AMAILA IS MERELY ON ICE

September 11, 2013, By KNews, Filed Under Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom, Source

A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) never needed a reason to oppose the Bills that were seen as necessary to move the Amaila Falls Hydroelectric Project forward.

APNU, facing a maelstrom of criticisms over its decision to not support the Bills, has advanced a series of implausible reasons as to why it did not support the Bills. Among those reasons were inadequate information about the financial architecture of the project and concerns over whether there would be adequate savings to the consumer.

APNU had sufficient time and the forum to have its queries answered. It did not make use of those opportunities, because its non-support of the Bills had nothing to do with the reasons advanced, but more with the nature of its understanding of politics and its need to force changes in the governance mechanism.

APNU has always had a blinkered vision of politics. It sees Guyanese politics as a zero sum game. It cannot conceive of a situation where the ruling party and itself can win at the same time. For APNU, a win for the PPPC means a loss for APNU and thus it only supports positions where it stands to gain.

While it no doubt recognizes that the country needs hydroelectricity, it also feels that the PPPC will milk too much political capital from being the architect of this development and should such a project be advanced during this term of the PPPC administration it will hurt APNU’s chances of doing well in the next elections.

APNU did a detailed analysis of the results of the last elections, and it would have no doubt discovered what the PPPC had long been keeping a secret – that the PPPC forfeited a majority by agreeing to accept the results of the last elections after it was known to the PPPC that the results for Region 3, a Region which the PPPC won handsomely, excluded the votes cast at nineteen polling stations.

APNU therefore knows that the one-seat majority that the combined opposition has during this term is its last chance of forcing any lasting change in the governance mechanism in the country. It knows that the same mistake will not be allowed to happen again and the PPP will easily retake its majority come any future election.

Time is therefore running out on APNU to force a new system of governance, one that involves the opposition, and thus it felt compelled to flex its political muscles to demonstrate that it can frustrate the development aspirations of the PPPC.

During the negotiations over the 2013 Budget, APNU wanted a new governance mechanism. It was not interested in any piecemeal approach where some concessions will be asked for and granted. It wanted a more structured and permanent arrangement.

The PPPC, as has been its nature, is opposed to such an arrangement, because it knew all along that it was cheated out of a majority due to the fact that the results of the nineteen polling stations were excluded. The PPPC was therefore never interested in any political compromise, because it is confident of winning back its majority, once the same fiasco does not occur again.

The PPPC therefore was intransigent over the Budget. And APNU and the AFC then went ahead and demonstrated their destructive power when they chopped the airport expansion project and the specialty hospital offers out of the 2013 Budget.

APNU’s failure to support key legislation raised the political risk of the Amaila Falls Project and the developer decided to walk. The developer, Sithe Global, is an American company, and they have the support of the United States government and with this support things can happen, no matter what hard line postures APNU takes.

Forbes Burnham once took a hard line stance towards Reynolds, that is, until the Americans dispatched a top-level politician who read the riot act to Forbes. The contents of the meeting between Burnham and the official are now declassified.  Burnham meekly submitted to the US demands and ended up turning a nationalization into a buy-out of the company.

APNU can therefore kick and snort all it wants. American diplomacy is as such that it allows the other side to save face. But make no mistake, Sithe Global investments will not be allowed to go down the drain because of APNU.

Amaila is thus merely on ice. It will be resurrected soon, regardless of all the arguments taking place in the media about this project. The Americans will make sure of that.