Ninh Thuan gives ultimatum to Enfinity

The Ninh Thuan Provincial People’s Committee has given Enfinity Ninh Thuan Co., Ltd. one last chance to submit the required documents or else it would officially withdraw its approval for the company’s long-delayed wind power plant project.

The committee will grant Enfinity one more week to submit a renewed and feasible implementation plan for approval.

The company earlier failed to meet the March 20 deadline, by which it was required to submit the detailed installation plan for the wind turbine, including its location, to the provincial Department of Planning and Investment and the committee, according to Pham Van Hau, deputy chairman of the Ninh Thuan People’s Committee.

Enfinity has also not paid a deposit for the project yet, despite numerous requests from the authority.

In August 2016, the committee asked Enfinity to start the project in December 2016, which it duly failed, and the Department of Planning and Investment had to withdraw its approval of the project. Yet, once again, “positive movements” from Enfinity, according to the committee, along with letters of guarantee from the Belgian and Italian embassies saved the long-behind-schedule project.

The Enfinity wind power project by Belgian company Enfinity received its investment certificate in March 2011 with a total investment capital of $266 million, an area of 533.1 hectares, and capacity up to 124,5 MW. The initial plan was for the wind power plant to be put into operation from December 2012.

Toward the end of 2011, Enfinity’s investors made promises to start implementing the project by the end of 2012, then failed to, and ever since kept requesting extensions.

Later, after two meetings with the Ninh Thuan People’s Committee in August 2016, Enfinity was asked to complete all required procedures to ultimately implement their project by December 2016—otherwise it would be revoked. The project again showed no progress.

“The investor violated the Law on Investment by not following the implementation timeline. Despite the People’s Committee repeated notices, the investor’ constant failure in implementing the project has shown their lack of commitment,” said Hau.

Enfinity earlier also proposed to build a solar power plant with a total investment capital of $200 million on a similar-sized land plot. This project was not licensed.

The committee said it always tries to cooperate with investors, however, they take severe action against those refusing to keep deadlines.

“The Department of Planning and Investment will thoroughly supervise Enfinity’s wind power project, in case of a constant violation of the pledged timeline, the department will notify the committee to withdraw the license,” said Hau.

By Ha Nguyen / VIR