Latest update April 18th, 2024 12:59 AM
Aug 26, 2013 News
– slams Opposition, private media at Cotton Tree meeting
By Leon Suseran
President Donald Ramotar says he is determined to look for other partners to build the Amaila Falls Hydro Power Plant. He was speaking on Friday to residents of Cotton Tree Village, West Coast Berbice. And the Guyanese leader lambasted the Stabroek and Kaieteur News as being instruments that “hate” the government.
Mr. Ramotar stated that the opposition is “distorting and continuing to lie about this project. This project was one project in this country in which every single person would have benefitted from…”
The project was not solely a government project, “as is being peddled.” “The government would have had shares in the company and that money we are spending on the road to the falls— that is one area that we would be investing and the US$80B that we earned from Norway— that is the other money we would have used— we were not taking taxpayers’ monies…we were not putting the country in debt, as they say.”
“If we get that project going, immediately the country will save $6B,” he stated. The biggest importation bill Guyana has— fuel— will also bring benefits, he added.
He described as “jackass thinking” by some persons who have touted the idea of linking the Eclipse Falls with the Amaila Falls and noted that they (the two falls) are too far from each other.
Electricity bills, he added, will be reduced by as much as 20 per cent “and in the final stage— in 20 years when the company will become totally owned by Guyanese—you will be saving about 91 per cent of what you pay at this point in time.”
The Amaila Hydro Power Plant, he noted, will last 100 years during which jobs will be stimulated, “because when you have cheap electricity, people will invest and produce more and we can become a manufacturing society.” Agriculturally, Guyana can become an “agro- industrial complex to process these things.”
Another “distortion” being made, he said, is that Guyana will have a big debt.
“We were guaranteeing to the company that Guyana Power & Light Inc (GPL) will buy the electricity from them and the money GPL will have to pay them….GPL can afford and clearly the government is already giving $6B a year of subsidize electricity so they got that money already. So really, it is a no- brainer— it is just a requirement— it’s not that we are going into debt to build these things..”
Ramotar also blasted the private media on its coverage of the Marriot Hotel controversy.
He stated that for the first time Guyana will have a five- star hotel “and we had to get it done because we think it will promote tourism and give Guyana a good name outside.” He dismissed suggestions that the Marriot Hotel was a “secret deal.”
“We had a public turning-of-the-sod…the whole press was there and they still calling it a secret arrangement, but these people are extremely short- sighted.”
At present, he said, “all of the hotels are full and this will stimulate tourism.” Moreover, in another ten years, Guyana will be a major player in the oil sector. When that time comes, Guyana will need “about ten Marriots” to provide accommodation to people who come here.
“But this shows you the mentality of these people— the old saying that some people only want to go and make toilets when they want to go and use it— this is the kind of mentality that they have in the opposition.”
He chastised the Alliance for Change (AFC) for saying that they supported the Amaila Falls Bill in the National Assembly in August, “because in July when they had the opportunity—if they had supported it then, we would not have the problem that we are in today— they voted against it on July 18 and until the IDB said it was a good project, they didn’t want to vote for it…so it is too little, too late.”
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