WHEREAS the Minister of Finance announced to the Honourable the House of Assembly on Monday March 17, 2014, the Government of Barbados and Cahill Energy Limited (hereinafter referred to as “Cahill“), a company incorporated in August 22, 2012 in Guernsey, had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (hereinafter referred to as MOU) on Saturday, March 15, 2014, for Cahill Energy to construct a $480 million Plasma Gasification Waste to Energy Plant at Vaucluse, St Thomas (hereinafter referred to as “the WTE Plant”);
AND WHEREAS the aforementioned MOU has purportedly been signed by the Minister of Finance, the Minister of the Environment, the Minister of Housing and the Minister of Energy in the Office of the Prime Minister, among others;
AND WHEREAS Cahill engaged Jacobs Securities of Canada to handle the sale of its subsidiary, Cahill Energy Barbados (hereinafter referred to as “CEB“), a Barbados company formed in 2013;
AND WHEREAS pursuant to that engagement, Jacob Securities issued a Confidential Information Memorandum (hereinafter referred to as “the CIM“) in March, 2015 to a limited number of parties interested in purchasing CEB to construct and operate the WTE Plant;
AND WHEREAS the Leader of the Opposition made a copy of the CIM available to the House of the Assembly on June 16th 2015 during the debate on the Annual Financial Statement and Budgetary Proposals;
AND WHEREAS Cahill and/or CEB has indicated that the project will now cost them $700 million to build and outfit the WTE plant, notwithstanding Cahill nor its subsidiary CEB, as corporate entities, have no previous experience in constructing, outfitting and operating a WTE plant;
AND WHEREAS the CIM states clearly that the Government of Barbados has signed an Implementation Agreement and a Power Purchase Agreement reflecting a range of legal commitments binding the Government and taxpayers of Barbados from now until 2048;
AND WHEREAS since June 2015, there has been a great deal of public discussion and opposition articulated regarding the financial, governance and environmental consequences from the decision to construct the WTE Plant;
AND WHEREAS despite numerous requests in and out of Parliament the aforementioned agreements have not been laid in Parliament nor made available to the public of Barbados;
BE RESOLVED that in the interest of full transparency and in order that the Parliament and people of Barbados may better understand the extent of the obligations agreed to by the Government of Barbados in the name of the people of Barbados and to discern what clauses may be contained therein to protect the Government and the public interest of Barbados, this Parliament requires the Prime Minister as the Chairman of Cabinet to produce and lay in Parliament URGENTLY the following:
1. The Memorandum of Understanding,
2. The Implementation Agreement and
3. The Power Purchase Agreement
that have each been signed by Ministers and/or representatives of statutory corporations and which binds the Government and people of Barbados;
Mia Amor Mottley, Q.C., M.P. Leader of the Opposition
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this House call on the Prime Minister to also produce and lay in Parliament the comments and/or opinions with respect to the Memorandum of Understanding, the Implementation Agreement and/or the Power Purchase Agreement of all of the relevant entities within central government and the statutory corporations, including but not limited to the legal opinions and technical advice rendered by the Attorney General and/or Solicitor General, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Housing and Lands, the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Energy, the Town and Country Planning Department, the Environmental Protection Department, the Barbados Water Authority, the Fair Trading Commission and the Barbados Light and Power Company.