GEORGE­TOWN, Guyana–Pres­i­dent Don­ald Ramo­tar yes­ter­day ap­pealed for an end to par­ti­san pol­i­tics sur­round­ing the Amaila Falls Hy­dropow­er project. In a re­lease, the pres­i­dent said al­though the Unit­ed States based in­vestor, Sithe Glob­al has pulled out of the project, there is still a win­dow of op­por­tu­ni­ty and he has spo­ken with Op­po­si­tion leader David Granger urg­ing the sup­port of AP­NU (A Part­ner­ship for Na­tion­al Uni­ty).

It was AP­NU's non-sup­port of two Amaila mat­ters in par­lia­ment last week that led to the de­vel­op­er, Sithe Glob­al quit­ting the project."Ear­ly this morn­ing, I spoke with the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, Mr Granger, and urged him once again to join me in show­ing sup­port for the Amaila Falls project, for our coun­try's fu­ture de­vel­op­ment and for the life op­por­tu­ni­ties of gen­er­a­tions of Guyanese.

I will try to con­tin­ue this en­gage­ment with Mr Granger in the hours ahead, and I told him that my door re­mains open, as it al­ways has been," said Ramo­tar.

Sithe Glob­al says it will go ahead with its US$150 mil­lion in­vest­ment in the US$850 mil­lion hy­dropow­er plant but on­ly if all po­lit­i­cal par­ties in par­lia­ment sup­port the project. The New York-based firm wants the AP­NU to sup­port the project, but the par­ty main­tains that the coun­try would be tak­ing a risk by in­vest­ing in the hy­dropow­er plant.

Ramo­tar said: "The de­bate about Amaila is not helped by the vol­ume of un­in­formed spec­u­la­tion that has been vis­i­ble in re­cent weeks, de­spite two op­por­tu­ni­ties to de­bate the project in Par­lia­ment, and the pub­lic avail­abil­i­ty of in­for­ma­tion over many months."

Ac­cord­ing to the pres­i­dent: "De­ci­sions on mat­ters such as this–which are so im­por­tant to our coun­try's fu­ture–should be based on facts, and not made as a re­sult of spec­u­la­tion or po­lit­i­cal par­ti­san­ship. All our po­lit­i­cal par­ties know that they have been equipped with the in­for­ma­tion they need to reach a de­ci­sion on Amaila Falls."

The pres­i­dent stat­ed that if the hy­dropow­er project is im­ple­ment­ed, the cost of elec­tric­i­ty will be re­duced by at least 20 per cent with­in two years of com­mer­cial op­er­a­tion and re­duce the coun­try's de­pen­dence on for­eign oil.

CMC