Dart-led consortium not properly checked out
(CNS): Of the many reasons for the recent collapse of the talks between the government and the Dart-led consortium proposing to develop a waste-to-energy facility and waste management system at the George Town dump was that the parties involved in this public-private partnership may not have been fully qualified to do the work. In a damning report about the project, known as ReGen, Auditor General Sue Winspear raised concerns that the consortium selected as the contractor was not properly checked out.
The report states that no evidence was given to the Office of the Auditor General to show that the government had performed any due diligence checks on the contractor or members of the contractor’s consortium.
The OAG said that the parties involved in the project changed throughout the process from those who had actually made the bid. It also found that the consortium’s contractors “changed significantly since the government selected the contractor” back in September 2017.
Steinmuller Ltd replaced BWSC Volund Ltd as the energy recovery facility’s technology provider, the auditors noted.
In September 2019, some two years after the tender was awarded, fund manager Iona Capital joined the consortium as an equity partner. Before this, DECCO, the Dart-owned company that made the original bid, was the sole owner, but the change gave both Iona and DECCO each a 50% interest in the contractor, the report documented.
BWSC Volund, the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) subcontractor and operations and maintenance provider, would have been the main contracting expert and one of the most important parties in the consortium. However, the auditors learned during their work that the company intended to withdraw from the waste EPC market.
Winspear stated in the report that the Ministry of Health did not perform due diligence checks on the original or replacement members of the consortium, and as a result, the government exposed itself to increased financial and reputational risk.
The OAG found no evidence that the government ever checked the increase in price that Dart came up with when it was discovered that the original calculations on how much waste Cayman was producing were merely guesses that turned out to be wrong.
When the Department of Environmental Health actually began weighing and properly measuring the waste it was handling and the government told Dart about the increase, the organisation came back with a significant increase in construction costs of some CI$76 million.
However, the ministry, led at the time by Dwayne Seymour, who was then part of the PPM administration, didn’t check whether or not this was valid. The waste that the plant would handle increased by 15% compared to the original expectations, but the contractor claimed that construction costs went up by a whopping 58%, which appears to have simply been accepted by officials without verification.
These failings occurred during the negotiations stretching back to 2017, even after the government spent millions of dollars on consultants to help them. Having previously warned the PPM administration about the excessive spending on consultants, for which the public purse was not obtaining value for money, the auditor general revealed in this report that her previous recommendations appeared to have fallen on deaf ears.
During the talks on this waste management project, the government hired outside consultants to act as financial, legal, technical and environmental advisors to the tune of $6.5 million, much of which was well over the estimated costs. The OAG said these contracts were not actually budgeted, and the contract awarded to the legal consultants was not done through a transparent or competitive process, as required by the Public Management and Finance Act.
Even worse, the audit found that, shockingly, the financial advisors did not actually perform a value-for-money analysis, which would have seemed to be the basic point of employing them and an essential requirement in government policy, procedures and law.
See the report in the CNS Library here (see page 32).
See a 2021 update on the project held by the PPM-led government on CIGTV below:
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Category: Environmental Health, Government Administration, Health, Politics
DEH seems to have stopped collecting household garbage for now. Is the dump full?
garbage politics is what these morons bring, nary constructive strategies and policies’ to better governance and a better way of life for the people. Ita all about whats in it for them, their bank rollers and select few; while feeding crumbs to the majority who drink their kool aid.
LOCK THEM UP AND THROW AWAY THE DARN KEY1
PACT-less Clown Car is replaced by PPM Clown Car.
How am I not surprised?
However, bear in mind that the ones creating this circus are the voters.
“A people get the government they deserve and deserve the government they get.”
We the people ultimately own this. Bought and paid for by our votes (and our money).
August 11, 2024
💥Landfill collapse kills at least 20 in African state,
The incident in Uganda’s capital was caused by a structural failure in “waste mass,” according to the authorities.
At least 21 people, including a three-month-old baby, have been killed in a landslide at a waste disposal site in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, authorities in the East African nation reported on Sunday.
The incident occurred on Friday night, when a huge pile of garbage at the Kiteezi landfill, said to be the city’s only dump site, collapsed after weeks of heavy rain🌧. Homes on the edge of the site were crushed and buried beneath the mound while residents were asleep, according to Reuters.
The Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) said on Saturday that a “structural failure in waste mass” caused a “section of the landfill” to collapse. As of Saturday, at least 14 people had been rescued and taken to hospitals, according to a KCCA statement.
Residents living in the area have long complained of hazardous waste polluting the environment. Authorities had planned to close the facility in 2016 for the commissioning of another site outside the city. The plan has been stalled due to financial constraints……
“Who allowed people to live near such a potentially hazardous and dangerous heap?” Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday, ordering an investigation into the incident.
Don’t worry, when Joey Hew is our Premier, he and Dart will get this deal back on track. PPM – PPM – PPM
The PPM should be under ACC investigation for ReGen.
I will post this again. This is up and operating in the UK, why not leverage off of their expertise?
http://www.enfinium.co.uk
The fact that many of the people of Cayman are still listening and giving credence to what these proven fools have to say about what’s happening at the dump tells me all I need to know about what the main problem is.
Yup – Cayman electorate is woefully bought-out. There is no hope for the Caymanian citizians to be well informed and elect proper Ministers. UK…are you watching?????
Thanks for proving my point.
There is another aspect of this process that I haven’t seen talked about; my decades-old skills run toward hazmat RCRA superfund cleanup sites. This site — as horrible as it is — doesn’t rate a superfund cleanup (I hope), but there are likely certain facts of them in common:
1. There are likely decades of hydrocarbons and other chemical contaminants mixed completely within the layers, along with PCBs and plastics
2. Because the dump frequently spontaneously combusts, I am guessing that there is a profound methane buildup, which, if true, suggest organic waste in anaerobic conditions, and bacterial overload.
3. The dump is decades old. It’s not just a matter of loading it into a perfect WTE incineration system; the very act of dismantling it could create profound dangers to the population, especially those downwind. In the U.S., UK and Canada, such a site would have air monitoring, vadose zone monitoring, and groundwater monitoring before, during and after the process.
4. Is industrial hygiene air/ground sampling a part of the bid documents, or did CIG just say, “go for it”?
These kind of projects aren’t simple. They require complex hazmat modeling, and monitoring systems and protocols to ensure safety of the people is ensured, and backup system continuity to ensure that once the ‘bad place’ is breached, the project can continue safely, even if power is lost, even if a storm hits, even if the PROJECT GETS DEFUNDED.
This last point is crucially important. When you enter into a project like this, you see it through, or risk contamination.
⛔️ and read the above comment
🆘 hardly anybody, you are correct, comprehends the extend of hazards of the Dump to health and life on this rock
🛑you did not mention the hazardous medical industry waste that is mixed in the Dump. Radioactive waste included.
There were comments to bring attention to this, but it falls on deaf ears
P.S they are not planning to mine the Dump. They plan to build WtE for new loads of waste. There is nothing they can do about the current Dump. Beautify it and hope it doesn’t blow. Hazards be damned – it did not cross their minds yet, and I doubt ever will.
I fully agree. Sadly you are talking to those that have drank the cool aid and could care less; and they have elected Ministers with little education, less experience, and even less ethics and morals. Good luck with your efforts. Bye the way – I heard the Margaritaville Resort Complex has been sold??? And news?
I sometimes wonder why the Auditor General is not brought in before all the contracts are signed.
Good point but if the Auditor general is involved at that stage who will audit the auditor general?
CNS, other free press (if it exists) and the democratic process.
A national embarrassment but not a national surprise. In the private sector these clowns would have been fired but not in CIG. Zero accountability and even less competence.
Nobody talking about the fact that Wayne had a copy of the report and didn’t share it with his colleagues. Instead he pushed forward with the project. Blinded by his own selfish political agenda!
Source: trust me, bro.
I believe that Wayne saw the report and realised that it was a bad thing. I think he tried to renegotiate with Dart, and was unsuccessful. I don’t think that bodes poorly toward Mr. Wayne. I think more that it bodes poorly toward the previous PPM government, who mentored the entire agreement.
Don’t worry – CIG has a plan to ensure this doesn’t happen again. They will replace the current Auditor General with a ‘yes sir’ Caymanian from the civil service then nothing will ever come to light. Begging the Governor to stop that process that is currently underway in the back room. Please Madam Governor, replace her with someone who will do the job.
…that same thing happened to Dan Duguay when as AG, he refued to follow the “BoBo script”…his contract was not renewed and he was forced to leave…
No. They don’t control AG. No professional auditor in the world would do what you say.
