Provide the feasibility report upon which the GTE project was premised
Jan 26, 2025
Dear Editor,
The issue of a feasibility study being conducted for the GTE project has been a source of repeated demands by the good people of Guyana and for good reason.
Our country has a long history of mega projects which were supposed to deliver us into an elevated state of existence which have not quite worked out the way we had been told they would.
They are also not limited to only one side of the fence, whether it was the Upper Mazaruni hydro or the Skeldon sugar factory. So, we can understand why the country requests feasibility when another big project is promised.
The simple request for the feasibility on the GTE was met with the response “Ask EXIM Bank” as they had conducted a feasibility study.
This was equivalent of the Borrower saying to its shareholders ask the lender whether the project is feasible.
This was however done and EXIM told us that no such study was conducted by them.
We were then told that it wasn’t a feasibility study it was a Due Diligence study conducted by Sargent and Lundy.
Sargent and Lundy (www.sargentlundy.com) in their own words self-describe in the following terms ” Since 1891, Sargent and Lundy has been a global leader in engineering and design for the power industry.”
Are we being told that Exim Bank (Lender) retained an Engineering and Design expert to conduct an economic and financial feasibility study for GTE?
Due diligence from an engineering and design perspective is a different kettle of fish from a financial feasibility study.
The considerations of a lender are completely different to that of a borrower.
The Lender wants to make sure they take an asset which is of value to them when you default on the loan.
The obvious question is what security was offered by Guyana to EXIM Bank for the loan.
Was it a charge on the NRF or over the oil revenues rather than or in conjunction with a charge over the plant and its revenues?
These are issues which are critical to every Guyanese who is concerned about the real possibility of being saddled with debt and the consequences of default.
Let’s not bury this in political rhetoric but rather provide the feasibility report upon which this project was premised.
Full disclosure will help us all.
Yours Sincerely
C.A. Nigel Hughes.
Alliance For Change
(Provide the feasibility report upon which the GTE project was premised)
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