Controversial Chinese company rebids for Amaila Falls Hydro-Project

Oct 01, 2021 News

Kaieteur News – Controversial Chinese construction company, China Railway Group Limited, which was blacklisted by the World Bank in September 2019 for allegedly breaching procurement guidelines, is one of four companies which submitted proposals for the 165 megawatt (MW) Amaila Falls Hydropower Project. The procuring entity was the Office of the Prime Minister who holds responsibility for the energy portfolio.
Construction of the Amaila Falls Project is expected to commence next year after being stalled for years from when it was first proposed. The project did not commence back then due to issues of feasibility and lack of transparency.
Specifically, the project was stalled in 2013 after the Opposition-controlled National Assembly refused to pass key environment legislation required for the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to approve part of the required financing.
China Railway was founded in 1950, and is part of the China Railway Engineering Group (CREG), which is one of the largest construction companies in China. The PPP/C Government had intended, years ago, to have this company develop the project with money coming from Norway, China and the IDB. However, a Norwegian Ethics Council had raised questions about the involvement of the Chinese firm in a significant corruption case.
Another company, which submitted a proposal was Sinohydro Corporation Limited, which is another China-owned construction company. This company was awarded the US$31.03M IDB Project for the Sheriff Street-Mandela Avenue expansion in December 2017. In 2019, the IDB had stopped payments to the Chinese contractor for several infringements.
A third China-owned Company that submitted a proposal was China Gezhouba Group Company Limited. It is a construction and engineering company based in Wuhan and was founded in 2006.This company was one of the nine companies that were shortlisted to build the new Demerara Harbour Bridge.
The last company to bid was Rialma S.A, a Brazilian owned company. This company was founded in 1998 and has operations in the construction sector and power generation projects.

Below are the companies and their bids:

Office of the Prime Minister

Amaila Falls Hydropower Project.