Gov’t to request proposals for Amaila Falls project within two weeks

As the government maintains that the Amaila Falls Hydropower project will not be abandoned, General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo has reaffirmed that the government will soon reissue a request for proposals for the revival of the project.

He was at the time speaking at a press conference at Freedom House on Thursday.

The GS said that the government anticipates going out to request proposals within two weeks.

He added that multiple investors have expressed interest in the project.

“We were hoping within maybe a maximum of two weeks to go out for the request for proposals. Up to last week, we had another interest from a Brazilian company. We’ve had a company from Austria. We had several from Korea… I think there are a large number of people approaching us, and the best way to do this is through public process” he said.

In keeping with its manifesto promise, the PPP/C government has been making consistent efforts to revive the project under its revamped Low Carbon Development Strategy to advance its plan to lower the cost of electricity, in addition to supporting Guyana’s economic diversification efforts.

With the newest challenges being faced by Guyana Power and Light (GPL) in supporting the consumers on its grid, such a project becomes increasingly necessary and will work in tandem with the upcoming Gas to Energy project to deliver reliable, stable, and cheaper electricity to Guyanese.

“They have the data, so the instructions have been given already to the technical people. What they have to do is to update the data from the last request for proposal. And there are some elements like the change in demand and all of that. But we had most of the documents from the past already, so we just need to update them,” the GS added.

During its previous tenure, the PPP/C administration initially conducted extensive assessments, including an environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA), to bring the project to fruition. However, the project was halted by the combined parliamentary opposition of APNU and AFC.

Additionally, the initial executing company, China Railway Limited, requested to change the Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) contract’s arrangement to an Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) contract, providing a fresh setback to the project’s tendering process.

The project is expected to bring an estimated 160 megawatts of power, and forms part of the government’s transformative agenda for the country’s renewable energy grid.