“Hydro Bill support was a patriotic move” – AFC Leader

 
By Latoya Giles
Leader of the Alliance for Change Khemraj Ramjattan yesterday at the party’s weekly press briefing sought to explain why his party gave its support to Government for the passage of the Hydro-Electric Power (Amendment) Bill, for the Amaila Falls Project.
According to Ramjattan, the reason why they supported the motion that “brought back the Hydro Electric Bill” and the motion to raise the debt ceiling guarantee from $1B initially to $50B was because the party felt the need to give a lifeline to the project. He stressed that the AFC was always supportive of hydro electricity in Guyana.

AFC leader Khemraj Ramjattan

Ramjattan said that he is fully aware that the deal has lots of questions surrounding it, along with legitimate concerns, and they are still waiting on the Inter-American Development Bank for the due diligence report to give it the green light. He said that after they receive the reports and recommendations therein from the IDB, they would be in a better position to know whether the AFC will go further.
The party leader said that at this stage the AFC believes that the “entire project would have been killed” if they didn’t do what they did in parliament on Wednesday night.
According to Ramjattan, they did it for the short term, namely, in supporting the upping of the debt ceiling guarantee from $1B to $50B instead of the reconfigured US$130B that the government was seeking.
The AFC’s support of the bill, he said, was further fueled by the fact that the $50 billion will be linked entirely with the Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL) – in case of a shortfall in payments for the project. The other proviso, he explained, was that within three months they can go back to see whether that is the proper sum or not, or if the IDB says that the green light for the project is given, there might be the need for the upping of the guarantee to ensure security for the project. “Most likely we will be in a position to say if we will up it and by how much.”
“I see the position of our party as being patriotic. We have seen detractors and persons who are experts… some validly so, be very critical towards the project and we respect their opinions. We took consideration of them all about the issue on whether we support or not support.”
Moreover, when questioned about the technical deal with respect to why they shifted their position, Ramjattan explained that although they had supported the project, the problem was getting information on the deal.
He said when the party executives met with the IDB officials it was indicated that they were going to get all the information from the sponsors of the project. He said that they could not have gotten the information and that’s why they were “piggy backing” on the IDB.
Ramjattan said that after the IDB officials indicated that they were going get the information and do the proper analyses, “it in a sense showed their position, to the extent that they did give support for the project. He said the fact that the IDB stated that it would do the due diligence, which was in three areas: whether GPL has the capacity to handle the administering and management of the large amount of electricity after Amaila is completed; whether there is economical viability of the project, that is, if Guyana’s economy can sustain it to become viable for the tariffs not to increase, and lastly, the environmental feasibility.
Ramjattan said that at this point the AFC is on somewhat of a “conditional support”.
“Once the IDB supports it with the expertise and experience it was going to get our green light and we did not want to kill it before it reaches the IDB by blocking the bill and not giving some guarantee to the investors.”

Gov’t will continue working to bring Amaila project to reality - President reassures in face of speculation

In the face of speculation over the future of the Amaila Falls Hydro Power (AFHP) project, following the AFC and APNU’s action in the National Assembly on Wednesday, President Donald Ramotar is reassuring the nation that Government will continue to work with stakeholders to bring the project to fruition.

The Head of State this evening said that despite efforts to keep the Political Opposition informed about the transformational project, holding public outreaches and the subsequent passage of the necessary legislation via the National Assembly, the AFHP project is still in jeopardy.

The President said that the danger is now “largely because our requirements were not met, one of the opposition parties voted against it and the other one very belatedly came out in support of it. They did not come up to the level of the debt ceiling that was required for the project itself so that is where the project is, in a lot of uncertainty at this time.”

While the AFC supported the government in order that the Hydro-Electric Power (Amendment) Bill was given passage, the Government’s motion to increase the debt ceiling on external loans to $130B was amended by the same party to $50B. The proposed sum was to ensure the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) meets its financial obligations with the Amaila Falls Hydro Incorporated, under the Power Purchase Agreement. The APNU voted against the bill.

The president said that government was warning about this all along, noting that they presented all the information requested to the Parliamentary parties, the Alliance for Change (AFC) and the A Partnership For National Unity (APNU), and the private sector was engaged on the issue.

The Head of State reiterated that the hydro project is of great importance to Guyana. “We pointed out to everyone that as soon as this project is built, the charges to the public and commercial sector will be cut by 40%. Ten years after, it will be cut by 70% of what they’re paying today and 20 years from now when this project will be handed over it will be cut by 91%. This of course will have huge possibilities for the development of our country, for the attraction of the manufacturing sector, for the creation of jobs for our young people and for the rapid expansion of our economy to give us the bridges and roads that we need to develop our society at a great rate.”

For these aforementioned reasons, the President said that, “I will exert, together with all my ministers and the Cabinet as a whole, we will work hard to try to do what we can to save this project and also try to expand it, try to get this project on stream because it of  importance to the development of the country”.

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