The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A Cabinet minister yesterday expressed confidence that there will be no repeat of the "packing up and rolling out" experienced with the New Providence landfill's last private manager.

Romauld Ferreira, minister of the environment and housing, said the winning bid's 100 percent local ownership meant it had "as much a vested interest" as all Bahamians in dealing with the site's long-standing environmental and health woes.

Speaking as he confirmed Tribune Business's revelation that the Providence Advisors/Waste Resources Development Group (WRDG) consortium has been selected as the preferred bidder to take over the landfill's operations, Mr Ferreira agreed that Tribune Business was "absolutely right" in asserting that The Bahamas could ill-afford a repeat of the Renew Bahamas saga.

That company, chosen as the landfill's manager by the former Christie administration, withdrew its services in October 2016 following Hurricane Matthew - a move that left significant sums owed to creditors, while sparking litigation that Mr Ferreira described as ongoing.

Renew Bahamas' performance was yesterday criticised by Thomasina Wilson, the senior Department of Environmental Health Services (DEHS) official responsible for the landfill, who said "very little was done" to remediate the pre-existing waste that is often responsible for fires at the site.

She added that the Providence Advisors/WRDG group would be starting with "a new slate" once it agrees contractual terms with the Government, which is the next step both sides must take to formalise their fledgling private-public partnership (PPP).

Mr Ferreira yesterday said he was convinced Providence Advisors, headed by local investment banker Kenwood Kerr, and the Bahamian waste services providers in the WRDG group, were "the best possible entity to take over the New Providence sanitary landfill".

Emphasising that there had been no political interference, and that he was not involved, in assessing the bids, Mr Ferreira said: "We wanted to get this right from the beginning. We emphasised that over and over again.

"We were more concerned with getting it right rather than speed, going through the technical steps and doing the technical assessment. One of the benefits, I think, is Ken is not going anywhere, Mr Rolle [of WRDG] is not going anywhere.

"The point I'm making is they have as much a vested interest as us. We're in it long-term. We don't anticipate any packing up and rolling out in this initiative," he added.

"Nothing is guaranteed, the success of any project is not guaranteed, but we are very, very certain that based on the technical assessment, the ability of the people who did the technical assessment, that this is the best possible entity to take over the New Providence sanitary landfill."

Renew Bahamas "suspended its services" in the wake of Hurricane Matthew, after shootings, tyre slashings and widespread theft following the storm made operating conditions unsafe.

Michael Cox, Renew Bahamas chief executive, told Tribune Business at the time that these incidents, combined with the loss of electrical power in Matthew's wake, had brought landfill operations - especially the revenue-generating recycling activities - to "a grinding halt".

But Ms Wilson, a deputy DEHS director, yesterday said Renew Bahamas' contract with the former government did not require it to remediate the landfill and address the huge quantity of waste already present at the Tonique Williams Highway site.

"Renew Bahamas was never asked to remediate the landfill; that aspect of operations was never part of their contract," she disclosed. "They were just operations and management, and to say that they did anything, very little was done.

"The new consortium is not picking up from where they left off; it's a new slate, inclusive of the remediation aspect of it."

Renew Bahamas, though, last year said it had invested in landfill remediation. "Renew had the obligation to reconstruct and remediate the landfill," the company said in an August 2017 statement.

"Renew invested in that effort, as confirmed by the University of Florida landfill experts, but the Government never fulfilled its obligation to settle access rights Renew needed to obtain further financing. Nor would it meet with Renew to create an agreed design for the future landfill."

The former manager also complained that it "encountered tremendous difficulties" in developing a co-operative relationship with the Christie administration, arguing that the latter's failure to plan and enter into "consistent dialogue" helped prompt Renew Bahamas' exit.

Some observers, though, believe Renew Bahamas exploited Hurricane Matthew to exit a five-year contract and business model that had proven both unprofitable and unsustainable. Gerhard Beukes, its principal, told Tribune Business in April 2016 that it wanted to renegotiate the contract after it had lost "millions of dollars".

Mr Beukes and Michael Cox, Renew Bahamas' chief executive, both remained in the Bahamas after the company's exit - the former as vice-president of China Construction America's (CCA) South America affiliate.

Much of the former manager's recycling equipment also stayed at the landfill, with Tribune Business receiving e-mail and phone calls from suppliers claiming to still be owed thousands of dollars by Renew Bahamas.

Mr Ferreira yesterday said "there are a number of outstanding creditors" of Renew Bahamas, and confirmed "there's litigation pending" regarding the former landfill manager.

He declined to provide details, saying it was a matter for the Attorney General's Office, only adding: "The court will make pronouncements, which may or may not include the equipment."

When Tribune Business pointed out that the Providence Advisors/WRDG group had also been selected as the 'preferred bidder' for the landfill in a rushed tender just before last year's general election, Mr Ferreira said that process - and the present one - were not comparable.

He pointed out that while the Minnis administration's bid process attracted 18 replies, its predecessor's aborted version only gained two responses - from Providence Advisors/WRDG and a Dominican Republic entity.

Mr Ferreira added that BISX-listed Bahamas Waste was also part of the first Providence Advisors/WRDG group, but then split off to launch its own solo bid for the landfill contract, becoming one of the preferred bidder's last two remaining rivals.

"When you have a much broader range of entities responding you have more to choose from, and the Bahamian public will have more confidence in the process," the Minister said.