locals to build roads in the interior of Guyana and why would they want to waste their time building “bush” roads and clearing trees in the forest for US$15 million, when they have the big contract for hundreds of millions of US dollars for the Hydro in their pocket already.
This prompted me to do an internet scan of the company since the award of the road building and tree clearing contract sounded so out of place.
To begin with, Synergy as far as I know, does not operate in Guyana with offices, personnel, equipment, etc so the very fact of being awarded a contract would raise many questions in people’s minds about this whole thing.
This award of US$15 million falls about US$10 million short of what the professional engineer’s estimate for the project to cost. But that is a separate suspicion.
On the Website, page 1, the first thing that strikes the reader is a photo of horses grazing peacefully at a place called Country Farm Estates, and the names of other estates in a section called “Land Development”.
In the section called Renewable Energy which takes up half the space, there is mention of “Hydro Power” “Biomass” and “Wind Power” – less prominently displayed.
Synergy notes that it is “devoted to two distinct but related types of development – Land and Energy.”
On Land development it boasts that “it has spent time to carefully evaluate and understand the zoning rules of the various municipalities and counties where a potential development is considered,” and further “typically our properties double or triple in price within 1-3 years from the date of the first sale” and finally “thank you for considering one of our properties as your best investment”, and “browse through the properties shown here and contact us by e-mail”.
So much for the Land Development department Synergy. Many estates, many properties and horses grazing peacefully.
In its “Energy” department, Synergy states that it has been installing stand alone renewable energy systems using both solar and wind technology since 1998 and that it “strategically focuses exclusively on renewable energy for residential and commercial applications”.
A large part of its website propaganda is allotted to the 150MW Amaila Falls Hydro which Synergy boasts that “it is currently developing”.
It describes how a hydropower system works with various options for turbines, pumps and water wheels. The Jack Rabbit option, we are advised, can generate power from a stream “to a massive output of 100 watts, so daily output averages 1.5-2.4 kilowatt hours depending on your site.” A bright bulb burns 100 watts.
So, this in a nutshell is Synergy, a company that has a contract to build a 150 megawatt hydro and a new contract to upgrade 85 km of roadway and design and construct 110 km of new roads in a “bush” environment and to clear the roads for a transmission line. This work involves four million square meters of tree clearing.
As far as anyone can tell, this company has no offices in Guyana, no engineering and management staff, no bulldozers, trucks and heavy equipment and no experience and expertise in neither building hydro nor roads of any kind. This is a basic requirement for anybody to be awarded a contract and there is obviously something wrong here.
This contract needs to be re-examined carefully and urgently.
Synergy appears to be a small outfit hustling in the USA to make a living (nothing wrong with that) but to be granted huge multi-million US dollar contracts to build what they have never built or seem incapable of building is a monumental disaster in the making.
We are all grateful for the information posted by Synergy on its website, especially the picture of the horses grazing because that more than anything also arouses one’s interest in this outfit called “Synergy”.
Ovid Hinds

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