Trashmore bids draw investors’ interest

Investors have submitted more than
21 proposals for a waste-to-energy facility to deal with Mount Trashmore’s
growing rubbish pile, Premier McKeeva Bush revealed Wednesday.

With still nearly a month before
the deadline for the return of tender bids, Mr. Bush said the number of
proposals already received for the project shows there is investor confidence
in Cayman.

Last month, interested parties were
invited to submit proposals for a comprehensive solid waste disposal management
and waste-to-energy facility on Grand Cayman and to provide an outline of
future solid waste management options for Cayman Brac and Little Cayman. The
original deadline for receipt of bids was 19 November, but the tender
invitation was revised and a new deadline of 3 December has been set for
receipt of bids.

The tender calls for prospective
bidders to build and operate the facilities that would generate electricity and
other “green energy” by-products and implement a recycling programme.

Eight companies have also expressed
an interest in buying the public sewage system, the premier said.

The sewage system project involves
a tender invitation from the Water Authority of the Cayman Islands for
companies to buy Grand Cayman’s public wastewater infrastructure and to operate
and maintain the wastewater system and provide wastewater services under an
exclusive 25-year licence. The deadline for that tender is 10 December.

Mr. Bush made the comments in the
Legislative Assembly on Wednesday while responding to a speech by Leader of the
Opposition Kurt Tibbetts that was broadcast on 29 September, in which Mr.
Tibbetts said the United Democratic Party government had done nothing to
encourage investors.

“If there is no investor
confidence, why have there been over 21 proposals for a waste-to-energy
facility? Why have we received proposals to lease the Water Authority?

“If there is no investor
confidence, then why have eight companies expressed an interest in buying the
sewage system?” the premier said.

He cited other projects, such as an
investor proposing a $700 million to $800 million cargo transhipment port
facility in East End and another who wants to build a $200 million cruise
docking facility in George Town.

He also referred to the proposal
for a medical tourism hospital by Indian heart surgeon Devi Shetty as evidence
that investors are willing to come to Cayman.

Mr. Bush defended his many trips
abroad, which Mr. Tibbetts had referred to in his speech, saying that he had
travelled to “restore investor and financial industry confidence that was
eroded by [Mr. Tibbetts] administration” and to sign tax information exchange
agreements in order to remove Cayman from the OECD (Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development) grey list.

He said that since May 2009, Cayman
had signed 20 tax information exchange agreements with another seven negotiated
and awaiting signing.

Reading from a summary of a 2008
report by the Cayman Islands Fund Administrators Association, Mr. Bush said
that the financial services industry had warned the People’s Progressive
Movement government that the industry was in “eminent danger, and asked them to
do something. They did nothing.”