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:
- Fascinated
- Happy
- Sad
- Angry
- Bored
- Afraid
Category: Environmental Health, Government Administration, Health, Politics
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
What’s a few million and Tahoes among friends? No biggie.