IDB Representative in Guyana Sophie Makonnen said last week that talks with Sithe Global and with Government are still ongoing on the Amaila Falls Hydropower Project and the due diligence on the venture which started months ago is still to be completed.
“We haven’t yet come exactly to a position in the Bank as to what the situation is…we are still looking into it,” she said. “We are still in a very fluid place so I cannot say yes or no at this point,” Makonnen said, when asked on Wednesday whether the IDB’s involvement in the project has come to an end.
“If Sithe Global is not in the project there is another configuration coming up so we need to confirm this. At this point in time our dialogue with Government is ongoing and I really cannot give you a definite answer,” she said.
“The due diligence is part of what Sithe and everybody needed to move along. At this point in time we need to look at how we are going to manage that in the next few weeks,” she stated. She said the IDB in addition to Sithe was paying for the due diligence. “It was not only Sithe [paying for it]. We had our specialists for the environmental part of it. It was a conjoined effort with Sithe being the promoter of the project,” she said. President of Sithe Global, Brian Kubeck had last week said that Sithe had been paying for the third party costs associated with the due diligence being conducted by IDB and the China Development Bank. “We are no longer funding these costs. As such, neither IDB nor CDB are continuing their work on the Amaila Falls Hydropower Project”, he had told Stabroek News.
“If Sithe has announced this (its withdrawal) then we need to see how we are going to manage the situation. We have to see where the various reports were at the time when Sithe made their announcement,” she said. “We know of the announcement that Sithe has made but this is a big project and we are still in dialogue,” she said. “We have to make sure that the next steps are the best steps for everybody,” Makonnen said.
Destroyed
Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr. Roger Luncheon speaking at a press conference last week called the Amaila Falls hydroelectric project “destroyed by the Opposition” and “no longer available to the citizens of Guyana”. It was the latest in a series of salvoes from government officials which have sent conflicting signals on the fate of the Amaila project.
Speaking at a post-Cabinet press briefing held at the Office of the President on Wednesday, Dr. Luncheon said, according to Government Information Agency (GINA), that since the thwarting of the project by the parliamentary Opposition and Sithe Global’s subsequent pull-out, many persons have surfaced and are “attempting to render comprehensible, the incomprehensible.”
“This outcome has isolated the parliamentary Opposition, divided their supporters and activists and exposed to Guyanese of all walks of life, their machinations. The evolution of explanations and the variety of explanations that have been offered to the people of Guyana is patent proof of their insolvency,” GINA quoted Dr. Luncheon as saying.
According to GINA, Dr. Luncheon said despite many meetings with the joint Opposition, access and availability of confidential information and “indisputable facts showing the economic benefits of the project, the Opposition, denied the advantages of cheaper and reliable hydropower.”
GINA noted that APNU voted against the Hydro Electric Power (Amendment) Bill and debt ceiling motion and that this non-support forced the investor, Sithe Global to opt out of the project.
According to the press release, Dr. Luncheon said that international and bilateral partners and supporters have all been derided by the acts of the Opposition and their responses to all the entreaties in favour of the Amaila Falls project.
“This project, which would have lasted over 100 years, save the country about $17B and generate 165 megawatts of clean power, would have been handed over to the country free of cost at the end of 20 years,” Dr. Luncheon lamented.
