BY HG HELPS Editor-at-Large helpsh@jamaicaobserver.com Friday, May 02, 2014 Jamaica Observer
A Chinese company based here has approached the Government's investment company, Jamaica Promotions Corporation (Jampro), with a view to assist with the fallout arising from Energy World International's (EWI's) failed bid to meet all the requirements to construct a booster energy plant on the island.
A usually reliable source told the Jamaica Observer that officials of the Chinese company met with executives of Jampro in New Kingston yesterday and offered to work with the island to get the project off the ground.
"During the meeting with Jampro, the Chinese suggested that they were willing to work with EWI, and vowed that they could secure the necessary financing from China's Ex-Im Bank to get the 381-megawatt project going," the source said.
"The Chinese have said that they were also willing to meet with the Ministry of Science, Technology, Energy, and Mining as early as tomorrow (today) to get things started," the impeccable source said.
Hong Kong-based EWI missed its deadline to pay a performance bond of US$37 million last Thursday.
The total cost of financing the project is US$737 million, of which one per cent -- US$7.37 million -- had been paid over as part of the bond arrangement.
However, EWI was pushed against the wall after it emerged that the Inter-American Development Bank, upon which EWI was relying to provide non-equity financing for the project, had opted against doing so, citing breaches of Jamaica's procurement procedures in the award of the contract.
EWI was the preferred bidder to build a power plant that would bolster the national grid by supplying it with 381 megawatts of generating capacity. more
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