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Amaila hydro saga… Quest to leave a legacy has overpowered rational thinking – Professor Thomas

Aug 02, 2013 News

 
By Abena Rockcliffe
Economist Professor Clive Thomas has raised concerns about Guyana’s future, asserting that local political leadership may have been clouded by vanity, in relation to Government’s move to go ahead with the Amaila Falls Hydro Project, even with full knowledge that it is bad for the country.
“It leads one to conclude that there is an ulterior motive. That cannot be good for Guyana.”
Thomas expressed fears that the quest to leave a legacy (and for fame) has overpowered rational thinking by government officials.
The Working People’s Alliance (WPA) executive member said that the motive is one to satisfy the personal needs of politicians who are currently in the country’s administrative team.
The Economist’s contention, and by extension the WPA’s, is that a hydro project is good for Guyana but the Amaila Falls project in its current form is totally “unacceptable”. Thomas advised that it is best Government just count its losses and abandon the Amaila deal before further damage can be done.
At a WPA press conference, Professor Thomas stressed that the Government knows very well the jeopardy they are putting Guyana in. He said that consultants that the government itself hired have corresponded with him and the studies showed several liabilities that can result from the project.  Thomas said he was also enlightened about the inadequacies of the project from those very sources.
In his publication titled “Eight Essays on the Political Economy of the Amaila Falls Hydro Project,” Thomas advised that “painful as it may be, it is better to leave a flawed deal sooner rather than later.
Thomas’s publication is the first comprehensive study done on the Amaila Falls Hydro Project by a source other than the Guyana Government. In that piece, the professor also advised that “if private investors are enamored about the profitability of a project, let them put their money where their mouths are. Do not involve public funding and no questions would be asked.”
On Wednesday, at a stakeholders’ meeting held at the International Convention Centre, head of the technical team for the Amaila Falls project, Winston Brassington, admitted that in five years time, Guyana will have to source new avenues to generate electricity as the Amaila Plant would not be generating enough power in 2019 to satisfy consumer requirement.

 

 

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