Jagdeo’s latest secret deal…Land three times the size of Barbados committed to ANSA McAL

Feb 24, 2012 News

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In an agreement reminiscent of the secret US$138M airport deal with a Chinese company in Jamaica, the former administration under President Bharrat Jagdeo, in September, signed yet another one…this time for the building of ethanol production plant.
Yesterday, the Trinidad Guardian announced the agreement which was signed since September 30th, 2011, but which has not been made public to date by the Guyana Government. It is not dissimilar to another major deal signed last year with a China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) in Jamaica. The deal only came to light after a newspaper report in Jamaica was published.
According to a press statement yesterday from ANSA McAL, on Friday September 30, 2011 a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between the Guyana Government and the Trinidad-based Trading Limited, for the establishment of an ethanol production project.
The statement said that the agro-energy industrial project will be built on 110,000 (approx. 425 square miles) hectares of virgin land. The island of Barbados is 166 square miles.
“In conjunction with the Government of Guyana, ANSA McAL is currently conducting an in-depth feasibility study, which includes infrastructure and development works; plant and equipment and rolling stock. This ethanol plant is projected to have a capacity to process up to 2,000,000 tons of sugarcane per year and produce up to 40 million gallons (nameplate capacity) of ethanol per year.”
Partner
The MOU was signed by Dr. Roger Luncheon, Head of the Presidential Secretariat; Desmond Mohamed, former Chief Executive Officer of Guyana Office for Investment (GO-Invest) and Anthony N. Sabga III, Business Development Executive, ANSA McAL Group of Companies. The signing was witnessed by former Agriculture Minister, Robert Persaud; Aneal Maharaj, Group Finance Director, ANSA McAL and Beverley Harper, Managing Director of ANSA McAL Trading Guyana.
“As a strategy for economic development, the Government of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana has adopted a policy to foster the development of economic activities in Guyana in an efficient, environmentally safe and sustainable manner.”
The statement did not immediate say yesterday whether Guyana will be investing in the project. But in addition to the 110,000 hectares of virgin land, the conglomerate, which has several holdings in Guyana, stressed that this country will “partner” with them.
“As a result, the Government of Guyana and a subsidiary of the ANSA McAL Group of Companies, a regional conglomerate, has agreed to partner to establish a world scale bio-fuel project.”
ANSA McAL said that it is expected that through the synergies of the Guyana Government and the ANSA McAL Group, the people of Guyana will benefit through the generation of entrepreneurial service industries, resultant employment and wealth creation for nationals of Guyana.
It will also grant an “opportunity for Guyana to become the regional leader in the development of regional policies, standards and frameworks for utilization of alternative fuels, with the potential of reducing the region’s dependence on fossil fuels. The proposed ethanol project will be well positioned to successfully become a low-cost, globally competitive provider of ethanol to international and regional markets.”
Questionable
There are several projects sealed by the former government under Jagdeo, which are being questioned not only in the manner that they were awarded but with the staggering amounts involved.
This is in addition to the fact that the deals were only made known to the Guyanese public after the agreements would have been signed. Details of many of the projects are still vague.
Some of the questionable projects include the controversial Amaila Falls hydro and its related road project, the Marriott Hotel planned for Kingston and the Specialty Hospital for Turkeyen, whose ownerships and details are also opaque.
Regarding the Amaila Falls hydro, the ballooning costs which climbed to over US$800M, likely to be Guyana’s most expensive project ever, has several question marks still hovering over it with a controversial US$15M road contract to Synergy Holdings Inc. ending in disaster recently with government being forced to take it back because of non-performance.
It will be recalled that in November, it was only after Kaieteur News and other local media houses ran a story of the deal with CHEC, which was announced by a Jamaican newspaper, that government acknowledged the signing.
The government here had chided the company for releasing details of the project and blocked it from speaking to the media.
The project was not open to bidding, since no such advertisement was placed on the government’s procurement website under the Ministry of Public Works through which the airport is administered.
According to the company, the agreement signed will see the construction of a modern terminal building and the extension of the runway by 1,066 meters to reach a total of 3,336 meters.

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