Not so long ago we questioned why FIP hasn’t flipped the switch on the Amaila Hydro Electricity. Then, lo and behold! we hear that Master Planner and ‘Strategiser’ Jagdeo has awarded a whopping US$15 million to SYNERGY Holdings to build an access road to the Amaila Falls dam site ! That's 3 BILLION G$!
What is very obvious is that this official ‘ELECTIONS’ time has the PPP government flicking (in this case FIPering) backwards to make some of their promises a reality- we see them trying to pour all the ‘portions’ and magic dust to make the Skeldon Factory work and now more than 15 years after the promise of cheaper electricity they are building roads to the site! Wow ! 15 years ago we didn’t realize that we needed. roads to the Amaila Falls area.
But here are our concerns about this other SHADY JAGDEO commitment-
- The President took it upon himself (last week) to announce the award of this US$15 million contract to Synergy Holding for the building of roads to the proposed Hydro Project site.
- This means that a Company with NO history or experience in road building will build a road - and in 8 months! (Brass around the corner).
- The 2010 Budget showed an allocation for this project under the Ministry of Finance saying that it is allocating a apart of $615 Million to construct an access
to the Falls and for related infrastructural works. Note the difference between the Budgeted allocation of 615million to the award of 3 BILLION.
QUESTIONS
We ask:
1) When was a Tender for this project published? In what the Media?
2) When did Synergy Holdings bid for this project and who are the other Companies that bid?
Sadly we conclude that this is yet another eyepass on Guyana.
In addition, this announcement is so murky you are left to wonder like Alice - what exactly happens to the existing road, an all weather road through Tumatumari?
Reports are that Synergy said that it needs 30 miles of new road and may have double those demands two years ago.
Here we have a government that is moving with haste to build a road to the Hydro site when there is no proper road from Georgetown to Madhia?
MADNESS
This is beyond madness or poor planning - to get to the Site- you have to take a plane to Kaieteur Falls and use the same Tumatumari road in- to get there by road you have to use the Georgetown to Madhia road and then haul materials in from there- the Madhia road is in no state to transport heavy duty equipment and materials to build this road Synergy is now task to build!
EPA
NOW that we have vented on those points, we can also ask: Please Mr. Jagdeo, tell us where is the Environmental Impact Assessment from the EPA?? And more so the Benn Land Use Committee??
Can we imagine that with the demand of more than 60 miles of new road - those Norwegian Satellite images would not be pretty!
As Janette Bulkan explained recently ‘the government will need to report the deforestation and loss of forest carbon as a result of the road upgrades and new construction to the Norwegian International Climate and Forest Initiative’
So, its not Oh 'fip' it's once again, "Oh Jagdeo!"
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