–?? ?Amendments approved –?? ?AFC caps debt ceiling guarantee at $50B –?? ?Greenidge says cost now US$1.054BBy Gary EleazarWhile there was no consensus to be had in the National Assembly on the Amaila Falls Hydro Electric Project in its current construct, the House, through a majority vote, managed to approve the amendments to the Hydro Electric Act as well as increase the debt ceiling guarantee for Public Corporations to $50B.Sithe Global, developers of the project, had threatened to walk away had they not received the support of all three of the political parties in the National Assembly.APNU’s Carl Greenidge makes his presentation during the historic session.The marathon session of the sitting of the National Assembly began on Thursday, one hour after its stipulated 14:00hrs start time, and the business of the House did not conclude until yesterday morning at 03:00hrs.Historic SessionThe first order of business saw a history-making decision by the House, through a majority vote, to have a defeated motion and Bill returned to the Order Paper during the same session of Parliament.Prime Minister Samuel Hinds,Jerseys NFL Wholesale, at the beginning of Thursday’s session,NBA Jerseys From China, informed the House that the move to reconsider the voted down proposals came in light of recent developments. He was referring to the call by Sithe Global for consensus in the House, through the changes to two pieces of legislation. The developers said that this is required to pave the way for the financial closure for the hydro electric plant.A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) vehemently opposed the move, but the Alliance for Change (AFC) voted in support of having the matters be placed for reconsideration.The parliamentarians had to wait for several hours to debate the matters at hand, given that both opposition parties insisted that the debt ceiling motion and the Hydro Electric Amendments be placed at bottom of the agenda.HYDRO OFFSETThe debate finally got underway just about 22:00hrs on Thursday, and while the amendment to the Hydro Electric Bill makes no reference to the Amaila Falls Hydro Electric Project, Prime Minister Hinds in presenting the changes in the law for debate, centred his arguments on the merits of the project.The proposed amendments called for the creating of an offset area to be created, in order to compensate for the hydro electric project and its environmental impact.Hinds told the House that over the years a number of hydro projects would have been considered, for which MoUs were inked, but none ever made it to the advanced stage that the current project has realized. He said in the mid 2000s, one the reasons that the Amaila Falls project was not aggressively pursued was the fact that at the time it was not envisaged that the oil prices would skyrocket to the current levels.Hinds suggested that the administration believed that oil prices would not have risen above US$30 per barrel. He said too that another reason the government did not pursue the project back then, was the fact that the equity partner at the time had demanded a 25 per cent return on its investment, as well as to have the plant transferred to Government at a commercial rate.He said that as government pursued the project with Sithe Global, they managed to have the company accept a return on its investment of 19 per cent, while it would be turned over to government after 20 years at no cost.The Prime Minister did not address the 8.5 per cent interest rate for the US$500M China Exim Bank loan for the project.Just EstimatesAddressing the varying prices that have been made public for the Amaila Falls Hydro Electric Plant, the Prime Minister said that “these are just estimates” that are continuously revised.The plant was originally planned at US$350M which quickly rose to US$650M, then to US$840M and in the last two weeks it has been further revised upwards to US$858M.The Prime Minister insisted however that the price of generation of electricity will be reduced significantly with the realization of the Amaila Falls Hydro Electric Plant.Chief Financial Spokesperson for APNU, Carl Greenidge,Wholesale Jerseys From China, took the Prime Minister to task over his statements and said while government has espoused that the cost of generation will go down, this does not mean that the tariff charged to the consumer will reduce in the same manner.Greenidge said that this has in large part to do with the inefficiency of the Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL).According to Greenidge,Cheap Jerseys For Sale, GPL is the “most inefficient corporation in Guyana.” He reminded that recently the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) had pumped US$10M into the power company in an effort to reduce its technical and commercial