... Project has Samuda’s blessing
IN A recent interview with The Gleaner, industry, commerce, agriculture and fisheries minister Karl Samuda gave his blessing for the multimilliondollar co-generation facility to be built at Long Pond in Trelawny by Everglades Farm Limited. He noted, however, that they needed to secure a power-purchase agreement.
“Everglades have a very exciting programme that includes the growth of cane for energy,” Samuda said. “They have secured funding, but in order to move that forward, they will have to have a powerpurchase agreement, and it has to be on a competitive basis.”
Everglades’ chief executive officer, Andrew Hussey, is urging the Government to grant his long-awaited request for proposal in order for him to obtain the licence needed to get the project under way. The hold-up is jeopardising a partnership with United Statesbased company Arrakis Development.
“We would hope that the Government of Jamaica, through a Cabinet submission, would see this as an unusual situation, as a crisis in the parish of Trelawny,” said Hussey. “Allow the licence for X megawatt and allow Arrakis/Everglades to negotiate the power-purchase agreement with JPS (Jamaica Public Service Company).”
Hussey added that Section Nine, subsection (c) of the 2015 Electricity Act states that where the Cabinet has determined that any of the following circumstances exists, namely, (i) an emergency situation exists such as to make a competitive bidding process impractical; ( ii) the grant of the licence is necessary in order to accommodate an offer from a foreign government to the Jamaican Government that will benefit the electricity sector; (iii) due to exceptional circumstances or the prevailing economic and financial conditions in Jamaica, the minister can so grant a licence.
“We are not asking the minister to bend any rules. It’s in the legal framework for the minister to do exactly what we are asking him to do,” Hussey said.