IT WAS BEING SAID ALL ALONG BY THIS NEWSPAPER

Dec 01, 2012 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

We did not need the International Monetary Fund to express the hope that steps are taken to ensure that the Amaila Falls Hydropower project is viable.
Glenn Lall has been saying this for a long time now and has gone as far as saying that it is overpriced.
It was expected that the opposition parties would have heeded his warning and taken steps to ensure that the price tag for this project was reasonable and would have justified the returns that are expected from the facility when completed.
The opposition, however, seems more interested in the much lower-cost Marriott Hotel rather than the Amaila Falls Hydroelectric Project which is expected to be the largest investment ever made in Guyana.
Over the years, the decision of government to undertake certain projects has raised suspicion, particularly since with each major project there have been controversies about whether the project is another milking cow and questions about just whose interests these projects are serving.
The PPP in recent years has been undertaking large scale projects but these projects have not served the interests of the people of Guyana. Instead, they have fattened a goose that was already fat. The Berbice River Bridge is a prime example of a project which promised to improve the lives of the people of Berbice but which has failed to do so. In fact for the vast majority of the people of Berbice, the bridge is much too expensive to use.
It is the same thing with the multi-million-dollar Skeldon Sugar Factory. That factory was supposed to be part of the efforts to turn around the sugar industry. Instead, it has become a huge burden to the taxpayers of this country with the government having to bail the industry out when for years, it was the levy that was imposed on the sugar industry that helped to keep the economy afloat.
No one therefore needs the IMF to signal concern about the need for those behind these projects to prove that they are viable. This newspaper, led by Glenn Lall, has been single-handedly doing this.
The opposition parties need to now state where they stand on this project because it seems that ever since the government arranged that confidential briefing for them, they have gone silent on Amaila Falls. They need to say whether they will support this project or not and whether they feel that the price tag justifies the eventual cost for which power will be sold to the national grid.
It can no longer be assumed that those who are pushing this project have the interest of the people of Guyana at heart. If they did, then the Berbice River Bridge would have been built ten years before it was and it would have been built using a different model.
It seems shocking that the government is putting US$20M into a hotel project that will compete with the private sector and which could very well end up being a white elephant with taxpayers holding worthless paper, at yet the government could not ensure that the bridge that was built across the river provides cheaper service to commuters.
It is nonsense to compare the tariffs with an inefficient and costly ferry service. The very reason why the bridge was built was because of the inefficient ferry crossing. Therefore, the tariffs to traverse the bridge cannot and should not be compared with that of the ferry.
But since the bridge is virtually privately owned, there is little that can be done. And this is the problem with large scale investments that the government has lined up. It is primarily serving private interests.
This, of course, is something that the IMF supports. The body would love nothing better than for all major projects to not involve the government. But even with private participation in the Amaila Falls Hydroelectric facility, the IMF has still seen it fit to raise implied concerns about the viability of the project.
And while the IMF was very guarded in its language, it has vindicated what was being said all along by the publisher of this newspaper.
Their concerns should be a warning to all, especially those who feel that these projects should be about partnering with the private sector.

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