The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The eight-day tender for the New Providence landfill’s management contract was yesterday slammed as “highly irresponsible” by the attorney representing Jubilee Gardens residents impacted by the massive recent fires.

With bids due to be submitted by 4pm today, Fred Smith QC, the Callenders & Co attorney and partner, said the tight deadline acted against the submission of “comprehensive, sensible solutions” to the landfill’s health and environmental hazards.

He suggested that the Government would likely end up with “a band-aid solution” that failed to properly tackle an issue affecting the livelihoods of hundreds of Bahamian residents and businesses.

Mr Smith, who is threatening to take legal action against the Christie administration on behalf of the Our Lives Matter: Jubilee Residents Association, told Tribune Business: “Government in the Bahamas is always reactionary.

“Instead of focusing on quality of life issues through the regulatory agencies, and establishing deliberate, transparent and accountable processes for governance, they always react by trying band-aid solutions.”

Tribune Business revealed last week how the Government had given private sector groups just eight days to submit bids to takeover the New Providence landfill’s management and remediation, after the formal Request for Proposal (RFP) process was advertised in the newspapers last Tuesday.

All bids are due to be submitted by 4pm today, and the proposals will then be opened, in the presence of all bidders, tomorrow at the Ministry of Finance.

Potential bidders who pay the $10,000 non-refundable deposit merely to obtain the RFP also have to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), barring them from speaking to the media or disclosing the tender document’s contents publicly.

Tribune Business, though, understands that interested groups are “scrambling” to put together complete proposals in response to the 48-page tender given the limited time they have.

“They’re all scrambling,” one source, familiar with the landfill tender, said of potential bidders. “The time certainly isn’t going to allow people to give very much depth. It’s quite a comprehensive RFP.”

Mr Smith, meanwhile, blasted: “Putting out an RFP to be responded to within eight days is highly irresponsible, and means that no prior thought has gone into this.

“It will militate against well thought-out and comprehensive proposals, and is also just a political ploy on the eve of an election to be able to say to the electorate that the Government has done something.”

Such sentiments have already been echoed by members of the Bahamian waste management and other observers, with some questioning whether the eight-day bid deadline indicates the Government has already selected a manager, and is merely just going through the RFP process.

“It is not going to promote a sensible resolution to the very dangerous, toxic, hazardous situation facing the entire island,” Mr Smith argued of the RFP’s timelines.

“This is a monstrous human health problem affecting hundreds of thousands of people, and it is not something that can be cured overnight.”

The tight timeline for submitting bids, with interested parties effectively given six working days, would appear to favour Bahamian groups, such as the wholly-Bahamian Waste Resources Development Group (WRDG) consortium.

The 10 Bahamian waste service provider members have partnered with Providence Advisors and its chief executive, Kenwood Kerr, and will likely be able to draw on their previous research and proposals in forming a credible bid.

However, local waste management industry sources previously complained to Tribune Business that the bid deadlines gave too little time for interested parties to conduct proper due diligence on the New Providence landfill following the recent blaze, especially since its remediation is one of the Government’s requirements.

“The Government is inviting proposals from the private sector relating to potential investment, remediation and management of operations of the Harrold Road [Tonique Williams Highway] landfill facility,” the advert states.

“The Government’s long-term waste management strategies include reforms which seek to introduce efficiencies in waste management at various facilities throughout the Commonwealth of the Bahamas.”

Renew Bahamas, the former New Providence landfill manager, walked away from its contract in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Matthew, citing security and safety concerns amid the absence of electricity supply, and a spate of thefts and shootings.

It had previously been seeking to renegotiate its management contract and associated financial terms with the Christie administration, having revealed to Tribune Business it had been incurring continuous, heavy losses.

The Government subsequently charged that Renew Bahamas had used Hurricane Matthew as an excuse to pull-out, having realised that its business model - which depended almost exclusively on the sale and export of materials recycled from the landfill - was not viable or sustainable.

The imminent Baha Mar opening and general election has intensified pressure on the Government to resolve the landfill’s woes, which were brought to the fore again last month when Jubilee Gardens residents were forced out of their homes after a massive fire at the landfill blanketed the community in thick smoke.