Omar Hodge, Greenhouses

Spotlight: Andre Braithwaite Island Weekend & Culture

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Thursday, June 20, 2013 |

Pre-G8, VI agrees to automatic info exchange Other OTs sign on as well

By CHRYSTALL KANYUCK ckanyuck@bvibeacon.com In a move officials said underscores the territory’s commitment to transparency, the Virgin Islands agreed to take part in a pilot programme of automatic information exchange with five European countries during a pre-G8 meeting with United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron on Saturday.

The programme, which other British overseas territories will also join, is part of Mr. Cameron’s tax, trade and transparency agenda for his time serving as the president of the G8, a group of the world’s largest economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the UK and the United States.

The light that comes from wisdom never goes out.

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Gov’t pays $201k to settle 2009 greenhouse bill Ministry still resolving project’s issues

MINISTRY GAVE $530K IN CONTRACTS TO MINISTER’S RELATIVES’ FIRM

By JASON SMITH jsmith@bvibeacon.com

Hodge says company chosen on merit

An architectural firm received a payment last month for more than $201,000 to settle an outstanding bill for its 2009 and 2010 work on the long-stalled greenhouses, according to a recently signed contract. And despite previous setbacks, government officials pledge to keep pressing on with the project.

Premier Dr. Orlando Smith

By JASON SMITH jsmith@bvibeacon.com

Greenhouses see page 22

An architectural firm owned by in-laws of former Natural Resources and Labour Minister Omar Hodge received six petty contracts totaling more than $530,000 in 2008 and 2009, while the ministry was under his supervision, records show.

Mirsand Town Planning and Architects Ltd. was one of several firms selected for contracts re-

lated to the greenhouse project and efforts to remediate a flooding problem in Johnsons Ghut.

But Mr. Hodge said in a Monday interview that the choices were made solely on merit, not family ties.

Firm’s contracts Under Mr. Hodge’s watch, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Labour chose Mirsand for three petty contracts totaling $230,955.46 related to the Johnsons Ghut project over a twoyear period, according to a listing of petty contracts enclosed with the 2008 and 2009 re-

Contracts see page 22

Record number of males finish at HLSCC But men still far in minority

By NGOVOU GYANG ngyang@bvibeacon.com

When Bernard Smith Jr. learned that he had been selected to be the student respondent at the H. Lavity Stoutt Community College Summit see page 7 graduation ceremony last Thursday, he was nervous, but he didn’t shy away from the challenge.

Clad in a green gown and a yellow stole, Mr. Smith addressed a graduating class of 203 other students.

“It is important that in every avenue of life, you aim for the star with your name on it. Serve greatness as a goal,” Mr. Smith told the graduates in a speech that earned NSIDE him a standing ovation.

Beacon Business..........................16 He was among 56 men who graduated this year, making history Vol. 29 No. 3 • 2 sections, 52 pages as the highest number of males in Road Town, Tortola, a graduating class. Last year, 49 of British Virgin Islands 203 graduates were men.

I

© 2012, The BVI BEACON

Graduation see page 6

Photo: NGOVOU GYANG Graduates of H. Lavity Stoutt Community College prepare to receive their diplomas last Thursday on the school lawn. Two hundred and four students graduated.

Page 22 | Thursday, June 20, 2013 | The BVI Beacon

Local News

Greenhouses: Gov’t pays $201k to settle 2009 bill Continued from page 1 signed a May 6 contract with Jose Amilcar Camilo Castellanos, the director of the firm Mirsand Town Planning and Architects Limited.

Under the contract, Mirsand received a $201,938.29 payment and the firm dropped “any and all claims asserted, which could have been asserted or which may potentially be asserted against the government,” according to a copy of the contract filed at the High Court Registry.

Contract The settlement contract states that Mirsand was hired to “provide cost proposal for services such as architectural design, hydraulic studies and earthworks construction design, as well as quantity surveying, supervision and management” for six greenhouses: three to be built in South Sound, Virgin Gorda, and three in Paraquita Bay. The agreement, which was registered publicly, compels both parties to keep the settlement confidential and includes a “mutual non-admission of liability” clause, through which both parties deny that any wrongdoing occurred.

“This agreement has been entered into on the basis stated herein and to avoid the expense and burden of litigation,” the contract states.

In a June 10 interview, Ronald Smith-Berkeley, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Labour, declined to speak specifically about the Mirsand settlement but said that there was “nothing untoward or unusual” about the delay in payment. He added that the ministry is working to settle its past due obligations related to the project.

