Patterson should release evaluation of Amaila Falls access road project-Jagdeo

Sep 28, 2018 News

The Amaila Falls access road under construction.

Members of the Coalition Government had criticized the controversial road to the Amaila Falls hydro project, but they are facing renewed calls to release the evaluation report done for the project.
Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo’s People’s Progressive Party was in power at the time the project started.
Yesterday, he repeated calls for Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson to release the evaluation report.
“Remember Kaieteur News has this thing about the road to the fall and we said to Patterson now you complained about it too why not release just the document because you have it in the Ministry to show the evaluation. So the documents are there,” Jagdeo stated.
The People’s Progressive Party (PPP) had engaged with Makeshwar ‘Fip’ Motilall who initiated the Amaila Falls hydro-electric project but was unable to find financing. The project was taken up by Government and handed to a US developer.
Motilall was rewarded by being granted a US$15.4M contract to build more than 150 miles of access roads to take equipment and turbines to the project site at Amaila Falls, Region Eight.
According to the Government, this figure ballooned to US$50M.
However, there was no evidence that Motilall had experience in road building, much less handling the harsh terrain that the road construction would have involved.
Despite being advanced hundreds of millions of dollars, Motilall’s company, Synergy Holdings Inc., ran into all kinds of trouble. There was evidence that he brought in problematic equipment with some even sinking in the swampy areas.
Under the contract, Motilall was supposed to design and construct the road. Government had announced the award of the contract to Motilall on March 26, 2010.
Synergy Holdings was given the first notice to proceed on October 5, 2010 for some sections of the road, while the green light for the other section through virgin rainforest was given on January 11, 2011.

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