The Tribune

By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Tribune Chief Reporter

krussell@tribunemedia.net

TYCOON Waste Management Company’s Ed Curling was on the defensive yesterday as he issued a full-throated rejection of claims that the work he did to clean up portions of Grand Bahama was overpriced and not up to standard.

“That is pure bull----,” Mr Curling told The Tribune as he defended his company in the face of claims that Tycoon Waste submitted bills to the Disaster Reconstruction Authority that did not actually coincide with the level of work done at a debris management site in the nation’s second city.

On Wednesday, DRA executive chairman Alex Storr said “red flags” were detected from comparisons between the large sums of money paid out for debris management contracts and the work actually done.

He said while the authority was conducting its own investigation into what went on and planned to ask the government to conduct a forensic audit.

 His comments came as questions swirled around the contracts issued to Tycoon Waste and to a company owned by the husband of former Free National Movement Senator Heather Hunt. Mrs Hunt declined to comment yesterday.

 In his defence, Mr Curling said he wanted to clear the air about his work with the DRA in the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian. He said he also had the records to back up his position for work which was completed in September 2020.

 Mr Curling was adamant that his contracts were above board and awarded by a tender process. Prior to winning the bid with the DRA to carry out work in Grand Bahama, he said he started off with a verbal agreement with the Ministry of Works.

 When the monster storm hit the island, his equipment was already on the ground and as soon as possible the company cleared up Pelican Point. When that was finished environmental health got involved and gave him two sites to prepare to accept hurricane debris, each 10 acres in size, he said. They were at High Rock and McLean’s Town.

 He said his billing to the DRA conformed to the laundry list of guidelines needed to fulfil the obligations under the agreement.

 “… Apparently I would have won that bid for the two sites that I would have been occupying in the Department of Environmental Health with all the necessary equipment that they required. Now that is a long list of equipment that they required,” he said.

 “Now let’s say for instance if you wanted that job and continue with the DRA you have to have specified equipment that they required and the manpower. So, the DRA would have adopted the protocol that environment and the Ministry of Works was using. Say for instance they required two tractors on each site, two excavators, two this, two that, supervisors, manpower and they specified what each man, whether you were a supervisor they have what supervisors would have gotten, what their pay would have been.

 “So, at the end of every month or their pay schedule you would send in your bill depending on what equipment and manpower you use. That would be scrutinised and they would check to see whether you had the equipment, if it was working. Whether you had the manpower that you say you had and so their check was thorough and so the bill would reflect what equipment and manpower (were used).

 “In the case of Grand Bahama, people were homeless. In my case I had to have a bus that bussed those same workers that I employed out of Freeport where they were temporarily staying, bus them to East Grand Bahama to help clean up and bus them back.

 “So, at the end of every given month, after I sent in my invoice, the DRA would scrutinise my invoice to make sure it matches what I was saying and that’s how I was paid and it was no gift to me.”

 He continued: “During the course of time I was there, let’s say the bill started at $100,000 this is just an example. By the end of the second or the third or the fourth month that bill would have increased because my thing was to get all of the requirements that the DRA required. So, if they called for two tractors and I only had one, that one tractor would have only been billed for that month and then the next month I would have gotten the number of tractors they asked for and three excavators and so on and so forth and an x amount of manpower.”

 Asked to respond to the assertion that his work was overpriced, Mr Curling said: “That is pure bull----. I went (to) the international market after that hurricane to establish a price to clean up Abaco.

“And I can tell you that came in over $100m. That’s when I was trying to get international people to come in to help clean up Abaco. That bid came in over $100m. If the government would have spent $25m to $30m in cleaning up Abaco and Grand Bahama in my humble opinion they would have saved the country quite a bit of money, plus the money that they would have spent was spent in the country with Bahamians.”

 Mr Curling said he was not fearful of any investigation.

 “My books are open and that is what I can tell you. I am not fearful of any investigation and from where I stand, I was not gifted anything because I’ve been on jobs like on Green Turtle Cay where I would have been helping to clean up Green Turtle Cay for labour only. I did not charge the government a red penny for equipment. All I charged the government when I was there was for labour.

“Me and a partner of mine would have cleaned up McClean’s Town, the harbour and all the derelict vehicles I took them out of the water with no charge to the government at all.

 “Also, I finished my work in Grand Bahama and was off the job on the 30th of September 2020. I started the waste management thing with the site in February and I was done on the 30th of September 2020. So, I barely been in there nine months.

“Contrary to what anybody thinks or says that I received money in September 2021. Never. Never.

 “I deny that unequivocally as a matter of fact I have documents to back up where the government, the DRA wrote me and said cease and desist all work in Grand Bahama and that was September 2020.

“Now the sites were left wide open. So, what went there after September 2020 I won’t have any recordings of that, but I do have recordings of what went there from February to September.”

 Mr Storr told The Tribune on Wednesday that at a site in Grand Bahama, there was no evidence that the debris had been sorted. The board of the DRA was left with questions after conducting both a planned and surprise tour of some sites.

 He said the sites in Grand Bahama have been discontinued, but what was billed did not, in his opinion, coincide with what officials saw at one of the sites.

 “The sites on Grand Bahama have been discontinued, but when we look at the history of billing, it’s not in line with what we see at the site and for example on the properly managed site on Abaco you can see active work going on.

“You can see where the debris is being sorted, we would have organic debris, metal, plastics and such, but on these sites that were abandoned on Grand Bahama the debris has not been sorted and it’s simply as if trucks just pulled up and dumped debris and left it.”

 He said the contracts that were being probed were one valued at $400,000 in Grand Bahama and another worth $300,000 in Abaco.

 A local daily has reported that a company in question was receiving as much as $1m each month.