There are very many professional standards auditors must adhere to.
There used to be Big Five, now it is Big Four.
Arthur Andersen LLP, was one of the five largest accounting firms in the United States at the time, Andersen had a reputation for high standards and quality risk management.
It was Dissolved after the Enron scandal.
It’s long been clear the Cayman Islands would be much better off if the Office of the Auditor General had to approve all such dealings, beforehand! This most recent example of the lack of value for money, by the politicians and the upper echelons of CIG (Chief Officers) is a sad and glaring need for some accountability to occur. But I have no faith it will ever happen, as the powers that be will circle the wagons to protect themselves / each other, whilst pointing fingers at the messenger or anyone / anything else. And all while we all (and our children) will pay for it all.
OAG function is to express an opinion.
That is the whole point. These OAG reports are all well and fine, but in the end, useless.
Worse, they serve as a form of mud guard to those and their actions, singled out in the reports. The populace, many with the attention span of a gnat, think “Oh well, CIG/CIS/Statutoruy Body (insert as appropriate) has been admonished by the OAG, all is (now) well”.
Far from it. It is not.
No Teeth = No Consequences = No Chnage (in CIG/CIS/Statutory Body behaviour).
Thus, the cycle of doom (incoptetence and worse) perputates itself.
And we all know what they say about opinions.
…and again, these same idiots want to build a PORT….???
By the time the:
* Inadequate planning
* Poor Contract Negotions
* “Envelopes” get doled out
* Dearth of intellectaul capital
* Non existent paper and audit trails
* Change Orders to give additioanl work to “buddies”
kick in… We’ll be $2.5 billion OVER budget and be left with something completely not fit for purpose.
….AND AN ANCHOR AROUND THE ISLANDS’ ECONOMIC NECK FOR GENERATIONS TO COME….
I wouldn’t put them in charge of a 2 year old’s birth party….and CERTAINLY not a PORT Construction “money making”(for them) exercise…..
Sounds about right, process in place= refuse to follow it then say it wasn’t me. Epic
Page 12 Of the OAG Regen report – As required by the Framework for Fiscal Responsibility, the government hired external consultants for the integrated solid waste management system.
Maples & Calder (Cayman LLP) – legal advisors
KPMG – financial advisors
To my dear fellow Caymanians. I implore you to remember all of these self interest deals that will cost our children dearly, and elect honest, successful leaders in 2025 who don’t need a job , but we can count on to make the smartest cost saving decisions for our country.
Please do remember all these clowns and corrupt deals and DO NOT VoTE for ppm or pact again.
Drain the sound !! Literally clean the house!!
I can’t wait for next election to vote these out
I dearly hope we have choices rather than the ‘same as it ever was’ that we’ve had in the past two decades.
I have to question this finding. Seems like the AG is going through the tick box exercise.
Do you see the highly reputable companies that CIG engaged with.
Now I understand why Auditors are described as people who come out of hiding after the battle and kill the wounded.
I am so disappointed.
You have no slightest idea what Auditors do.
Companies hire them to audit their books.
Governments hire them to audit their books.
They could be hired to express an opinion on special projects.
So auditors are not hiding. They are hired to perform an annual or on demand audit.
KPMG said PPP wasn’t borrowing that was a pretty fundamental piece of incorrect advice. I don’t think there is any criticism of Maples.
Talk is cheap.
Do detail exactly what parts of the report that you question and quantify your alternative findings.
Being involved with “highly reputable” entities is no bar to the persons so involved being incompetent or unethical. Many a person behind bars hired and did business with reputable people and entities.
“Now I understand why Auditors are described as people who come out of hiding after the battle and kill the wounded.” <<Your opinion is exactly why we are insisting that in regard to major capital projects, the Auditor General should be involved at the planning and proposal stage, and must review all the contracts and specification BEFORE the contracts are signed. Then the Auditor General can shoot the bastids while they are still in their foxholes plotting their schemes, and can torch the battlefield before the clowns march forth.
In the real world, companies bidding on projects or indefinite quantity contracts, must submit required performance documents. They must also provide proof that they can acquired the proper performance bonds upon award of the contract. Those bonds pay for the completion of the project should the contractor — for any reason — fail to complete the project. It is like project insurance. Yes, it costs a little more than the lowest bidder, but it also tends to weed out the companies that don’t know what they are doing, or don’t possess the skills or financial ability to properly perform the duties required to complete the project.
