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US$2B threatening to go up in smoke
(Kaieteur News) – Lindsayca-CH4 is having problems to get its part of the Wales Gas-to-Energy project done. The company wants a US$250M boost from Guyana to complete its building of the liquid natural gas facility and a power generation plant. Lindsayca-CH4 obviously has reassured itself that Guyanese don’t value their money and that they don’t know what to do with it.
Millions could be withdrawn from the Natural Resource Fund, more borrowed from willing lenders, and with project costs grabbing still more from Cost Oil, Guyanese continue to be a study in apathy. It makes sense to part fools from their money, as the proverb says, having already nicked them for US$102M via a dispute adjudication board’s award. For anyone interested in a textbook case of tricky arrangements, secret dealings, and shifty leadership, the Wales GTE is a crisis to be studied.
The costs would never stay still, could never be pinned down. The more millions that were doled out, the more the secrets thickened. The more the Wales GTE intellectual author, Vice President Jagdeo, snapped at the media, the more suspicions grew. What is being hidden, why is there a need to hide anything on a lavishly funded US$2B project? The more he shut his mouth in total defiance of fearless and responsible leadership, the more the controversies deepened, took on a life of their own. If Jagdeo, the mother and father of the Wales GTE, that is hanging by a thread, has distanced himself from providing answers, has shut down all conversations related to what gives every indication of a wounded project, then who could?
Who would want to go near to what traps and stains all who come near it? He had all the solutions, monopolized ownership and leadership, for the project. If he doesn’t stop his escapades (busying himself with travels), step forward and clear the air on what’s going on at Wales, and what is going to be its fate, then there is a vacuum.
An information vacuum is the first. A leadership vacuum is the second. A cost vacuum is the third, with a contract free-for-all already in the making. That development is laid at the feet of Lindsayca-CH4, which has already signaled its intent to pounce on Guyana, and break open its hands for another US$250M. The original contract was for US$759M, and with works at the project site struggling to get a firm footing amidst various obstacles and delays, Lindsayca-CH4 is still angling to snatch another US$250M from Guyana. Who in the PPPC Government is there to take control of this project, crack the whip, knock some heads, and bring some semblance of order to a chaotic situation? Money spent with the ease of a monopoly board game, Guyanese staring at another probable white elephant, and there is silence and a vacuum at the top of the government leadership chain.
Is this the best that Guyanese are going to get, what they deserve, for US$2B? It is a project that had a rosy political beginning, with can’t compete, can’t beat, promises. But look at where it is now. US$2B is threatening to go up in smoke, and the government is preoccupied with targeting perceived enemies. We at this publication can give evidence about that, because whenever professionals attached to this paper asked hard questions, they got slapped down in crude ways on each occasion. By the de facto project CEO, Bharrat Jagdeo, who then dripped with arrogance and confidence, but has since vanished from the scene of the Wales GTE blowout. Guyanese were worried about a blowout offshore, while the PPPC Government was behind one on land.
Which Guyanese who knows the basics of reading and writing would engage a company with the track record of Lindsayca-CH4 to get a cyclinder of cooking gas for the family or business? But this is exactly what the leadership of the PPPC Government did with US$759M for two plants, and the company shaking out another US$102M for itself due to delays caused by unstable soil at the Wales site. All of this should have been fully disclosed, except that the government settled for secrecy. When it isn’t secrecy, there is silence. US$2B is threatening to go up in smoke.
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