Dear Editor,
In his letter (‘Ram and Bulkan need to start getting their facts right,’ SN April 15), Dr Roger Luncheon, Head of the Presidential Secretariat, says – “Mr Ram and Dr Bulkan (as well as Mr Ramjattan and others) claimed in a letter to Norwegian Minister Erik Solheim that the only justification for the Amaila Hydro Power project was a one-and-a-half page entry in the LCDS. This is ludicrous – the 2011 Amaila Falls Environmental and Social Impact Assessment update alone is 2,500 pages. It sets out comprehensive information about the proposed project, explains the consultative process – and is transparently available at www.amailahydropower. com. Did Dr Bulkan, Mr Ram and Mr Ramjattan really expect to be treated seriously when they omitted such basic information?”
Dr Luncheon may have misread that open letter. The signatories to that letter were simply pointing out that the President’s project shopping list, the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS), has provided little justification for an expensive construction project (estimates vary between US$600 and US$700M). In the first version of the LCDS, May 2009, Amaila Falls is treated in one phrase on page 5 and one paragraph on page 20. In the second version of the LCDS, December 2009, Amaila Falls has one paragraph on page 25. In the third version of the LCDS, May 2010, Amaila Falls has that one paragraph again on page 26 and a one-page justification for equity investment on page 53. Consequently, when the letter to Norwegian Minister Erik Solheim was being drafted, those one-and-a-half pages remained the only public domain justification by government for the dam. This is the section six in the letter to Minister Solheim:
“6. Risks of the Amaila Falls Hydro Project. The President of Guyana proposes to invest US$ 40-60 million of the Norwegian US$ 250 million ‘REDD’ money in purchasing equity in the Amaila Falls dam, even though the entire justification for the dam remains just 1 ½ pages in the LCDS version of May 2010. The Guyana Energy Agency national policy, not updated since 1994, does not even mention Amaila Falls. We note that just yesterday, Erik Helland-Hansen, head of the Advisory Expert Panel appointed by the IDB to assess the project’s environmental and social assessment, has reportedly called into question the ‘whole strategic concept’ of the project.[1]
“There is no practical possibility of the unqualified, inexperienced and under-capitalised contractor, who was awarded the contract under questionable circumstances, completing the access road to the dam in the specified time period or to the specified road bearing strength, in spite of being loaned US$ 1.5 million from a government ‘off-the-book fund’ to buy second-hand construction equipment. This delay is even admitted by the Government’s own technical adviser.[2]
“The access road construction is now less than 25% complete, whereas some 65% should have been completed, according to the original schedule. It is currently unlikely that the two Chinese investment entities, which are reported by the President to have committed to funding the dam, would provide the US$ 500 million for the bulk of the dam construction while the road is incomplete.
Thus there is a large question mark over when, or indeed if, the dam will be fully funded and constructed, and if any Norway-provided equity in the dam would be effectively applied. As we understand it, the Amaila Falls project cannot be presented to the GRIF until such time as the project proposal has been approved by the Board of the IDB, and this cannot happen until such time as the Advisory Expert Panel has completed its work, which we understand will not be for 6 months or so. The project’s developer, Sithe Global Power LLC, has today admitted that there may be delays in securing funding for the project[3].
“There appears to be no ‘Plan B’ for using Norwegian 2009-10 money already in the GRIF, but remaining unspent, let alone any plan for alternative use of any additional funds for 2010-11.
We therefore submit that the risk of misuse of these funds is unacceptably high.
“Under these circumstances, there appears to be little justification for transferring any funding for 2010-11, when the government’s primary intention for use of those funds (the purchase of government equity in the Amaila Falls dam) seems highly unlikely to become a reality in the near future.”
This letter was addressed to Minister Solheim on March 24, 2011.
The 2500 pages of EIA for the revised specification of the Amaila Falls dam were posted to the website of the Environmental Protection Agency just two days previously, March 22, and news was released on March 23.
I suggest that Dr Luncheon should look carefully at what the letter to Minister Solheim actually said, and at the relative dates.
And I do regret that the Presidential Secretariat, Ministry of Agriculture and Guyana Forestry Commission have all failed so far to answer any single one of the questions raised in this letter.
Generalised assertions are not answers to specific points which have cited extracts from national policy, laws and administrative procedures.
Surely in the 19th year of this administration these agencies can do better to demonstrate their claim to transparency in operation?
Yours faithfully,
Janette Bulkan
