The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE Office of the Attorney General is still evaluating matters relating to the government's selection of a New Providence Landfill manager, according to Environment Minister Romauld Ferreira.

An announcement of the new manager was expected as early as late June but as September approaches it remains unclear when it will come, a fact that has irked environment advocates eager for the reformation of the landfill.

"Presently, the matter is in the Office of the Attorney General," Mr Ferreira told The Tribune in Grand Bahama on Wednesday following a tour of the Grand Lucayan Resort.

"We are waiting to receive the green light from the Office of the Attorney General before we proceed with issuing the letter of intent and going through the contractual process. Once we submitted the Cabinet paper and it went through the Cabinet process, we referred the matter to the OAG for their final sort of due diligence. There has been some back and forth since then. It's an active engagement process between my ministry and the OAG. We believe they should be satisfied very soon but I can't speak to that. You'd have to ask the Attorney General himself if he's satisfied. We hope once that process is open we could execute the letter of intent, which, of course, is a legal document, which would need the validation of the OAG."

After a highly criticised selective bidding process, the Christie administration chose Renew Bahamas to manage the landfill, but that company eventually pulled out in 2016, embarrassing the administration.

Before the 2017 general election, the Christie administration initiated a new, open bidding process, but that attracted few respondents.

Mr Ferriera said he hasn't familiarised himself with the process that led to Renew Bahamas' selection, but he said the Minnis administration's tendering process has generated greater interest and participation than the processes initiated by his predecessor.

"We had 18 entities respond," he said. "If you remember that in itself was narrowed down. We had wide response and participation. What you saw with the last administration is you had two entitles respond. One was offshore and you had a conglomerate of everyone local together. What we saw in this process is that amalgamation separated, they came under two different heads, and then we saw a lot of other entities participate."

The government's choice to manage the landfill has been narrowed to three contenders: Bahamas WTP LTF; Bahamas Waste; and Providence Advisors and the Waste Resources Development Group (WRDG).

Providence Advisors is headed by the well-known local investment banker, Kenwood Kerr. His partner, Waste Resources Development Group, features all the other Bahamian waste disposal groups bar Bahamas Waste.

Bahamas Waste is the BISX-listed company of the same name, while Bahamas WTP is a consortium that also features two US companies, Delaware-incorporated Ameresco Ltd and Louisiana-based Furnace and Tube Services Inc.

Cedric Scott, the actor, producer and uncle of former Cabinet minister, Jerome Fitzgerald, is listed by Bahamas WTP LTD's website as one of its five principals. Its two other Bahamas-based principals are banker, Ivylyn Cassar, and permanent resident, Fay Russell. The company's physical address is listed as Ms Cassar's Equity Bank & Trust, based in western New Providence.

Seventeen bidders submitted expressions of interest for the New Providence landfill, but just seven qualified for the request for proposals round. Four out of the seven firms responded and paid the registration fee, but APAPA International's submission was received after the closing date of April 9 at 4pm, resulting in its bid being summarily rejected by the Tenders Board.