PULL QUOTE: ‘This outcome has isolated the parliamentary Opposition, divided their supporters and activists and exposed to Guyanese their machinations.’CABINET Secretary, Dr. Roger Luncheon says the Amaila Falls Hydropower Project (AFHP) has for all intents and purposes been “utterly destroyed” and is no longer available to Guyana and its people.

Dr. Luncheon, who is also Head of the Presidential Secretariat, notes further that this outcome has isolated the parliamentary opposition, divided their supporters and activists and exposed to Guyanese their machinations.
The Cabinet Secretary yesterday was speaking at his weekly post-Cabinet media briefing at the Office of the President in Georgetown.
Dr. Luncheon declared that the initiative to transform Guyana with the hydropower project, as designed by the Government of Guyana and stakeholders, has been thwarted by the parliamentary opposition.
“Apologists have surfaced, they have appeared, and these are lone voices attempting to render comprehensible the incomprehensible. The evolution of their explanations and the variety of explanations that had been offered to Guyana has patent proof of their insolvency,” he stated.
According to the Cabinet Secretary, it is evident that nothing reasonable could possibly allow a political entity the pretenses of being an alternative to government, to lead a country to steadfastly ignore the wishes and the expressed desires of the entire nation.
A GROSS BETRAYAL
He asserted that not only Guyanese but the country’s bilateral partners, international friends and supporters have all been disdained by the act of the opposition.
“Just imagine that there are some within the opposition who feel that way, that their reckless behaviour can subsequently find favour with the Guyanese people. Saner heads would readily predict this gross betrayal to the Guyanese nation,” he said.
The main parliamentary opposition party, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), on the August 7 sitting of the National Assembly voted against the amendments to the Hydroelectric Act and a motion to increase the debt ceiling on external loans.
Although both items were passed with the support of the Alliance For Change (AFC), Sithe Global, a major investor in the AFHP walked away, citing the need for national consensus for a project of this magnitude.
Meanwhile, when asked whether the government has withdrawn the license from Sithe Global, Luncheon replied: “The project is dead. I am not certain what the license of a dead project actually confers.”
However, he advised that works to the AFHP access road are still ongoing, noting that this component of the project is being supported by Guyanese taxpayers. He said, though, that a decision will have to be made whether the road also falls victim.