United State Virgin Island
The lease agreement necessary to progress work on the wind farm projects slated St. Thomas and St. Croix is now in the hands of the Department of Property and Procurement. That was the word from Joel Hart of Advance Power, who provided an update to the V.I. Public Services Commission during its monthly meeting on Tuesday.
“We have formally executed and acknowledged the site lease, and it has been overnighted to Property and Procurement,” Mr. Hart said. Now begins the potentially lengthy bureaucratic process, with approvals needed from the Attorney General’s office, the Senate, and the governor.
“For the permitting and approval process, we can’t formally initiate that without having the leasehold and the site leads completed,” Mr. Hart said, while noting that Advance Power is nevertheless conducting preparatory work in anticipation of the completion of the leasing process.
Mr. Hart also told commissioners that the structure of the lease had changed, so that instead of Advance Power subleasing the property from WAPA as originally contemplated, they would be the primary leaseholder in the agreement with Property & Procurement.
PSC Commissioners questioned the total acreage of land on St. Croix and St. Thomas that would be leased under the agreement. Mr. Hart explained that it was too early to provide an exact figure, as the agreement is structured to allow maximum generation capacity on the site. “We’re talking about having the flexibility to locate …each patch site dependent on the actual engineering as we develop a formal site plan,” he told commissioners. “We’re looking at approximately two and a half acres for carve out for each pad site, more or less. But then… we’ll have easements for interconnection purposes and collection systems and metering and so forth,” he noted. After construction has been completed, an as-built survey would then determine the total acreage occupied by Advance Power. “Anything else would be turned back to Property & Procurement,” Mr. Hart said.
Pressed for more exactitude by several commissioners, Mr. Hart estimated that 10 windmills would be installed at Bovoni Point on St. Thomas, with 20 east of the St. Croix refinery. However, he cautioned that the numbers are “subject to change based on engineering; we want to put as few turbines as we can, but we want to meet the targets that are set out in the PPA.”
There is still internal discussion about whether to use 1.5 MW or 2 MW turbines, which would impact the total number that are eventually installed, Mr. Har
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Guyana
The Alliance for Change today hammered the majority decision of the Public Procurement Commission not to take action in the award of the $865M Belle Vue pump station contract, although several breaches were found in the award of the contract. The contract was awarded to the Tepui company, which is managed by social media talk show host, Mikhail Rodrigues aka “The Guyanese Critic”.
The AFC found the report to be shamelessly objectionable, unfair and yet another knockdown of a guardrail of democracy.
The opposition party accused the Public Procurement Committee’s published report of ignoring the minority recommendation of two members of the Commission that the project be re-tendered.
The AFC noted that all five Commissioners of the Public Procurement Commission agreed that the Tepui company was guilty of serious evaluation disqualifications.
The AFC said the minority recommendation is which is not captured in the Summary of Findings by the PPC, was that the Tepui bid must be deemed non-responsive and should be re-tendered.
The AFC said it is amazing that a bid which did not meet any of the evaluation criteria could have been passed by the Evaluation Committee, then the Tender Board and then find blessings and approval by Cabinet.
“The AFC does not know the names of the members of the Evaluation Committee. However, their names must not be an official secret. The public has a right to know who they are. The AFC is aware that the head of NPTAB is Mr. Tarachand Balgobin, who has a senior advisory role at the Ministry of Finance as Deputy National Authorising Officer and head of its Public Investment Unit. A conflict of interest is most noticeable here. Also,it is well known that Tepui’s owner is a close friend of Vice President Jagdeo. There is an undoubted confluence of interests and relationships here that mattered more than the merits of the Tepui bid”, the party said.
According to the AFC, it believes that the majority recommendation of the PPC only ruined matters more when it determined that it cannot propose any remedial action.
“This kind of misconceived “lenience” ought to have come only from the interested parties who want to see the award go to a friend. It should never have come from a constitutional body which was fought long and hard for to be a check and balanced against Executive lawlessness in procurement matters.”
