The main opposition PPP yesterday accused the government of “flip-flopping” on the Amaila Falls hydropower project, following the administration’s announcement of a plan to review the viability of the venture.
On Wednesday, Finance Minister Winston Jordan announced that the government is in talks with Norway to fund a new study to definitively pronounce on viability of the controversial project, which it had fiercely opposed while in opposition.
Jordan also said the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) would be studying Amaila Falls among five potential hydro-power sites. “We are involved currently with the IDB to study the correct energy matrix and energy mix for Guyana to meet our needs for the next 30 years. This study is due early next year and it will include the analysis of five hydro sites, including the Amaila site as well,” he said.
In a statement issued yesterday, the PPP said it was not surprised at the government’s about-face on the project given its reversals on the specialty hospital, the airport expansion project, government salary increases and the Baishanlin investment.
The party pointed to previous public statements made by both State Minister Joe Harmon and Jordan in which they had indicated that the administration could not proceed with the Amaila project. “Four months after they had buried Amaila Hydro Project, they are now resurrecting the “dead” project. And the question being asked now is, since they had declared that there was no Amaila Falls Project, where did the same project suddenly come from now!” it questioned.
The PPP maintained that Amaila has always been a “viable developmental project” that would benefit all Guyanese and particularly the manufacturing sector, which it criticised for not lobbying energetically to bring the project to fruition.
“Much time has been lost and now that the government has run aground with its posture towards the controversy with Venezuela it has back-peddled and returned to the Amaila Hydro Project for cheap, clean energy in a green economy,” the party added.
Norway recently urged the APNU+AFC administration to consider the merits of the hydropower project, since Guyana stands to lose over $16 billion previously earmarked for it if it fails to come up with a plan for “transformational” renewable energy sources that can be realised in the next few years.
Director of Norway’s International Climate and Forest Initiative Per Fedrik Pharo had told Stabroek News that setting the direction for Guyana’s energy future is up to government but urged, as part of that process, “a comprehensive, facts-based revision of the Amaila Falls project by the Government of Guyana, so as to establish a proper basis for any decision.”
Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo recently called on the David Granger administration to join in a “conversation” on the feasibility of the project, while saying that the administration’s profit and loss calculations for the project were wrong.
