In the four years since the opening of the Haags Bosch landfill, the Communities Ministry says site manager BK International has failed to fulfil its contract, which has resulted in a significant portion of incomplete works and ongoing payment issues.
Amidst a war of words between BK boss Brian Tiwari and Communities Minister Ronald Bulkan, the Ministry on Friday highlighted the non-compliance and noted that to date a significant portion of expected works are yet to be completed.
Last Monday, Tiwari said the firm is prepared to walk from the management of the landfill once it is paid what it is owed for the work done.
“It’s not that I don’t want to leave this project. I’m willing to leave but I can’t leave until they pay us,” he told reporters at the site.
His comments came in wake of Bulkan saying it was hard to contemplate any other contractor doing “a worse job than what has been done.”
In a statement issued on Friday, the Ministry said the former government signed a contract for the construction and management of the landfill with a joint venture between BK International and Puran Bros Disposal Services (BKI/PBDS) and works commenced in January 2010.
However, it said in April of 2012, after it became clear that several contractual requirements were not being complied, a technical team comprised specialists from the government and the funding agency identified several “environmental, sanitary & reputational risks” associated with the construction and operation of the landfill. There has been marginal corrections, according to the Ministry.
The Ministry said the project has a history of late payments due to inaction by BKI/PBDS. It noted that in June, 2012, the contractors had suspended the contract due to non-payment. However, the Ministry said it had withheld operations payments for January to May, 2012 due to non-compliance issues.
It pointed out that in letter dated April 18th, 2012, BKI/PBDS requested permission to suspend construction on Cell 1, which was initially scheduled for completion of construction on January 31st, 2011.
The Ministry also noted that a letter to BKI/PBDS, dated April 26th, 2012 identified several deficiencies in operations, including absence of intermediate and daily cover, inadequate and inoperable landfill operation equipment, non-utilisation of a landfill compactor compromising the mandated compacted waste density, and absence of leachate pumps. It further added that an addendum of June 28th, 2012, signed by BKI/PBDS mandated completion dates for several items, including the leachate treatment system and sedimentation ponds, all of which remain incomplete.
Earlier in April that year, it said that a letter to BKI/PBDS identified parameters and data to be presented by the contractor, including measurements of waste volumes and waste volumes recycled, surface and ground water and air quality, leachate heads in landfill cell, landfill gas monitoring and complaints. “There is no evidence to indicate that these issues have been adequately addressed to date,” it pointed out.
According to the Ministry, as contractually mandated, BKI/PBDS was requested on June 26th, 2012 to operationalise a composting facility for organic waste to increase landfill capacity. However, the composting facility was never operationalised and BKI/PBDS was cited again on July 3rd, 2012 for non-compliance and informed that payment would not be made if the issues were not addressed.
The Ministry said the contract mandates submission of monthly and quarterly monitoring data for the landfill but this has been honored mostly in the breach by BKI/PBDS.
The statement highlighted that the contract signed between government and the BKI/PBDS joint venture mandated a minimum compacted waste density of 700kg/m3. However, it said the compactor provided by BKI/PBDS was incapable of compacting the waste to the mandated density.
To correct this challenge, it said Ministry and the joint venture, in a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) dated August 7th, 2013, agreed that the Ministry would acquire a new landfill compactor. But for the MoU to be effective, the joint venture needed to provide a new bulldozer and a tracked loader, it noted.
According to the Ministry, the government provided the landfill compactor but from all indications the contractor did not provide a new bulldozer and a tracked loader. “As such, the Ministry is challenging BKI/PBDS joint venture to indicate to the public the location of the equipment that was agreed in the MoU,” it said, while noting that although the contractor did not adhere to the terms of the MoU, it expects government to pay at an increased rate as stipulated in the MoU.
In relation to the construction works, the Ministry said in a letter dated June 24th, 2011, the contractor claimed contractual negligence, including perceived omissions in the bill of quantities. However, the information was present in the same document submitted by the other bidders for the project, the ministry noted.
The Ministry statement said that a slip failure occurred in the slope of the leachate treatment pond. “These are expected occurrences in geotechnical engineering practice given that a 100mm diameter hole is often used to infer soil conditions over a large area. The failure was owing to the contractor’s negligence since the excavation was left open for an extended period. This led to the slope becoming supersaturated and the subsequent development of negative pore water pressure resulted in slope failure,” it said.
BK Site Manager Lionel Kandasammy last Monday stated that since the inception of the landfill, the contract between BK and the Ministry of Local Government had many defects. He said the contract was extremely vague and did not provide clear and, in some instances, sufficient instructions to BK on various fundamental aspects of the project.
Construction of the required facilities, he noted, revealed many shortcomings in the contract as detailed design plans were not given to BK in a timely manner. He stated that the most patent illustration of this is the leachate system design, which is still to be received by the firm.
He stated that a complication of this is that due to the design there were failures during excavation in February, 2015 and prior. He revealed that the ministry’s personnel visited the site and received the required data from BK but the company is still awaiting a revised drawing of the system. As of now, the refuse fluid is not being properly filtered and transported into the canal.
