EXPOSED: Granger-led gov’t confirms ‘devotion’ to LCDS programme spearheaded by Jagdeo
Norway report
The APNU/AFC coalition government has “confirmed its devotion” to the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS), which was the brainchild of former President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, who introduced the revolutionary strategy in 2009, the updated version of which was confirmed in 2013.
The “confirmed devotion” by the coalition government was expressed after President David Granger himself criticized the LCDS as being “too narrow” in its conceptualisation. “We would like to look at Climate Change more broadly,” President Granger had said.
This hypocritical stance by the Granger-led coalition Government was exposed in the final report on the Review of the Amaila falls Hydropower Project in Guyana – a 49-page document done by the Norwegian company, Norconsult, and which has been made public today.
Following is just the text of the summary of that report:
Since 2009 Norwegian International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI) has supported Guyana’s efforts for protecting its rainforest from exploitation and degradation and for changing its currently oil fuelled electricity sector to emission-free power generation.
As reward for Guyana’s endeavours towards these goals, Norway in 2014 deposited US$80 million in the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) earmarked for Guyana’s equity share in Amaila Falls Hydropower Inc (AFHI), a Special Purpose Company for realising the 165 MW Amaila Falls Hydropower Project (AFHP) as a public/private partnership BOOT project supported by IDB.
Sithe Global, the private partner and main sponsor in AFHI, withdrew from this position in August 2013 after the Guyanese National Assembly did not vote unanimously in favour of a proposition presented by Sithe Global for certain project features, including raising the ceiling for maximum annual payment by Guyana Power and Light (GPL) as power off-taker.
Thereafter, efforts continued, supported by IDB, to establish a new main sponsor in AFHI. This came to a standstill after a new coalition government created by the earlier opposition parties took power after the parliamentary elections in May 2015.
Former President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo and current President David Granger
The new government has confirmed its devotion to the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS), which was introduced in 2009 by the former government and confirmed by its updated LCDS declaration in 2013. With the aim of finding a way forward for the transition of Guyana’s power generation system, Government of Guyana represented by the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Natural Resources and the Government of Norway represented by the Minister of Climate and Environment, decided in December 2015 to perform “an objective and facts-based” assessment of AFHP.
On June 20th 2016 NORAD (Norwegian Agency for Development Co-operation), in support of NICFI signed an agreement with Norconsult AS for carrying out an initial analysis. Main conclusions and recommendations are presented below: The only realistic path for Guyana towards an emission free electricity sector is by developing its hydropower potential. The fastest way forward is to maintain AFHP as the first major step for substituting its current oil fired generation.
AFHP was prioritised as the first hydropower plant because it was the only project with a full feasibility study completed, it has a higher plant load factor than the alternatives, a smaller reservoir and a levelised unit cost in the same range as the most attractive alternatives.
