Produce the evidence – Jagdeo to Patterson on AFHP electricity cost

…as VP threatens to haul MP before Privileges Committee

The People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) will have Alliance For Change (AFC) point man on oil and gas, David Patterson, brought before the Parliamentary Committee of Privileges if he cannot back up recent claims he made that the Amaila Falls Hydropower Project (AFHP) would have sold electricity at 26 cents per kilowatt.
Making this threat was Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, during a recent interview on social media. During the interview, Jagdeo pointed out that the AFC and A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) have a track record of trying to derail this project despite the transformational good it would do to the country.
He said that one such attempt was to claim that the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) did not support the project. Jagdeo also challenged Patterson’s claim that an analysis found AFHP would have produced electricity at 25 cents per kilowatt. According to Jagdeo, this number is actually 10 cents per kilowatt and he has asked Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira, to ensure Patterson is made to prove his assertion.

“They claimed that IDB was not supportive of the project from the beginning. IDB throughout was supportive of the project. Was going to raise US$100 million for the project. The cost of power would have been about 10 cents per kilowatt per hour. He claimed he had a report that it would have been 25 cents per kilowatt hour.”
“I’ve asked Gail Teixeira to write the Speaker, that if he cannot produce the report in Parliament that says the price for power would have been 25 cents, he must face the Committee of Privileges,” Jagdeo said.
According to Jagdeo, the APNU and AFC Opposition and even sections of the media went on a spree of spreading lies about the project. He noted some of the other things they said, including that the Amaila Falls would run dry and there would be no power. This is despite the fact that there would have been a reservoir.
“(They said) we were taking US$2 billion of debt to the treasury. When there was zero debt to the treasury. There was a $750 million of contingent liability, where we are guaranteeing the payment. But zero debt because it is a BOOT operation, we were buying power. A whole range of issues,” Jagdeo also said.
The parliamentary Opposition is no stranger to being taken before the Privileges Committee, which is in charge of disciplining Members of Parliament (MP). Only last year, eight APNU/AFC MPs were brought before the Privileges Committee for disrupting a December 29, 2021 sitting of the National Assembly and grabbing the mace. All eight of them were suspended from the National Assembly.
During the course of last week’s examination of the budget estimates, Patterson claimed that the Norwegians informed the former APNU/AFC government in 2015 that the cost of electricity from AFHP would be US 25 cents per kilowatt. He also claimed that this cost was subsequently revised to US 30 cents per kilowatt, taking into account the overall cost of the project.
The revival of the 165-megawatt AFHP was one of the promises made by the PPP/C in its manifesto. The project was initiated under the previous PPP/C Administration, but was scrapped by the coalition Administration which had controlled the National Assembly by a one-seat Opposition majority.
Construction on the Amaila Falls Hydropower Project (AFHP) was supposed to start last year, as Government continues to ramp up spending on renewable energy projects as well as upgrades to the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) infrastructure. The expected completion date was to be 2027.
The Government has said that AFHP will be based on a Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) model where the company will supply electricity to GPL Inc at a cost not exceeding US$0.07737 per kilowatt hour and where the company will provide the entire equity required by the project and undertake all the risks associated with the project.
The AFHP was the flagship of Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS).
Amaila was expected to deliver a steady source of clean, renewable energy that would have been affordable and reliable, and was envisioned to meet approximately 90 per cent of Guyana’s domestic energy needs while removing dependency on fossil fuels.
The AFHP was first identified in 1976 by the Canadian company Monenco during an extensive survey of hydroelectric power potential in Guyana. Various studies have since justified and strongly supported the construction of the AFHP. (G3)