Sithe Global “eyes pass” Guyana - Glenn Lall

Sithe Global “eyes pass” Guyana – Glenn Lall

Aug 07, 2013 News

Kaieteur News Publisher Glenn Lall has labelled as an “eye-pass”, recent statements issued by Sithe Global on the revelation of Alliance For Change Chairman Nigel Hughes’s association with the company.

Managing Director Kaieteur News – Glenn Lall

Lall was referring to a statement issued by the company yesterday which claimed that the newspaper’s expose on Hughes and his wife’s links to the entity was a distraction aimed at obstructing the Amaila Falls Hydro project.
In the statement, Sithe Global’s President Brian Kubeck, in what appears to be a direct attack on the newspaper, said “the dwindling detractors attempted to throw out the latest in a series of distractions aimed at obstructing a project that will have lasting positive benefits for Guyana.”
But according to the Publisher of the newspaper “it is only now at this late stage that the Sithe Global officials have been making themselves available, when for years this publication has been putting probing questions to them regarding the deal, its cost, interest rates and repayment conditions.”
Despite this, Lall stated that the company still has not come close to clean on the many issues raised.
Kubeck, through AFC Executive Member, Cathy Hughes, insinuated that the publication by Kaieteur News regarding Nigel Hughes’s position as Company Secretary “appears to be a deliberate and desperate attempt to shift the debate away from the Project merits (especially its significant electricity cost savings for consumers that start at 40% and increase to 91% over the life of the project), which have held up under intense scrutiny.”
Lall in turn said that despite the Sithe Global claims, the principals are yet to make public to the local analysts, the documents that purport to back up that claim.
One such analyst, Christopher Ram, had indicated in the presence of the Sithe Global President, that the electricity tariff would in fact increase by 23.6 per cent.
According to Lall, the nation still awaits the meeting between Ram and the project’s Technical Coordinator Winston Brassington in order to have these figures verified.
At the recent public forum hosted by Sithe Global and the Guyana Government, this newspaper had also requested that these and other documents related to the project be made available so that independent scrutiny can be done.
Lall said that the nation still “awaits a glimpse of these documents that have been so closely guarded under the guise of Confidentiality Agreement.”
Kubeck had said that the company would like to reiterate the message that “we can only proceed with the project if there is consensus amongst the PPP, APNU and AFC, communicated via Parliament, that they unanimously support of the Project.”
But according to Lall, “had this consensus been of such importance to the Project then it would have made public the project documents, a long time ago.”
He added that the company would have provided answers to the many burning questions immediately.
“Why should this nation pay 8.5 per cent interest rate to China Exim Bank, when that same bank is lending to hydro projects around the world for less than three per cent.”
“How is it that around the world countries are able to build a hydro power plant for less than US$3M per megawatt when they are charging Guyana in excess of US$4M per mega watt?” Lall asked.
The KN Publisher said that “Sithe Global should have answered a long time ago why Guyana should pay them a 19 per cent rate of return for their US$157M that they said they were investing in the project.”
“I want hydro in Guyana. I am not against it. All I am saying is let them come clean, let us know all of the details,” Lall said.
He maintains that the project was prepared “in secrecy and designed to rob us. That, I firmly believe.”
Kubeck in his statement also said that the two local consultants, Cathy and Nigel Hughes’s roles with AFHI, “are well known and have been in the public domain for years.”
Lall retorted, “If this information was public knowledge and did not play a role in his political allegiance, why was Nigel Hughes, in his statement to the media, offended that it was published, and immediately resigned as the Chairman of the AFC?”