Guyana will not meet 90% renewable energy target – Ramotar

By Samuel Sukhnandan

While the coalition Government has been trying to promote the use of renewable sources of energy and has given its commitment that it still has a serious interest in hydropower, it has recently said through one of its senior Government Ministers that it was no longer interested in continuing the Amaila Falls Hydroelectricity Project (AFHP), which was started by the previous Government.

But former President Donald Ramotar believes that Government may be making a huge mistake in scrapping that project, especially when there was evidence based on feasibility studies that it would have helped to power many communities across the country with a clean source of energy.
He said, “This is a second major blunder that this Government has made. It’s a folly of gigantic proportion for the Government to have canned the Amaila Falls Project without proper consultation.”
The former Head of State argued that the project was not born out of nowhere, but there were several important technical studies that were conducted which led the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government to initiate it.
“One of the hopes I had as President of this country is that we could have industrialised this country through this project. We would have been able to create a large industrial sector. We could have created an industrial agriculture country,” he added.
Using agriculture as a raw material base for processing and with other heavy materials, Ramotar said he was confident that Amaila would have helped to boost the productive sector in a large way. This in turn would have opened up hundreds of job opportunities for Guyanese, and the end result would have been a cheaper source of electricity for the already-heavily taxed Private Sector.
“I am saying this very confidently that there is no way we could meet 90 per cent of energy of renewable sources without Amaila. I am not against other alternative energy to be used, but we will not have any significant impact…without Amaila, it will remain talk,” he opined.
The former President said if statements that Minister of State, Joseph Harmon made were a reflection of the final decision of the Cabinet, a colossal mistake was made. “I don’t know if they are seeing what is taking place. The mistake is greater than, or of the same proportion of the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) and the downsizing of sugar, which will soon come into effect,” he said.
Ramotar told Guyana Times that oil-producing countries like Brazil and Venezuela still had hydropower, and he believed if there was hydro-potential to develop, then Guyana should follow suit. “This Government seems to be basing everything on oil, and I think it’s a huge mistake and they are going to make our economy downsized. The PPP economy was on three pillars – bauxite, rice, and sugar and expanded that; now everything is going to be on oil.”
He claimed that while he did not want to believe it was a move based on vindictiveness, he described it as a political move that would have damaging effects on how Guyana moved forward with positioning itself for future advancement and development, particularly in the area of renewable energy.
“It has to be a (political move). They have all the studies and if they have all of that and they canned Amaila, it means that they are taking decisions based on spitefulness and pettiness. If the idea of it coming from the PPP is what is motivating the Government, then it’s shameful.”
Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo has repeatedly called for the urgent restarting of the AFHP, and he accused the Government of misrepresenting the Norconsult report, which was intended to be a facts-based assessment of the project to guide Guyana and Norway.
But the coalition Government has been hinting since 2015 that it was unlikely that it would proceed with the project. When in Opposition, both A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance For Change (AFC) had criticised the Bharrat Jagdeo and Donald Ramotar Administrations for the lack of transparency surrounding the AFHP.
The AFHP was the flagship project of the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) and was supported by Norway, but has struggled to get off the ground.