Minister of State Joseph Harmon said yesterday that the former government knew that there was no funding available for the Amaila Falls Hydro Project after the original investor Sithe Global pulled out but tried to deceive the public into thinking that it was going ahead as planned.
“The Amaila Falls Hydro Electricity project was dead from since the time the IDB told this previous government that they had no client. So all along they have been running all around trying to get this and trying to get that….but it was nothing there”, he said during a post cabinet press briefing.
Harmon told reporters that the recent disclosure by Finance Minister Winston Jordan was that “the IDB (Inter-American Development Bank) basically said that there was no project they had to finance and that the previous government knew about that since Sithe Global walked….from the time Sithe Global left there was no client for the IDB to deal with”.
On August 9 last year it was officially confirmed that the company had parted ways with the project.
He said that since then the former government continued “on a path of deception, deceiving the Guyanese people that `yes we have this project and the project will be funded’”.
According to Harmon the government will be meeting the IDB and expressed hope that that declaration will be made. “There was no project and so there was nothing from the IDB to fund. This does not say that there has not been investment in the project…” he said. He added that government is willing to listen to suggestions about a practical model for which the investments can be used. He stressed there was never anything properly placed before the National Assembly which spoke to a complete project, but rather an extension of the area (area to be flooded and the conservation concerns) and the raising of the debt ceiling.
“So all the posturing to the effect that we are going to do this and we are going to do that was a lot of deception and we said that and it continues to be deception”, he stressed. He said that government’s concern was always “what was going to be the end product. What is the consumer going to have to pay as a result of all of this?” He stated too that the project design never contemplated delivering electricity to Essequibo or the Hinterland communities.
According to Harmon, government’s position when Amaila was floated was that what is needed is a Potaro Basin Hydro Electricity plan which meant that that falls would be among several located in that area that would have formed “one cohesive hydroelectricity development so that it would have taken the heat off of a single falls having to fund the power lines which actually go with delivering electricity from the site to the consumer”.
Jordan in his budget presentation had said that currently the cost of financing the project was too high and the IDB considered the project too risky to attract the bank’s financing.
“The problem, Mr. Speaker, is that as currently configured, it would not only be irresponsible, but a downright criminal act of deception, were we to proceed with the Amaila Falls”, he said while adding that unless the cost is lowered the project cannot be proceeded with, a view which was shared by the IDB.
