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Govt. ‘exploring other options’ to support Amaila

Aug 09, 2013 News

 

Government is having bilateral engagements and trans-border discussions to import hydropower from neighbouring countries with similar geographic potential, because the Amaila Falls Hydropower project would be inadequate for Guyana in the long term.
But the administration will not scrap the Amaila Falls Hydropower project because it believes that the project is relevant now to help drive the economy where it needs to go.
These notions were expressed by Cabinet Secretary, Dr. Roger Luncheon during his post-Cabinet press briefing yesterday at the Office of the President.
According to Dr. Luncheon, with the rate at which Guyana is projected to grow “we would exhaust what Amaila offers in no time flat and we would have to get more power…We are on the move and the Amaila of today is totally inadequate for the Amaila of tomorrow, but we have to start today. And, yes we are exploring and we are more than exploring.”
Economist Professor Clive Thomas, who had done a comprehensive study on this project, was the first to tell the nation that the “troubled” Amaila Falls Hydro Project will become outdated in just five years.
Despite a cost of at least US$858M, the largest undertaking in the country’s history, it is projected that within the next few years, other possibilities will have to be explored to generate electricity.
However, even after being equipped with information that it would be short term, Dr. Luncheon said, “Believe you me, this country will succeed, this country will develop and this 130 and 150 megawatt that Amaila is going to be producing your children and grandchildren would be thinking what we de thinking when we go get this small li’l bit ah power, because we are power hungry…the rest of the world is about power and the development of Guyana is about power”.
He emphasized that those opposing the project should provide answers when the country is burdened with fluctuating fossil fuel prices that Guyana doesn’t control.
“And we move from more than one-third of export earnings to import fuel. Let them explain to Guyanese how they destroyed and attempted to retard renewable energy as the main source of power in Guyana,” Dr. Luncheon added.
However, Amaila Falls is not the only location being eyed for hydropower. Besides, approaching neighbours to import hydropower, Government would exploit other potential areas in Guyana such as Upper Mazaruni.
Another contentious matter hanging over the Amaila Falls Hydropower Project is its high cost and interest rate. Guyana will be paying among the highest interest rates for the largest section of the loan it has acquired for the project.
Defending the high cost of the project, Dr. Luncheon said information on the project’s financial economic feasibility has been provided.
“There hasn’t been a project of this size and importance ever in the nation and I think it is also a fact that there hasn’t been a project for which information is so freely available for which stakeholders can and have access, ever in the nation. What I would say to those who insist that their objections and opposition to the project relates to concerns of being overpriced and such is that the information that destroys their arguments is in their hands.”
According to Dr. Luncheon, it is Government’s observation and insistence that destroy protestations.
“Every time they open their mouths and shoot their nonsense there is…credible available information that responds to each and every one of the allegations… Suddenly they would have Guyanese believe that the profundity of their knowledge and wisdom relevant to the construction of hydropower facilities is such that we could tear up this project because they say so.”
“History is one that would give them a suitable rebuff… But, even before we come to history we would have the calculated responses… the meticulous responses to these wild allegations, these baseless sentiments that they are out there spouting a dime a dozen. Every day you open the papers, everyday you go on the internet, another set of allegations trying to destroy this transformative project that would change the whole course of Guyana’s future,” Luncheon asserted.

 

 

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