Part of the problem, I am guessing, is poor bid documents. The documents should detail each and every nuance of the project. Sometimes these are done as a line item per task, and the prospective contractor bids a multiplier against all those items.
We seem to pay a lot of money for studies that rarely seem to result in any clarity regarding how to complete our projects.
Seems Decco did not file all the bid forms like they require from local companies when they bid on Dart/Decco projects. How could this happen?
This is not just a poor performance. This is a catastrophic failure to perform.
It is called getting in bed with Dart, and Dart always wins.
“It’s not my money. And I want to spend it now!”
That is hilarious. And sad. Any horrifyingly truthful.
Will those responsible for this major f’up in CIG be fired or reprimanded? Not likely, they’ll most likely be promoted, re elected or start bogus companies partnering with others to bid on the next dump beautification project. However all is quite on the Western Front as the details about penalty for breaking the deal are yet to be revealed. Get ready to bend over everyone the next leak about this project is going to hurt.
Cayman is not a real place there is zero accountability at any level.
Plagiarised comment reposted, however thanks to the plagiariser for bringing it forward, it’s still relevant.
I agree! It’s long been clear the Cayman Islands would be much better off if the Auditor General had to approve all such dealings, beforehand!
Auditors approve nothing. They express an opinion.
Didn’t Wilks move Ahearn aside as she was the main chief officer at the time? could not get rid of her completely but tried?
Joey Who and the regressives are having a horrible week and left a political legacy of incompetence and mismanagement. Cayman cannot afford to have that lot leading our country that much is certain!
Alden McLaughlin and Dwayne Seymour were the ones smiling at the signing of the contracts.
Hold them up high in the accountability mirror.
This is mind boggling.
Why did PPM and Joey Hew sign the midnight deal with Dart then?
Didn’t they know it was not a great deal for us?
You can call him Joey “who” or whatever political permutation you want. Don’t call him XXXXX
CNS: I’m giving the commenter the benefit of the doubt that the comment contained a spelling error, which I have fixed. The wrong letter used is next to the correct one on the keyboard.
I cannot wait for the next Joey Hew video justifying the third world negotiating skills and contract management for such an important project by the PPM and the world class civil service.
This was a $hit show from day one and a big part of the PPM’s legacy with Hew representing Dart’s interests, PPM’s interests and his interests. He wouldn’t under the concept of a conflict of interests if it hit him in the head like a brick.
Thankfully, the AG’s report highlights the slackness of all the parties involved especially the self righteous politicians involved that are now crying because they have been exposed in a government official report that must be accepted by Deputy Governor Manderson and his world class civil servants.
Sue Winspear was told her contract would not be renewed long before she got sick…
Sue Winspear was light years ahead of all our politicians, ministers and senior civil servants in terms of ability to do the job she was hired for.I am sorry to say this but if she is replaced with a Caymanian that will be a tragedy for all of us.In this job more than any other it is vital that we have an independent person who will not be subject to “influence”.
DG Manderson is consistent in protecting at all costs his chief clowns in the civil circus.
If you are good at your job and fail to comply with the DG’s every instruction like Sue Winspear the consequence is not having your contract renewed. This is why the civil service is an expensive mess.
While Dart may not be the best option and CIG was asleep at the wheel there are a few mitigating factors. When you wait this long to actually get going (how many years? and we haven’t got going), contractors will change. No surprise – They moved to a project that actually started. Construction costs? Those have ballooned everywhere but especially here. How much does it cost to build a house now?
The only thing that is glaringly evident is PACT and UPM’s lack of intellect to bring anything of consequence into fruition. What does the auditor general have to say about Juliana’s ego project? Not one single plan all they’ve done along with their board members is sit on their incompetent arses.
The civil service technocrats should have meticulously recorded the details of every process of this very complicated project. If Cabinet Ministers/politicians overruled the Chief Officers, the relevant Ministries should have provided the Auditor General with the written directives from the Ministers. The magnitude of this failure practically demands a Public Inquiry to establish accountability.
But it’s Dart. Who would dare question the Emperor’s wife?
I wonder if they accounted for the demolition debris/waste generated by condos that were given a permission to re-built (bigger of course)?
How much were they charged for the demolition debris disposal at the Dump? Please don’t tell me they were NOT CHARGED.
