(CNS): Five years, seven months and 18 days after it was selected as the preferred bidder in October 2017 by the PPM government, the Dart Group has still not signed the deal that will see it roll out the long-awaited waste-management project, known as ReGen. Premier Wayne Panton announced Monday that the parties have agreed to push back the “stop date” until the end of July.

Since taking office in April 2021, the PACT Government has been scrutinizing the agreement signed by the previous administration just weeks before the general election. Panton has said on a number of occasions that there were significant problems with the deal that the Unity government had signed, and he intended to review the agreements and ensure value for money.

The true costs of this project have yet to be revealed but it is currently estimated to be in the region of $1.5 billion.

However, the talks have dragged on well past the original financial close date and have continued to prove challenging. Despite the optimism of the premier, who has suggested the end “is in sight”, this is by no means the first time that a target date to seal the deal has come and gone.

“We are at a critical stage in contract negotiations,” Panton said in his latest statement released yesterday. “Both the government and the Dart-led consortium are working hard to finalise the last few details remaining to secure financial close.”

The premier said the government and Dart had recognised that these remaining details wouldn’t be wrapped up or the necessary approvals obtained by 31 May, the previous date when officials had said the deal would be signed.

“Both parties have agreed to push the long stop date to 31 July,” he said. “The length of the project negotiations reflects both the complexity of the project and the project team’s desire to ensure ReGen is done right. This project includes the construction of infrastructure we expect to deliver decades of sustainable waste management to the people of the Cayman Islands. We know how urgent our solid
waste management challenges are and that we have limited capacity on the current site.”

Panton said the government was taking its “obligation to address the challenges in a fiscally responsible, timely and sustainable way very seriously”.

To date, Dart has been working on capping and remediating a significant part of the George Town landfill. This was a key goal of the islands’ largest landowner and a significant motivator for the company’s decision to bid on the project after the efforts to move the dump to Bodden Town failed almost twelve years ago in 2011.

But in the haste to cover up the unsightly pile of rubbish next to its flagship development, Camana Bay, there is now only a small area of the old dump left for tipping the excessive amount of garbage that Grand Cayman generates every day.

As a result, this area of the landfill is expected to run out of space before Dart completes the proposed waste-to-energy facility where, in future, the country’s rubbish will be burned.

The environmental impact assessment, which is not expected to be completed before the end of this year, is underway. The previous government waived the entire planning process for the project. But even after the deal is signed, work on that part of the facility can’t begin until the EIA is finished since it will inform the design and engineering of that project.

Meanwhile, there has been no advancement in the development of a composting area at the site; recycling has declined rather than increased after Dart chose not to replace its glass recycling machine, and no work at all has been done to begin trying to reduce the amount of goods we consume or reuse what has been generally discarded.

In March, Auditor General Sue Winspear revealed that the Cayman Islands produces five times the global average of rubbish every day. In a report looking at Cayman’s progress in meeting the UN development goals, she said that none had been made on the government’s own targets to cut the amount of trash going to the dump every day, and there are almost no strategies in place to do that.