Is Bharrat Jagdeo trying to revive the dead?

NOVEMBER 16, 2015 | BY KNEWS | FILED UNDER LETTERS

Dear Editor, One of the headlines of Kaieteur News edition of Monday, November 8, is “Gov’t must be open to talks on Amaila Falls project or else …” This is more of a threat than a warning which the government should pay no heed to because of the following reasons. Jagdeo’s rating of success of all the projects he undertook has been one that indicates he is a colossal failure. The Skeldon factory, the Enmore packaging plant, the Fibre optic cable, the Speciality hospital, the Marriot, the Berbice river bridge and many others have wasted taxpayers’ money and brought about more grinding poverty on certain sections of the populace. With this track record doom awaits those who allow his participation in any decision making exercise. The Amaila falls was a project that was poorly conceived. No proper cost/benefit analysis was done and so it would not make the kind of impact as declared. We are told that in the dry season the falls will run dry so there will be no output during that period. In addition it is not a project for all Guyana as Essequibo would be excluded. With the above facts, the government should ensure new sites in the “Land of many Waters” are investigated. The increase of the cost of this project has been astronomical. Its initial stated cost was about $650 million U.S dollars. It went up subsequently and reached over 800 million US dollars. Then we were subsequently told that it would exceed one billion US dollars. Reasons tendered for this exponential increase are not plausible, and so this provides another reason for halting this project. Taxpayers ultimately pay back loans taken by governments, and so they must have an input in decision making, especially of a project of this magnitude. However, this project, foisted on the people, was brought to light when the company identified to undertake the project was also doing a project in Jamaica, and only when details of their projects were published in Jamaica did we learn about the Amaila Falls. The people want to know why this project was shrouded in so much secrecy. Choice of contractors by the Jagdeo regime seemed to be consistent in choosing the worst. Four persons tendered for the road leading to the falls. The three Guyanese contractors who have vast experience were sidelined. Instead Fip Motilall, a person with no experience at all was chosen. It is not surprising that he was unable to complete the project and at the same, this questionable choice cost Guyanese hundreds of millions of wasted dollars. In fact when his office was located in America, it was not involved in carrying out any civil work but was involved in selling paraphernalia for the Hindu religion. We must thank Mr. Jagdeo who is trying now to revive the dead. Nazir Mohamed Region 2