The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemdida.net

The Prime Minister yesterday confirmed he has become personally involved in selecting a new manager for the New Providence landfill, with a well-known Bahamian financial executive involved in one of the groups the Government is talking to

Mr Christie said: “I recently involved myself as Prime Minister in the process of selecting a new management company for that entire area, and for the more effective management of the site, introducing greater levels of technology  and resources.

“We had meetings with a foreign entity with the capacity and assets that they manage in the US, and we met with a Bahamian group who advanced a foreign partnership with the expertise and resources. They are represented by one of the financial leaders in the private sector, Kenwood Kerr of Providence Advisors.

“Together, we were approaching the final sort of concluding aspects of determining a new management company, and the introduction of the measures that  we believe would in fact eliminate forever and forever the kind of tragic circumstances that took place out there.”

Mr Kerr declined to comment when contacted by Tribune Business yesterday, but it is understood that the ‘foreign’ element to his group is connected to the network involved in the Providence Energy Partners Holding Group, which he put together to offer generation capacity to Bahamas Power & Light (BPL).

There are also thought to be links between Mr Kerr and the Waste Resources Development Group (WRDG), the 10-strong consortium of Bahamian waste providers that is among the groups contending to take over the landfill management.

Tribune Business was yesterday told that there is “a hornet’s nest” of activity within the Government over the New Providence landfill, as the Christie administration become ever eager to find a solution that will prevent further infernos such as the one experienced at the weekend.

It is under pressure on multiple fronts to come up with answers, both from Baha Mar’s impending opening and new owner, and Bahamian residents in nearby communities - especially with a general election coming up.

Mr Christie stressed that the Government had to move faster in making a decision on the landfill manager, following last October’s pull-out by previous incumbent Renew Bahamas, placing the site back into the care of the Department of Environmental Health Services (DEHS).

An evacuation order for Jubilee Gardens remained in effect yesterday as most of the area was still covered in smoke. Residents of the community were forced to evacuate their homes on Sunday after a massive fire blanketed the community in thick, hazardous smoke.

Kenred Dorsett, minister of the environment and housing, said yesterday that the fire did not originate at the landfill, but the facility will remain closed with respect to incoming waste.

“We will resume activities on Wednesday morning,” he said. “We are taking drone aerial pictures throughout  the course of the day, monitoring those hotspots, and the technical team will make a determination as to where new incoming waste streams will go.”

    As for the selection of a new landfill manager, Mr Dorsett said: “We were already in a heightened position regarding a selection. As far as we are concerned we hoped that that was going to happen very soon.

“The remediation plan for them was prepared by Carlos Palacious and his engineering firm, together with their international experts. The Government has approved that remediation plan and we are in heightened discussions with a private entity not only to execute it but to fund it through a public-private partnership.”

Renew Bahamas, the former landfill manager, walked away from its contract in Hurricane Matthew’s aftermath, after it was unable to generate the necessary income to sustain itself amid a decline in world commodities prices, and a fire that rendered its materials recycling facility inoperable for several months.