APNU/AFC wasted $10.8B to purchase inoperable generator sets – Minister Indar

– says sets cannot be installed until 2021
– believes money could have been used to benefit citizens, pay workers

Junior Minister of Public Works, Deodat Indar has revealed that the $10 billion spent by the previous Government during the COVID-19 pandemic to purchase five Wartsila generators for the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) are yet to provide the expected value for money.

Minister Indar made this revelation during a National Communication Network broadcast on Friday. According to him, additional costs to complete works at the Garden of Eden, East Bank Demerara site have to be factored in with the US$50 million price tag.
“The generating sets are not yet here. They are in Finland. They have been finished; I understand based on correspondence that I received that they have finished. But the issue here is the civil works. The civil works is a 10-month contract that runs till April 2021.”

“So regardless of if the generators are finished now, a month from now or two, three months from now, it still cannot be put into use cause the civil works is till April 2021,” Indar explained during the broadcast.
The Minister explained that the sensible thing for the former Government to have done was to do the civil works first. The expenses to buy generating sets that the former Government forced GPL to incur could, therefore, have waited.
But aside from GPL having to take a loan for the sets, Indar pointed out that when the deal was negotiated, the then Government was in a caretaker status. Additionally, elections would have just been concluded and controversies arose, resulting in a five-month standoff with no President being sworn in.
The Junior Minister contended that as a consequence, the Government did not have the authority to be entering into contracts and burdening GPL with debt. Even worse though, is the fact that the previous Government did not see the need to use the money for the citizens of Guyana who were suffering because of COVID-19.
“They went and expended this money at a time when there was a pandemic and during the pandemic, a number of workers are furloughed and they don’t have jobs, businesses are shut down, they need support and the previous Government did not use their wits to help people but went and spent all this money on generating sets.”
“The first loan was negotiated and paid $1.1 billion in April (2020). And then a $4.5 billion on May 22 and there was another tranche of $5 billion on June 22. Mind you, we had an election on March 2. From March 2 to the resumption of the PPP Government, there was a recount. The recount established the PPP was the winner.”
While acknowledging the importance of reliable electricity, the Junior Public Works Minister posited, “there were other means and methods that the (PPP/C) Government is looking to generate electricity.”
GPL, which has been plagued with sporadic periods of unreliability, heavily relies on heavy fuel oil. This is despite the advice of industry experts who have long recommended Guyana integrate renewable energy into its power grid.
The Amaila Falls Hydro Project (AFHP), a brainchild of the PPP which would have done just that, was shelved soon after the former A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Government came to office. The lack of investors has been cited.
The People’s Progressive Party (PPP) has contended that the Amaila Falls Hydropower Project could have been generating about 50 per cent more electricity than the entire GPL supply at the time in 2012. But the project was scrapped by the coalition Administration, which had controlled the National Assembly by a one-seat majority.
In addition, talks of bringing natural gas onshore for use to generate power have not gone much further beyond talks. Part of a US$20 million loan that Guyana had signed with the World Bank had gone towards funding a study to examine the merits of bringing natural gas onshore for the local energy market.