Dear Editor,
When a country experiences years of power outages, there are solutions and strategies to mitigate and improve the situation. From my experience, the most important of them all remains the ability to urgently diversify away from the current situation. You cannot do the same thing over and over and expect a different outcome.
Concerning the current situation regarding power outages, the Government of Guyana (GoG) is on the right path, as it seeks to diversify the sources of energy. This would enable the GoG, in service to the people, to rely on multiple energy sources, rather than continuing with the fragmented status quo.
Additionally, investing in modernizing and reinforcing the power grid to improve its reliability and resilience is key. There are no shortcuts to these investments. Mind you, if one were to read the National Development Strategy crafted in 1994, one would realize that the GoG always had documented solutions on this matter, but to implement them required an upfront cost which usually ran into billions of dollars.Fortunately for us as a nation, we are now better placed to conduct the required investments necessary to achieve the desired outcome. But these things take time.
When former President Bharrat Jagdeo was advocating for the Amaila Falls Hydro Power Project, Guyana was still under an IMF Program, and therefore, to secure any additional loans at that time to advance the process required a sign-off in Washington DC. No so today! While Guyana has approached the EXIM Bank of the United States for funding to advance the 300MW Gas-to-Energy (GtE) Project, we must not be confused about our ability to complete this project, loan or no loan. Guyana is very capable of funding the 300MW GtE Project with or without a loan.
Those who think they can write adversarial letters to the EXIM Bank and create a blockage are out of touch and unaware of our abilities as a nation today, and our current standing in the world. They certainly need to upgrade and reboot their narrative.
There are 134GW of gas-fired power plants that are actively being constructed worldwide; which, for context, is only marginally smaller than the national grid of Brazil. When that is added to what was built over the last 5 years, more than 300GW of gas-fired power will be added to the global system over 2020-2030. Why should Guyana not benefit from such a project, like many other nations? The evidence does not add up, and it reinforces the position that the GoG is patently in order as it continues to push forward on this GtE Project. The risk has to be taken now to complete this project, because the future economic benefits to the nation far outweigh the current financial cost and all associated risks. We can never develop an effective manufacturing sector or an efficient agri-processing industry without low-cost and reliable electricity. These strategic build-outs are crucial armour to combat the Dutch Disease.
While reading an article in one of the national dailies, I noticed a school of thought that believes the United States Export-Import (US EXIM) Bank should be warned about its intention to approve Guyana’s application for a loan to support the GTE Project. For the record, while I respect the right of the owner of that school of thought to make their statement in the national newspapers, I humbly beg to differ on this point, since, on this question, there is no room for emotions. The empirical evidence at this time proves that low-cost and reliable energy is a necessity for Guyana as it seeks to transform itself.
The project that is closest to the point of completion to mitigate our current electricity challenge and transform the systems in how we, as a people, service our energy needs remains the GTE Project. Therefore, come what may, it must be launched.
Sincerely,
Sasenarine Singh