The AFC said it finds the legal device of privity of contract by three of the Commissioners to allow the award, to be an abomination and an abdication of their duty to protect against fraud and corruption in procurement matters.
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Caribbean
The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) is convening global experts for a ground-breaking seminar on achieving employment equity and promoting inclusion in the Region’s labour markets.
Scheduled for Wednesday, June 19, 2024, the forum entitled “Employment Equity: Promoting Inclusion in Caribbean Labour Markets” is part of the roster of activities of the Bank’s 54th Annual Meeting, slated for June 17 – 21 in Ottawa, Canada. The event will turn the spotlight on long-standing inequalities which affect employment prospects of women, youth, and indigenous populations.
The agenda promises robust discussions and actionable insights. It will feature the findings of the Bank’s comprehensive Labour Market Differentials study, shedding light on the gaps in opportunities and differential impacts on various vulnerable groups. Additionally, the study looks at the future of work and the job market outlook in key sectors as the Region strives towards an inclusive and equitable labour landscape.
CDB’s Acting Vice President, Operations, Mrs Therese Turner-Jones said, “Inequitable labour markets hold back inclusive, sustainable economic growth and CDB is taking a leadership role in driving positive change. We look forward to this invaluable engagement with our stakeholders and interest groups as we strengthen our partnerships to further address systemic inequalities and develop the Region.”
The cross-sectoral engagement will connect the dots between labour market outcomes for vulnerable populations and impacts on economic growth and development. There will be a mapping exercise to create truly inclusive and equitable labour markets. In addition, innovative practices for transforming labour markets and the future of work will be explored, and recommendations from the study will be presented.
Mr. Ian Durant, Director of Economics at CDB said, “The Caribbean has a tremendous opportunity to redefine our workforce paradigms as economies rebound from the pandemic’s impacts. We must act decisively to level the playing field and unlock our full potential, and this seminar will spark critical dialogue and identify concrete solutions to dismantle the systemic barriers facing vulnerable groups. I urge all stakeholders to join this critical conversation on sustaining growth in our labour markets.”
The panel of participants includes Honourable Colin Jordan, MP Minister of Labour, Social Security and Third Sector, Barbados, Dr Halima DeShong, Senior Lecturer and Head of the Institute for Gender and Development Studies: Nita Barrow Unit at The University of the West Indies (UWI), Cave Hill Campus; Mr. Wilson Pearce, Senior Director – Global Business Development for the Canadian Commercial Corporation, and Ms. Josée Bégin, Assistant Chief Statistician responsible for Social, Health and Labour Statistics Field at Statistics Canada. CDB’s Acting Vice-President of Operations, Mrs. Therese Turner-Jones will serve as moderator.
The seminar will be livestreamed on CDB’s Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube platforms. The event should be of particular interest to persons involved in national planning, employment, research, gender and indigenous pursuits.
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Belize
While BEL says it had been signaling the need for greater power generation for some time, it was not able to tackle the issue fast enough. The company is now hoping to get two new gas turbines up and running to generate additional power to the tune of fifty megawatts. The turbines, being constructed in the Belize District, are expected to be completed by the end of this month, and BEL believes the machines will greatly improve its ability to meet the country’s demands. But what took so long? General Manager of Energy Supply and Transmission, Jose Moreno, says the company’s plans were hindered by the laws governing the country’s energy sector.
ose Moreno, General Manager of Energy Supply and Transmission, BEL: “Last year our board made the decision that we have to deploy generation resources. BEL is not responsible for the procurement regulations. BEL tells the regulator what our forecast is and then they are supposed to go and open up the market to attract those investments but we haven’t seen that since 2014. In 2013 there was an RFP for seventeen megawatts of new generation we only managed to finalize eight megawatts. So since then we haven’t added any new generation and our demand has been growing. So here we are. Last year we said we will have to invest in generation because at the end of the day those are our customers and we need to be responsible to guarantee their supply and that is why we are doing the upgrade of the gas turbine at mile 8 and the new addition of twenty megawatts of another gas turbine that is going to San Pedro. In the case of San Pedro the planned called for battery storage that hasn’t realized itself yet. We also had a new cable, there is a project for a new cable. We are working arduously on that to get that project off the ground and hopefully by 2026 or earlier we will have that new supply there but as far as generation resources are concerned we believe that after this weekend we are supposed to be in a better situation because we’re going to add thirty additional megawatts and by the end of May we will have an additional twenty megawatts from that turbine that we are deploying to San Pedro.”
