Dart duty waiver relates to ‘inherited obligation’
(CNS): A refund to the Dart Consortium of over CI$1 million for stamp duty and land registry fees is related to the purchase of land for the planned ReGen facilities, which was an “inherited obligation”, according to Jennifer Ahearn, the chief officer of the Ministry of Sustainability and Climate Resiliency. Ahearn said that because the talks with the Dart Consortium are ongoing, she was unable to explain further.
The refund was noted in the recently released summary of the Cabinet meeting last month when the waiver was agreed upon. “While we cannot go into detail due to commercial sensitivities and the active status of negotiations between the Cayman Islands Government and the Dart Consortium, we can advise that the land purchase was an inherited obligation for the ReGen project,” Ahearn said.
Negotiations between Dart and the CIG continue more than five years after the consortium was selected to take on the waste-management contract to fix the dump, burn garbage to generate power and deal holistically with recycling, composting, reusing and reducing the amount of rubbish produced on all three islands.
While some sort of deal was signed with the previous PPM-led government right before the 2021 General Election, that agreement has not been finalised because the PACT administration has raised a number of concerns about the proposed contract.
Dart has already capped a significant portion of the George Town dump, which is adjacent to his own land at Camana Bay, and has now begun work on an environmental impact assessment for the full project. However, there is still no fully agreed-upon deal to pave the way for the development of the waste-to energy-facility or any of the reuse or recycling proposals.
Over the last month, even the current meagre recycling efforts were set back when Dart stopped collecting glass because its glass crusher came to the end of its useful life. It appears that Dart will not be replacing the existing crusher until the deal is signed, after which “larger glass recycling options” will be integrated into ReGen, the new waste-management project.
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Category: Environmental Health, Government Administration, Health, Politics
This dump is a shambles, and I’m not just talking the mound they’re discussing. “due to commercial sensitivities”, either shit or get off the pot. The simplest of topics must be done in secret with the gov’t, is it not the public they answer to?
Clearly recycling is a stupid idea
What is the annual contribution to Cayman Aiways?
where is the household garbage being disposed now and where will it be disposed in the future?.
West Bay roadside.
Hard not to connect the cessation of glass recycling by DART with the extension of negotiations by Government. Clearly a strategic bargaining chip.
Or, Wayne could buy his own, no?
https://caymannewsservice.com/2022/06/cig-sees-180m-surplus-due-to-record-revenues/
What else would you expect the government mouthpiece to say? Did anyone think they would come out and state that boss wanted some money so they just opened up the wallet and let him have at it? This whole thing wants to make me vomit.
It may be politically sensitive but it is certainly not commercially sensitive. She may as well just say “I don’t want to tell you.”
hoy maties! hail to king dart! lol! uhhh…pontious pilot, would u like more olives for ourPPM king!
Thank the good lord above that one government finally had the balls to tackle this national disaster head on.
Shame the current government lacks the testicular fortitude to get it done but instead wants to kick the 40-year-old can even further down the road while we all wallow in our own garbage.
Good damn thing we got the PPM out when we did…There is so much stuff unravelling with this one. It’s all coming to light now..
You do realise that Jon Jon who is not with PACK was the minister who negotiated the rushed deal just before elections right ?
Jon Jon was just Alden’s puppet as he did what he was told, no more no less.
Jon Jon might not have even understood what he was signing on behalf of CIG.
While Wayne’s dump inches ever closer to the road with each passing day.
Or, in other words, a contractual obligation.
What contract?
The one which is being fulfilled.
“Jennifer Ahearn, the chief officer in the health ministry, told CNS that the process is not yet complete, and over the next three to six months the parties will negotiate the shape of the contract before a deal is signed with the Dart company. She said that DECCO and its partners were selected over three other bidders who entered into the competitive process, but because the process is still only part the way through, she refused to identify the other bidders or detail the value of the contract.” CNS 11/10/2017
So let me fill in some of the gaps in Ahearn’s comments. One of the other bidders was the Constructions Industielles de la Mediterranee (CNIM) Wheelabrator consortium which came second in the race, and which was relegated to ‘spare’ bidder in the event that the secret negotiations with the Decco consortium failed to yield a deal. According to Ahearn then, the process remains only part of the way through after all these years, and still without a deal in place. The CNIM consortium as experienced international waste disposal and EfW operators, had put in a competitive and competent bid that addressed all the bid terms of reference. Except, if seems, for their bid price. So how could have that price been so radically higher than the ‘preferred’ bidder when both bidders must have been accessing much the same technology, construction pricing and procurement logistics?
Some obvious questions needs to be asked- what would need not to happen with the Decco consortium’s bid in order for the ‘spare’ bidder to be called back into negotiations? What was the ‘killer’ discount offer term deep inside the Decco bid that has made CIG continue to worry at this bone for all the past five years? Dart was anxious to secure the landfill mountain upwind of his precious Camana Bay and International School at all costs, it seems, so could there have been such a deep bid price discount offered to CIG that no other consortium could possibly match or beat?
It is strange that no-one has yet seen fit to challenge the decision made by the sub-committee of the technical ministerial steering committee established by the PPM government of the day to examine the bids, to award the Decco consortium the status of preferred bidder- a decision that apparently had no external oversight of nor advisory input from the Central Tender Committee of the day. The C-word unfortunately rises like a swampy miasma over this project which needs to be dispelled by a transparent investigation into the facts and circumstances of the bid process that leads us to this state of affairs. Caymanian residents deserve nothing less…
Any idiot can figure out that CIG didn’t have the cash on hand to pull off what they put out to tender. CNIM didn’t have it either. Fill in the blanks yourself.
Another fun way to read this – the 2022 version of Jennifer Ahearn just alluded to “inherited obligations” that 2017 Jennifer Ahearn played a part in. Cognitive dissociation to say the words Wayne wants spoken for political coin much?
Both fun and honest.
What is PACT meant to stand for again?