Sithe is gone; it’s time to harness the country’s other resources

Aug 29, 2013 Letters

Dear Editor,
We can expose the shenanigans and corrupt practices of the PPP administrators any day…that is easy for us to do. Rather than sit at their desks and do the people’s work, too many of them continue to make elementary governance mistakes because of their determined involvement in the secret lucrative deals to fill their own pockets – mistakes that have cost the taxpayers billions of dollars over the years.
But when the righteous people who practice politics of principle are not “hanging together” on basic things like calling on the minority President and his cabal to be more transparent and holding them accountable on projects like the Amaila Falls Hydro power, the white elephant Skeldon Sugar factory, the never ending ICT cable project from Brazil, and GPL for its massive power outages, to name a few – it is “cuff in the gut” for us the people who depend on the opposition to hold this runaway regime in check. This minority PPP government has refused to accept the new dispensation and is governing as though it has a majority.
The opposition forces have to stand together and make the valid point that Guyanese, by and large, are not against the Amaila Hydro Power, but they are against the secret financial arrangements; they are against a situation where only a handful of people in the PPP (Brassington and Brassington) are making decisions that will commit the nation to 20 years of cash payout of over G$420 billion with no consultation.
The people are against the secrecy behind the bills of quantities, the engineering drawings on this Project and the Contract. The minority PPP regime has told the opposition AFC/APNU that the above documents are confidential and cannot be given to them. Why is the PPP hiding these documents?
There must be a detailed national consultation of the exact retail price that electricity will be sold to the people of Whim and West Ruimveldt. The people want a detailed explanation and a public guarantee that after the completion of the project, the price will not change beyond the increase in salaries offered to public servants which is the usual 5 per cent.
Anything else will result in tough resistance by the opposition forces to the PPP action, like what occurred at Linden when the government decided to increase electricity rates as revenge for Lindeners not voting for the PPP in the 2011 elections. It was a rude awakening for the PPP… don’t mess with the people of Linden. The PPP regime and Sithe Global have refused to give such guarantees to the people.
If the minority president is serious about bringing hydro power to Guyana, he should first establish a managing committee with qualified personnel to oversee such a huge project. We say it is time to dump Brassington. He screwed up on the Marriott Hotel by allowing the contractor to not employ Guyanese workers; GPL, by not putting a policy in place to reduce line losses and prevent commercial theft; and last but not least, the imposition of the highest toll in the world on the Berbice Bridge.
We want a President who is willing to engage the people to discuss his vision for green energy and how he plans to go about realizing this dream – Sithe is gone; and he should stop crying and use the other energy sources the country has to move on to better things. Without a doubt, Hydro power is good for Guyana’s economy, but not by paying Sithe G$130 billion out of that G$420 billion for doing very little.
Time to move on; Guyana is a great country and when we work together we can conquer the highest mountain.
Dr. Asquith Rose and Harish S. Singh

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