Guyanese were deceived on Amaila project - Govt.

Guyanese were deceived on Amaila project – Govt.

Aug 13, 2015 News

– $1B scheme never contemplated power to E’bo coast, hinterland

The US$40M access roads to Amaila Falls have been built, but there is not likely to be any project anytime soon as it is too costly, Government says.

There are more details emerging over what pushed the new administration to start looking beyond the Amaila Falls hydro electric project.
According to Minister of State, Joseph Harmon yesterday, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) deceived Guyana on the project. It knew that one of the financiers, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), had no client to develop the project after US-owned Sithe Global walked in 2013.
The ambitious project, the country’s most has been heavily pushed by the previous administration to solve Guyana’s energy needs, with a capacity of 165 megawatts of power from the Region Eight falls site in the Kuribrong River.
However, the project which was to be funded by Guyana, IDB, Sithe Global and China, ran into early trouble.
The costs of the access roads escalated from US$15 to almost US$40M. The contractor, Synergy Holdings, was fired. Then in 2013, a key piece of environmental legislation was rejected by the Parliamentary Opposition, which had control of the House, effectively stalling the project.
The PPP/C, up to the time it lost the May 11 elections, said it was working to restart the project, talking with the Chinese, among others.
The costs of the project escalated from an initial US$300M-plus to $1B.
Over the 20-year period that Guyana had to repay the debt, taxpayers would have had to shell out an astounding US$2.6B, Finance Minister Winston Jordan, said Monday during his National Budget presentation.
As a matter of fact, IDB itself deemed the project too expensive. This the previous Government knew.
According to Harmon yesterday, there is no way under the current configuration of the Amaila Falls project that Government can proceed – it was just too expensive.
“The Minister of Finance had the testicular fortitude to make the statement…there was no project…nothing for the IDB to fund…this does not say there are no investments in the project, money spent on the road and other things.”
The official yesterday said that the project was off from the time the IDB told the then government that they had no client as Sithe Global Group had withdrawn in 2013.
“This the previous administration knew, but they were postulating and deceiving the Guyanese people when they knew what actually was the state.”
Harmon also made it clear that it is a fact that no project was properly placed before the National Assembly. Rather, what came before the National Assembly was an extension of the area to be flooded and the conservation concerns along with the raising of the debt ceiling.
The Minister said that the current administration had always been concerned over the final cost the consumers will pay.
More importantly, the Amaila Falls project never contemplated delivering electricity to Essequibo…to the farmers there or to the hinterland. Persons would have to continue using fossil fuel or other means.
Harmon believed that the administration’s path now would be a comprehensive look at energy within the framework of the country’s development, taking into account not only hydro energy but also wind, and solar.
One of the options would be what he termed a Potaro Basin Hydro Electricity Plan which would holistically look at hydro power. Amaila Falls could very well be part of it.
Such an approach would be taking the heat off a single falls.