I can’t imagine demolition debris such as concrete being taken to the dump when there are people filling in low-lying areas (quite often without permission) who would be willing to pay for such fill.
How would they separate concrete from everything else?
Rebar, cement, glass and tiles are environmentally inert and can safely be put in the ground pretty much anywhere. No need to separate if you are looking for fill.
Thank you CNS!
It does lead to the question if the Dart organisation did not intend for the process to ultimately fail from the beginning, after, of course, several years. Thus leading to a CIG do-over and the waste facility having to be moved away from Camana Bay. Their ultimate goal.
Getting CIG to agree to proceed with the capping process in advance only assisted the ultimate goal.
Why do you think he extended the school and built his expensive condos there? Of course he knew all Everything has gone according to his plan, game, set and match.
Never underestimate the dark side of the Force.
No surprises here – this is how things are done in Cayman.
This is typical of Dart/Decco. They always want the cheapest subcontractors regardless of the quality of work that is done, then they turn over the finished job to Dart Reality who has loads of issues with the crappy, cheap work that was done. Check on leaking roof and walls at Cayman International School, the Kimpton Hotel & Condo’s, the new Indigo hotel and the new big 10 story building. Decco does no work themselves at all, just put a bunch of people on the job to watch and squeeze the sub contractors. This project would have been no different. Once they can not get local companies to go cheap enough then they bring in foreign companies. They need to cracked down on but do not look for that to ever happen
This is an example of what is totally wrong island wide with the construction industry. These people are being allowed to bring in the foreign companies left and right. Decco is bringing in a lot of foreign companies to do the newest office building plus then they hire loose labor off the street like what was shown on CNS with the immigration raid last week. Not just Decco but look at the new one by Kentucky Fried Chicken. Why is the government allowing this when our local companies are struggling? Then they give all kinds of duty concessions but where are the local construction companies that were supposed to get work? Decco gets bids but they are for window dressing because they already have the foreign company all signed up.
That new Hyatt is using some of the nicest looking concrete and form work I have ever seen. A real contrast to the shambles going up next to the graveyard.
Sure and the foreign company doing it has cut out local companies except for their Cayman partner. Why were they granted all the duty concessions when they are supposed to get legitimate local subcontractors to qualify for getting the duty concessions? Just hiring buy a work permit people off the street and dressing them up does not count. Guess our labor minister is checking it out.
Jon Jon will get right to it once his boo-boo heals from the accident. Maybe he will be like Trump and put a band-aid on.
…and the Governor smiled, the Deputy Governor smiled, the Commissioner said the crime situation was stable, and then DG said we were #worldclass.
Thank God for Sue Winspear and the Auditor General’s Office and their very detailed report.
The governors are just for show anyway as this is just the last stop before a cushy retirement. Don’t rock the boat!
Too funny. Third world leadership does things third world again. And again. And…there is a big, easy to see reason that CIG will never be able to fix the dump. Ever.
PPM messed up this project the process with dart from day one. The mismanagement by the civil service compounded matters. Hew and several PPM ministers were compromised from the beginning of this process. There is nothing world class about the politicians and civil service in Cayman
World class corruption and incompetence!
I keep hearing the buzz phrase Value for Money but i don’t hear ANY alternative, other than this current bunch of jokers who say they can use the documents and work Dart did to to ‘do it themselves’. What a bloody joke that would be. If there is absolutely no other alternative to save us from this environmental ticking bomb – then in my opinion is was value for money. All i see now is the the same group of people who can not get a thing done and are dreaming of the potential kickbacks for ‘them’. I’m sorry but all this hogwash about Dart not being able to get it done is smoke and mirrors – I’m not Dart’s biggest fan, however lets compare track records people.
FIX the F’ing Dump!!!!
Best reasoning yet in terms that the public may be able to comprehend.
Joey Hew proves again that he’s a clown and ill equipped to lead this country. Yet those failings will make him the perfect leader for the PPM. He is better off as full time employee for Dart and the developers that help to keep him elected not as a MP.
Sadly, he is one of many examples that alleged corruption and undue influence are allowed to thrive in Cayman politics.
Exactly. Who else but Dart can put a project of this magnitude together?
Correct, the great Dart machine. We should be very grateful that they allow us to be here.
What’s a few million and Tahoes among friends? No biggie.