“The greenhouses, it’s just a matter of getting all the bills in and getting all the bills paid. It’s nothing out the ordinary,” he said.

The Mirsand settlement marks at least the second time in recent months that officials have had to cut cheques to pay past-due bills related to the greenhouse project.

According to a contract signed last September, 19 months after work had been completed, the MNRL paid Enchantment Hold-

Contracts from page 1 ports of the auditor general.

These contracts included two for road and drainage system design in 2008 and one for supervision, quantity surveying and engineering in 2009.

Mirsand also received three separate $100,000 petty contracts in 2009 in connection with the greenhouse project: two for project supervision and one for quantity surveying, according to the audit reports.

Petty contracts typically have a maximum value of $100,000 and are awarded at a minister’s discretion without a formal tender process.

In a Monday interview, Mr. Hodge defended Mirsand’s selection for those contracts.

“That guy, he’s a good, a very good, engineer — an experienced engineer — and you need a good engineer around these parts,” Mr. Hodge said of the company’s CEO, Jose Amilcar Camilo Castellanos.

Mr. Castellanos is married to Sandra Esther Rodriguez Cuello-Camilo, who is the sister of Mr. Hodge’s wife, Dr. Miriam Rodriguez Hodge.

Greenhouse contract Mr. Hodge said that in the case of the $300,000 in greenhouse contracts, it was International Business and Trade, LLC — the firm that won a $5.4 million contract in 2009 to establish six greenhouses in Paraquita Bay and South Sound, Virgin Gorda — that recommended Mirsand for the job.

“There’s no conflict of interest. I did not pick him. It was the company from abroad that picked him,” Mr. Hodge said of the Miami-based IBT. Asked if he ever benefitted financially from any contracts awarded to Mirsand, the former minister replied, “Definitely not.”

For the $300,000 in greenhouse contracts, Premier Dr. Orlando Smith signed off on a $201,938.29 settlement with the company last month to settle its outstanding claims. ings — a contractor that excavated more than 73,800 cubic yards of earth to prepare the South Sound site — the remaining $332,318.04 of the $644,455.00 that it was owed.

‘Third pillar’ Former Natural Resources and Labour Minister Omar Hodge originally spearheaded government’s efforts to build the greenhouses, which he repeatedly said were needed to make agriculture the “third pillar” of

On Monday, Mr. Castellanos declined to speak at length about the settlement, or why his firm was chosen for the work. But he added that as a civil engineer he has experience in supervising the sort of assembly work required in the greenhouse project.

“I don’t see any relation to any family connection or anything like that,” he said.

Johnsons Ghut In the case of Mirsand’s work at Johnsons Ghut, which was part of Mr. Hodge’s constituency when he was the Sixth District representative, the company was one of more than 60 small firms chosen to split more than $5.2 million in petty contracts in 2008 and 2009, many of which were close to the $100,000 maximum.

In order to resolve the flooding issue, contractors covered the ghut with concrete, widened the road, and made extensive revisions to the area’s drainage system. Those efforts, though, weren’t enough to eliminate the serious flooding caused by heavy rains in 2009 and 2010.

Now, more improvements are under consideration, according Communications and Works Minister Mark Vanterpool, who said after his election in 2011 that the project had been transferred to his ministry.

Mr. Hodge said that despite criticisms of the project’s cost he is pleased with the result.

“I transformed Purcell there for the people. And the people are happy about that,” he said.

The practice of splitting government projects into multiple petty contracts has been the source of much criticism and discussion in the House of Assembly in recent months.

But Mr. Hodge said Monday that the option of awarding one major contract instead of hiring multiple contractors doesn’t fit with the territory’s political reality.

“The people will kill you,” he said. “The longer you stay here the more you’ll understand the people. If you give one major contract you won’t stay in politics. You have to make sure that the people have work.”

the territory’s economy.

Representatives of the Miami-based firm International Business and Trade, LLC, first made a presentation to House of Assembly members in Caucus in October 2007, months after the Virgin Islands Party’s resounding victory at the polls brought about a change in government, according to IBT’s 2009 contract with government.

In May 2008, Mr. Hodge led a VI government delegation —

Other projects The greenhouse and Johnsons Ghut works are two of several examples of government’s long-standing association with Mirsand.

Of the 15 “featured projects” listed on the company’s website as examples of the firm’s design and engineering work, eight were public projects commissioned under Virgin Islands Party- or National Democratic Party-led governments.

