The removal of the remaining scrap
metal at Mount Trashmore has been delayed after a joint venture between the companies
awarded the bid fell through.
Chief Officer for the Ministry of Works
Kearney Gomez said Monday that the project to remove an estimated 8,000 metric
tons of scrap from the landfill would be re-tendered.
In August, the Central Tenders
Committee awarded the contract to local company Island Builders, in association
with US firm Resource Exchange of America and its subsidiary Asset Recovery of
America, which had offered a bid of $289,280.
“It will go back out to tender. The
contract was awarded to [Island Builders] in association with the US company,”
Mr. Gomez said.
According to Resource Exchange of
America, its effort to create a joint venture with Island Builders has ended
and the company wrote to Mr. Gomez last week requesting that the project be
rebid.
In his letter to Mr. Gomez, a copy
of which was sent to the Caymanian Compass, CEO of Resource Exchange of
America, Dana Pekas, said Island Builders had informed him that it was not
going to honour the agreement with his company to form a joint venture to
remove the scrap metal.
“This is particularly concerning to
[Resource Exchange of America] as [we] collaterised 100 per cent of the funding
for the purchase of the metal since the submission of the tender on 18 June,
2010.
“Moreover, it was [our] expertise
in scrap metal processing and logistics that brought this operational plan
together, noting that [Island Builders] has never handle[d] a scrap metal
project until this tender.”
Mr. Pekas said he did not want to
“air any dirty laundry” in public about the relationship between Island
Builders and his firm, but said trust had been a factor in the breakdown of the
efforts to set up a joint venture.
“All said and done, and considering
the level of experience that Island Builders has in scrap metal processing and
logistics, I firmly believe that the Cayman Island Government should strongly
consider starting the bid process over again,” Mr. Pekas said in an email to the
Compass.
He added that since his company
and Island Builders submitted their bid in June, the ferrous and non-ferrous
markets have increased as much 70 per cent in some cases and any new offers
should be considerably better than the ones on the table.
“Our goal from the beginning was to
create a processing yard that not only assisted in cleaning up the Islands but
also allowed us to pay the general public for all ferrous and non-ferrous
materials that would be brought to us.
We do know that… offering this
type of processing location to the Island would create jobs. [This is a] loss
for all of us, I guess,” he said.
Mr. Gomez said he did not know
exactly when the project would go out for new tender bids.
Dean Scott, owner of Island
Builders, did not return calls for a request for comment by publication time.
The other two bidders for the
contract were Cardinal D Ltd, which had removed 6,000 tons of scrap metal from
the landfill under a separate contract earlier this year, and Bruce Young, a
former co-owner of Matrix, a Caymanian-Canadian company that the government
sacked in 2007 for failing to fulfil its contract.
Mr. Young’s bid, which was the
highest, was disqualified, and the Central Tenders Committee opted for Island
Builders’ second highest bid of $36.16 per ton.
The tender bid invitation called
for the removal of scrap metal at the George Town dump, metals at the Cayman
Brac and Little Cayman landfills, which need to be processed, and scrap metal
that remains uncollected throughout Grand Cayman.
Among the metal that remains at the
dump are loose, unprocessed or semi-processed appliances, derelict vehicles,
fuel tanks, tyre rims, metal furniture, fixtures and construction debris.
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I was in on this story at the very beginning, nearly four years ago. It seems to be a classic piece of mismanagement by all concerned.
Before the original Matrix contract was awarded the Cayman Islands was offered a package that would have created a self-financing recycling programme based not only on the scrap metal but other reusable materials that currently go into the landfill.
This was backed up by well documented experience and even a DVD of the recycling process in operation.
For reasons that are unclear (but you can probably pick from ‘not invented here’, no money involved or failure to understand the benefits) it was ignored – not rejected, just plain ignored. This is despite the fact that one of those involved in the decision making is an acknowledged expert on recycling.
The proposals would (hopefully) have avoided all the subsequent problems, it would have created work for Caymanians and a steady income for CIG. It wasn’t a one-off like all the other attempts to clear up this mess but a project for the foreseeable future that would have seen an end to Grand Cayman being a dumping ground for material that can be reused.
When I interviewed Jean-Michel Cousteau he instantly recognised the merits of the scheme, pointing out that Cayman exported hundreds of empty shipping containers every year that could be used to remove the materials.
Just under 20 years ago when I first visited Grand Cayman one of my few negative recollections was the fact that every type of waste (glass, metal, paper, plastic, uneaten food, etc.) all ended up in the same trash bins and dumpsters, with no attempt being made to recycle anything. The reason I remember it is that a visitor from the USA commented that if he did that back home they’d take him to court. Are you still going to be doing that in another 20 years time or will someone finally get the message that this is money literally going to waste?
In Sept-2010 the World Scrap metal prices was between USD 380 – 385 per tonne. A few concerns:
1.What is the reasoning behind the award for $36.16 per tonne. It is understood that some "processing" needs to be done before the metal can be sold but the awarded rate represents 10% of the World rate. This is not logical.
2. Are the people in CTC the same accountants that are running the financial accounts of CIG?
Why was Mr. Young allowed to bid again bearing in mind teh fiasco that took place with his company recently on the same Works? What was the pre-qualifying criteria?