HEAD of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon, says main projects to be financed from the Guyana REDD Investment Fund (GRIF) are closer to being approved, and the Steering Committee is working to ensure that these ventures are perfect in terms of project design.
The HPS was speaking at his post-Cabinet press briefing at the Office of the President yesterday.
“At least three main projects that we have identified for access to the first annual tranche – they would have to be cleared, submitted and adopted by the Steering Committee,” he said.
The first project is the Amaila Hyrdoelectric project, and work is progressing on the financial aspect of this venture, which the GRIF will supplement. He noted that the second one is financing solar panels for Amerindian communities and the third is the land demarcation and titling for Amerindian communities.
“When those three projects would have been completed in their entirety for presentation to the Steering Committee, at that point in time they would deliberate and once the approval is given, then it goes over for access to funding from the first annual tranche,” he said.
Dr. Luncheon acknowledged that there is some sloth in the process of getting the projects approved since the timeline for their financing had been during 2010. “There is some sloth…some of it is unavoidable, some of it we have been moving to correct in terms of procurement and engagement with third parties in terms of project design and identification of the tenderers who would be procuring goods and services,” Dr. Luncheon said.
From an MOU signed with the Kingdom of Norway and Guyana in November 2009, Guyana will benefit from US$30M for 2010 and US$40M for 2011 for the financing of the aforementioned projects and many others. The agreement with Norway is for a total of US$250M until 2015, and is subject to Guyana performing, monitoring, reporting and verification to ensure that the agreement for forest protection is maintained.