Moreno added that one of the main temporary solutions to its energy woes is the shedding of power. However, he says that it is difficult for the company to decide which communities are affected by the decision.
Jose Moreno, General Manager of Energy Supply and Transmission, BEL:“The reason why we load shed is because we come up with a situation where we cannot meet the demand and that happens only if Mexico tells us “listen I have a situation in my system I need you to back off, I need you to curtail the supply.” right? Until then we don’t know. We cannot go ahead and forecast and put advisories out there if things are not gonna happen and that’s why they advisories that we have been sending out to our customers are general. Just telling them listen we are in this precarious situation, we might need you to come off or we might have to take out the feeder in our area out of service. Now last night we did mostly feeders in Belmopan, in San Ignacio we had two feeders out in San Ignacio. We had the Rural Belize feeder and one feeder in San Pedro Feeder 4 , that is the southern part of the island. We don’t expect if we need today we don’t expect to touch those feeders again unless we have one of those unfortunate occurrences where something goes wrong and we lose the entire system. Hopefully not.”
The company says that it will not be implementing rolling blackouts to curtail the country’s energy demand.
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Bahamas
$5.5 million spent on Bahamas Jubilee Games, $1 million more than government allocation
NASSAU, BAHAMAS — The Auditor General’s Report examining the accounts of The Bahamas Jubilee Games has revealed that the government spent $5.5 million funding the games, just over $1 million more than the government’s initially allocated amount.
The Auditor General also raised concerns regarding unauthorized salary increases for employees, among other irregularities.
The report ultimately criticized the accounting to the Secretariat, noting that accounting records were not properly maintained as there was missing documentation, financial records lacked certain financial transactions, and profit and loss statements were not regularly generated.
The report, which was tabled in Parliament on Wednesday, noted that the operating budget of the Bahamas Games Secretariat was $5.5 million. The government initially allocated $4.5 million for the games, with just over $1 million being requested by the Secretariat after the event
The Auditor General’s report noted a lack of transparency concerning expenses related to preparing the games and a lack of accountability regarding the discretionary allocation of honorariums, overtime payments, and salary increments. The report also noted that procurement procedures lacked formalized procedures and transparency.
According to the report, the Secretariat received $59,000 in revenue from ticket sales, booklets, and souvenirs during the games; however, the OAG was unable to determine the specific breakdown.
The Auditor General noted that a government-appointed was supposed to oversee the Secretariat’s responsibilities but was never appointed.
The Auditor General also found that the Secretariat’s petty cash fund was improperly utilized for payment receipts concerning the acquisition of two vehicles. The sum of those transactions amounted to $4,000. The petty cash management document specified that no individual claims should surpass $500; however, several expenses exceeded that limit. The Auditor General recommended that car loan payments via the petty cash account be discontinued.
The report also raised concerns regarding some employee contracts, which stipulated that they were to be paid certain sums monthly but instead were paid monthly and instead were paid weekly. It was also noted that while employee contracts did not include vacation entitlements, the OAG observed that various employees availed themselves of vacation time, although there were no supporting documents substantiating their eligibility for such leave.
The report also noted that the Secretariat failed to make a $4,108 payment to the National Insurance Board, exposing itself to a fine for non-compliance.
According to the report, the Secretariat purchased two vehicles for $15,000. However, “There was no official documentation authorizing the purchase, and it was observed that two employees were making monthly contributions toward eventual ownership, although the exact amount for monthly payments was not specified in records.”
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