The headlines of  Stabroek  News of 2011-05-12,  “Motilall sold Amaila licence to Sithe”,  and of Kaieteur News of the same date,  “Fip flips licence to Sithe Global”, do our people and country great harm.  SN and KN prefer to continue the innuendos about  some sort  of corruption and  to be flippant about this tremendous development  for our  people and country,  rather than to take the opportunity to  educate our population at large, about what is a very common way in which big projects,  such as the Amaila Falls hydropower  project,  get  done. The fact is that  there  are  100  or  more  good   starts  for every large project that makes it  successfully  to realization,  and a particular idea may start and die a number of times before it becomes reality!  We in Guyana have a good example in Omai –  known to have gold since about the 1880s, with  a German  company  setting up  an operation there in the 1890s, Anaconda in the 1930s, then Golden Star,  one of the  Junior Mining Companies as they are called,  picking up the property in the mid 1980s, doing a lot of drilling, expending a lot of money,  then seeking  a  big partner to take things forward.  Placer Dome was interested for a while, then Cambior came along;  the mine was developed,  and the mill was built, and in that partnership, Golden Star received 35% of the shares for the prospecting work it had done.

Now back to Amaila.  Since the mid 1980s, Amaila was recognized to be an interesting site  for development, perhaps the  site  that best matched  our  needs.  Mr Motilall began considering and  pursuing that  development in 1997, applied for and was granted an MOU in early 1998 on which he  had Kleinschmidt & Assoc of Portland Maine,  make a desk-top  prefeasibility study.     With a favourable outcome, Mr Motilall  continued working, seeking partners at that stage and had HARZA Engineering (now MWH) prepare a feasibility study,  partly for cash payment and partly for a carried interest.  On the basis of the positive Feasibility Study, an Interim Licence was applied for and granted in 2002, and work continued with the production of an EIA.  Financial and all closure was close at hand with Scudder Latin America Fund and Leucadia about to take the lead, but among other things, oil price was low, less than US$30 per barrel;  financing costs were high for this then  purely  privately financed project;  the projected cost  for electricity was greater than electricity from HFO fuelled stations;  and  the outward repayment cash flows were greater than fuel purchase flows.

That arrangement fell apart.  Mr Motilall and his partners in SYNERGY continued working to refine the project, seeking and meeting other partners.  Government was satisfied with their periodic reports and from time to time judged that it was reasonable to extend the Interim Licence.  Eventually, Synergy won the interest and attention of Sithe Global, now a part of the Blackstone Group.  In time, as Sithe Global worked its way into the role of leading partner to take the Amaila Falls Hydropower project to construction and operation, on the request of Synergy and on the Government’s own consideration and demand, a new Interim Licence was issued in the name of Sithe Global in October 2009.
Mr Motilall and his partners have expended cash and invested lots of unpaid time in this development since he first began in 1997.  From the work done along the way unto the entry of Sithe Global in 2007, an estimate of cash expenditure approaching US$5 M and unpaid time and other costs exceeding US$5M is not unreasonable.

It is quite standard practice that a pioneer, having developed a project to a certain point, finds a bigger, stronger partner to take the project forward.  The pioneer is rewarded in part or in whole with a cash payment at the time and some equity interest in the realized project.  Depending upon the profitability of the project, the pioneer would receive a multiple of his investment in cash and time.  Of course, the many more times when the project dies before realization, the pioneer receives nothing.

SN and KN, who may see themselves as paragons of private enterprise, would know this and should not insinuate differently to the public.
I hope that this response would be given prominence equivalent to the unkind headlines of 2011-05-11.