Monitoring Le Repentir dumpsite continues

Feb 26, 2011 News

– As City Hall ponders $85M debt to contractors

Although it was officially closed at the beginning of this month, works are ongoing at Le Repentir landfill site to improve its appearance.
According to City Mayor Hamilton Green, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the entity through which the funding for the construction of the Haags Bosch facility was derived, had also provided for works to complete the capping of the now closed site.
At the moment, Green said, the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development has engaged some level of work as it awaits approval from the IDB to either award or re-award a previous contractor to undertake the capping works.
Puran Brothers Disposal Service was awarded the contract to undertake such works but that contract has since expired.
With the closure of the Le Repentir facility the municipality has intensified security measures to ensure that there is no unauthorised entry to the facility which will no longer accommodate the disposal of waste.
However, Green said that there have been some logistical problems at the facility which resulted in litter pickers gaining unrestricted entry. “We failed to keep the gates locked and that is entirely our fault. They (litter pickers) found their way on to the site but the Constabulary has since been instructed to keep them out,” the Mayor insisted.
Recently the Le Repentir dumpsite had also suffered from spontaneous combustion. But according to Green this did not prove to be too much of a bother as the resulting effects did not last long, a state of affairs he attributed to there being no real activity there.
In the meantime though, he asserted that there have been no problems with the new Haags Bosch site aside from the initial concerns raised by contractors about the turnaround time. The contractors, he said, have claimed that they are expending more time to dispose of waste than they had anticipated and have therefore asked for an increase in fees.
“This is now being examined and it is a reasonable request. We have already written the Government through the Ministry of Local Government to assist because the municipality cannot afford to pay this increase right now.”
At the moment the municipality is yet indebted to contractors: including Cevon’s Waste Management and Puran Brothers Disposal Service, for the last two months of last year. The debt currently has mounted to in excess of $85M. “They are getting itchy at the moment,” the City Mayor disclosed recently.
“If we paid for optimum garbage removal and drainage, putting aside the other services such as roads, day care and markets, that would absorb every cent of taxes paid,” he lamented.
The municipality had however been able to negotiate with the contractors to keep working, according to Green, who revealed that the municipality has been able to reach some sort of compromise with the two main contractors.
The municipality had in fact advertised tenders for new contracts for the remaining of this year while it was expected that the existing contractors would continue to operate for at least the next two months.
The tenders were expected to be closed two Fridays ago but were since extended to next Monday.

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Monitoring Le Repentir dumpsite continues

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