Members of the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) have urged government to establish parties responsible for the failure of the multi-billion franc Gishoma Peat Power plant. The plant initially produced power that was below the expected capacity and then it stopped altogether. The MPs asked the Ministry of Infrastructure to submit a report to the committee within the next ten days indicating where things went wrong at the plant, the people responsible for the failures, and the way forward for the project. The request was made yesterday during the committee’s public hearing at which officials from the Ministry of Infrastructure (MININFRA) and the Rwanda Energy Group (REG) were asked to give explanations about different errors noted by the Auditor General’s report for the fiscal year 2016/17. The report noted that there may be no value for the over Rwf40.5 billion that the Government invested in building the plant after realising that it stopped working in September last year after only four months in operation and was producing 5.28 MW per hour, far below the expected 15MW capacity by the time it completely stopped. At yesterday’s public hearing, MPs wondered whether government will just write of the investment made in the plant as a loss and move on or whether it should hold those who devised the project to account. They requested government to try and establish responsibility for the project’s failure and demanded accountability for anyone who was involved in a project that cost the government a fortune and now seems a complete breakdown. “It is difficult to understand that Rwf40 billion have been put to waste. We need to know who is going to be held accountable for this loss,” said MP Théogène Munyangeyo, a member of the committee. The Auditor General (AG)’s report showed that Gishoma Peat Power plant, which is located in Western Province’s Bugarama Sector in Rusizi District, stopped working due to lack of enough quantity and quality of peat, insufficient supply of water, as well as a breakdown in some parts of installed machinery. “The continued stoppage of the power plant implies that envisaged electricity supply requirements are not being served during the period of stoppage. As such, there may be no value for money realised from this investment,” the AG’s report says. MP Cécile Murumunawabo, another member of PAC, said that it is a pity that officials ignored several reports by technicians that the plant would never work because there weren’t enough peat in Bugarama to operate it. “We met frustrated technicians who had sent reports warning that the plant wouldn’t be functional but were ignored,” she said. Both the Permanent Secretary at MININFRA, Christian Rwakunda, and REG board chairperson, Manasseh Mbonye, agreed that the failure of Gishoma Peat Power plant was problematic and promised to do a report about the plant and the suggested the way forward. Mbonye said that Gishoma peat power plant is a problem that REG inherited and the company has in the last two years been trying to manage that problem to avoid the worst-case scenario. He agreed in an interview with The New Times that some mistakes may have happened in the design of the plant and feasibility studies that inspired its conception. “Gishoma has been a difficult problem for a long time. It is possible that there may have been some miscalculations made that have probably resulted from lack of knowledge,” he said. He added: “For us in the last two years we have been trying to manage the problem and to make sure that we pick up the pieces. While Gishoma is not in a perfect state, we try to make sure that it doesn’t become the disaster it could possibly be”. Asked whether officials might recommend the closure of the plant in their report to PAC, Mbonye didn’t rule out the possibility. “A decision has to be made by the shareholders but Gishoma may not have a long lifespan,” he said. The AG’s report for the fiscal year 2016/17 indicated that the Government had until October last year invested a total of Rwf 40,570,617,811 on the construction of Gishoma Peat Power plant with a target to generate 15MW per hour. The project was completed last year after delaying for over three years and suffering from what several officials described as initial poor design and planning. editorial@newtimes.co.rw
