A ROAD BACK IN TIME

May 31, 2010 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

---

History has a funny way of repeating itself. In 1976, Guyana was exploring a massive hydroelectric project in the Upper Mazaruni and hoping to use the power generated to establish an aluminum smelter.

A road was started to facilitate this project for which the financing was never achieved. In fact, the road project began even before the then government knew where it would get the money to build the hydropower station. There was talk about a multinational consortium to invest in the project. This got nowhere.

The Americans were wooed. The Americans had their concerns about Cubans hiding in our jungle and about refueling missions for Cuban troops en route to Angola, and were not prepared to put money into a project for which there were also concerns about the costs.

The Russians were wooed. They were not interested either. They had other things on their minds.

The government had a plan but no money and they were at their wits end as to how to get the money.

They never found the money and blamed the Venezuelans for vetoing the project. However, no one has ever produced the evidence to show that it was the Venezuelans that caused the World Bank to pull out.

But there is evidence to the contrary. There is evidence that the Venezuelans offered to finance the project and to purchase excess power from the hydropower station.

There is evidence that the Venezuelans were interested in a joint venture project. They believed that without their involvement, the project would not have been viable.

In December of 1976, Venezuela not only offered sponsorship to Guyana to participate in the OPEC Solidarity Fund but also pledged its assistance to finance the Upper Mazaruni Hydroelectric Project.

But there was a great deal of local suspicion over the Venezuelan offer. Just as how recently the PPP administration was annoyed when a group that it was reportedly negotiating with to build a hotel made a press release about the purported talks, so too was Burnham upset because the Venezuelans issued a press release about their offer to help build the Upper Mazaruni Hydroelectric Project.

Burnham was peeved about the political fallout that would result as a consequence of the disclosure that his government had been in talks with the Venezuelans over the project.

US intelligence sources believed that Burnham was concerned about criticisms from the PPP of a possible sellout, given the size of the project and consequently the extent of the Venezuelan assistance.

It was similar apprehensions, which many years later, railroaded a proposal for Guyana to source power from Venezuela’s Guri Dam.

Therefore, far from Venezuela standing in the way of the Upper Mazaruni Hydroelectric Project or for that matter any other project to supply power to Guyana, it was local political considerations that acted as a brake on that country‘s involvement.

In the end, it did not matter. The Upper Mazaruni Hydroelectric Project was too big for the political leaders of the time. They could have conceived the project but did not have the capability or know-how to bring this project into being.

They could not raise the money because they did not know how to raise the money. And they were so jumpy about help from neighbours that they did not know how to accept an offer.

The Americans could have helped them. But the leaders had aggravated the Americans through their close ties with the Cubans and specifically with their denials that they were facilitating the Cuban military.

The differences with the Americans however allowed the then government to claim that foreign powers were undermining its administration.

There was even a threat by Burnham himself to expel an unnamed First Secretary of a foreign embassy that was feeding negative reports overseas.

The Cubana Air Disaster also deeply affected relations with Guyana, moreso because Burnham was the one who had selected the students to go overseas and according to diplomatic sources, was personally pained by the deaths of the students.

He publicly rebuked the Americans but in private he was trying desperately to mend fences without having to lose face. In the end, he achieved neither. Nor did he get them on board the much vaunted hydropower project. Today, even the access road that he commenced has been overrun by the jungle.

Thirty four years onwards, the Bharrat Jagdeo administration is laying plans for the building of two hydropower plants. The first is a small plant with a high price tag. It is proposed for Amalia Falls and it is said will generate some 154 MWs of power.

A controversial contract has been signed for the construction of the access roads to the proposed hydropower site. There is a sponsor for the hydropower project but so far no financial closure has been achieved.

The PPP is making the same mistake that the PNC made, entering into a project for which financial closure is not certain.

It is biting off more than it can chew. I will not succeed in building a dam at Amalia Falls. All we will ever have is a high-cost road, which in time will, like the Upper Mazaruni Road Project, fall victim to the encroaching jungle.

---

---