The Government recently paid for full-colour, double-page spreads in the daily newspapers touting the Amaila Falls Hydropower Project (AFHP) for powering Guyana’s future. The topmost justification is the Norconsult 2016 report on AFHP, which states, “The only realistic path for Guyana toward an emission free electricity sector is by developing its hydropower potential. The fastest…
The government is promising to audit the US$9.5 billion in capital costs outside the audit window that is now closed. It hasn’t explained how it will enforce any discrepancies found given that the time frame to audit Liza 1 and Liza 2, the first 2 projects in the Stabroek block, have expired. But let’s not…
I would like to follow-up on SN November 18, 2021. Mere stating that an audit will be done does not mention if the 2016 Contract terms, Article 23 and Annex C will be renegotiated. There are also a number of unanswered questions that could secure Guyana’s interests. Will Guyana’s property and tax laws related to…
I attended the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) presentation of the Yellowtail Development Project held Monday Nov 1, 2021, at the Leonora Technical Institute (LTI). The presenters were very cordial and courteous in their presentations and answers to questions. The EIA itself was published in 3 volumes on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) website, and its…
A reader might be misled by the Government’s current enthusiasm to start construction of this small dam (by global standards) in the remote Kuribrong River; SN 01 November ‘Cabinet gives China Railway ‘no objection’ for Amaila hydro project’. The Cabinet appears to have been persuaded by Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo that the Norwegian advisers, Norconsult,…
Dear Editor, I refer to your article, ‘Gov’t seeking up to US$2B insurance coverage from Exxon for Yellowtail project’, 04 November 2021. The Liza, Payara and Yellowtail oil wells are around 18,000 feet deep in the rocks and under 5-6,000 feet of Atlantic water. BP’s Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 was…
In response to his letter published in the Stabroek News on 1 November 2021, I invite Jonathan Yearwood to listen to what I said at the Hearing on Extractive Industries, Climate Justice and Human Rights in the Caribbean convened by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) on 26 October 2021. In the recording he…
Of all the energy possibilities, solar power is now the best for Guyana. It is the least expensive, will put power in the hands of the ordinary man, and is blindingly simple. Let us take each of these in turn. Generation If US$900M has to be found for the 165 MW Amaila Falls Hydropower Project,…
Imagine that you were lucky to be awarded a house lot. You hire a contractor company to fence off your plot of land and you intend to use them to build your house. But on review of the bill for the fencing, the numbers don’t add up. You will be outraged and will seek to…
Guyana is often mentioned for less than stellar reasons. There’s Jonestown (‘(s)he drank the Kool Aid’), rigged elections, the poorest country after Haiti in CARICOM and Latin America, the costliest failed infrastructural project in CARICOM (US$250M Skeldon sugar factory), and failed or captured regulatory agencies. Standouts among the latter was the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM)…
