BECAUSE of a democratic society with the right to freedom of expression, citizens such as Lincoln Lewis has the right to views/opinions on important national issues.
He, like so many other critics of the PPP/C government, has been assailing the administration over many aspects of the Amaila Falls Hydro Project. For them, government has been all wrong about this project. In fact, one of them, in a piece carried in the Stabroek letter

columns, recently, said quite clearly that the country does not need hydro power as a source of renewable energy. But Lewis’s piece makes very interesting reading for the many distortions expressed, so much so that one must ask the question – where does he live?
As is known, no international lending agency will begin to consider funding such a significant project without due diligence being done, as is currently being undertaken by the Inter-American Development Bank, thus for him to highlight that there is the “absence” of such a requirement is the height of great misinformation, as well as his claim of a government’s undertaking   that the project will   provide 10,000 jobs. There is no honest Guyanese who can claim to have heard of such a promise.
A constant refrain of opposition tactics in seeking to defeat this great transformative project is that government has not provided it with sufficient information. Call this one of the greatest deceptions of current opposition politics, repeated by Lewis. But this is definitely parroting a weak defence after APNU.
For the many meetings, and exchange of information between government and the opposition parties on the Amaila Project, commendations must be given to the Executive. This has been a prime example of shared governance, that has not escaped even the notice of supporters of the opposition, and therefore nails the lie that  Lewis  not only  brazenly  dared to pedal in his piece, but also repeated by APNU’s  finance and economics spokesperson, Carl Greenidge. What examples of deliberated falsehoods! How can it pronounce such lies? Who is it seeking to convince.
The major thrust of Lewis’s letter is that what has occurred, the withdrawal of Sithe Global from the project, signifies   a major victory for the people – “it exemplifies people’s power”.
As a government with an entrenched and powerful working tradition, the administration has always consulted with the masses on matters that pertain to their advancement, and as is well documented, it has been no less with this flagship transformative project. The Executive’s many interactions with all sides of national opinion, be it business and commerce, religious and cultural, and most important, the political opposition, represents a process of national consultation never before experienced in this country. It was a national discourse that involved every stratum of national opinion. No section of society, nor shade of opinion was excluded, as government sought to answer the many questions asked. So wide had been the scope for consultation and diologue, that the opposition parties  even met with two of the financiers,  Sithe Global and the Inter-American Development Bank, in a further quest for answers.  There were no hindrances to any of these processes from the Executive. This was democracy in action, as a fact.  It was only natural that such occurred, because it involved the people, who will become the obvious beneficiaries when Amaila  becomes a reality.
Therefore, to suggest that it was “people power” that forced Sithe to withdraw is nebulous, as it is absolute nonsense! In fact, what Lewis must now understand is that there is growing resentment from opposition supporters who would have followed the issues as related to this groundbreaking project that will mean so much for their future economic well being.  For opposition supporters, like all other supporters of their respective political blocs, are looking forward to the commencement of this project, since it brings them closer to the day when they will be billed for minimum energy charges. But at the moment, all they are witnessing is an opposition party, APNU, and the Lewises, crowing that democracy has triumphed, when they had  already  seen its   inherent practice  in the consultative process.