Some of the projects have faced lengthy delays and cost overruns, including the construction of a replacement to Peebles Hospital, on which the firm participated as part of a consortium with Carimex LLC and Quality Construction.

In other cases, such as a proposal to build a post office in Purcell Estate and a plan to create a hospitality centre at Paraquita Bay, designs completed by Mirsand’s architects were never put to use, because the projects were cancelled.

In addition to its government work, the firm has also worked on several commercial projects in Road Town, such as the Trident Trust building, the WCI Twins Building, and Mr. Hodge’s O.C. Commercial Building, according to Mirsand’s website.

Firm’s payment The full extent of the company’s work on government projects and how Mirsand was chosen for those contracts has not been made public.

As of yesterday’s deadline, this reporter had not received a response to a June 6 written request made to Kalleesha Mendie, the territory’s acting accountant general, for a full list of government’s payments to the firm and copies of the petty contracts.

Attempts to obtain the information through the Ministry of Finance were also unsuccessful.

Dr. Smith, who, as finance minister, signed the greenhouse settlement contract, did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

which included then-Opposition Leader Dr. Smith and former atlarge representative Irene PennO’Neal — on a trip to the Dominican Republic to view examples of IBT’s greenhouses in operation there.

Eight months later the firm inked a $5.4 million contract with government to build and partially finance the greenhouses, by helping officials obtain a $4.6 million loan from the Spanish branch of Deutsche Bank.

The remaining $822,000 for the project was to be paid through other government funds, according to the IBT contract.

After some delay, land clearing for the VG site and the construction of the Paraquita Bay greenhouses finished in 2010, though to date both sites remain inoperable. No structures have been erected on the VG site.

In a phone interview Monday,

Greenhouses see page 23

Local News

The BVI Beacon | Thursday, June 20, 2013

MIRSAND AND A MINISTER

Greenhouses from page 22

T

he firm Mirsand Town Planning and Architects Ltd. advertises a lengthy list of completed projects on its website, many of which were commissioned by the Virgin Islands government.

Several of the contracts awarded to the firm, which is registered to Jose Amilcar Camilo Castellanos and his wife Sandra Esther Rodriguez Cuello-Camilo, were petty contracts issued under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Labour during the tenure of long-serving Sixth District representative Omar Hodge. Mr. Hodge’s wife, Dr. Miriam Rodriguez-Hodge, is the sister of Ms. Cuello-Camilo, he told the Beacon in a 1989 interview about his plans to construct Road Town’s Omar Hodge Building. Mirsand was founded in 1988, according to the company’s website. Below is a sampling of government projects on which the firm has worked.

Note: Areas marked “N/A” indicate information the Beacon was unable to obtain.

GREENHOUSES Year started: 2009 Total project cost: At least $5.9 million Mirsand’s payment: at least $201,938.29 Supervising agency: Ministry of Natural Resources and Labour

NEW HOSPITAL Year started: 2007 Total project cost: At least $113 million Mirsand’s payment: Unknown portion of $63.9 million Supervising agency: Ministry of Health and Social Development • Mirsand was a member of the three-firm consortium — along with the Dominican Republic-based Carimex LLC and the VI-based Quality Construction — that received a $63.9 million contract in 2007 to build a 128-bed replacement to Peebles Hospital. After a protracted standoff, government canceled the consortium’s contract in 2010 amidst concerns that large portions of the hospital’s mechanical, electrical and plumbing works had to be redone. Carimex representatives disputed the allegations of shoddy work.

HOSPITALITY CENTRE Year started: 2005 Projected project cost: $18 million Mirsand’s payment: Unknown portion of $770,000 Supervising agency: H. Lavity Stoutt Community College

• Mirsand was hired in 2009 to complete design works, hydraulic studies, earthworks construction design, quantity surveying, supervision and construction management for government’s plans to install large commercial greenhouses in Paraquita Bay, Tortola, and South Sound, Virgin Gorda. Land for the VG site was cleared and construction of the structures at Paraquita Bay finished in 2011, but currently neither site is functioning due to the need to resolve “very weighty” issues of intellectual property, current Natural Resources and Labour Minister Dr. Kedrick Pickering said last December. Premier Dr. Orlando Smith signed a $201,938.29 contract with the firm on May 6 to settle claims “which could have been asserted” against the government.

• Government initially contracted with a consortium composed of Mirsand and D’Art Urbain to build a hospitality centre in Paraquita Bay behind H. Lavity Stoutt Community College’s Marine Studies Centre. Designs, which were to be built to standards required by the New England Culinary Institute, included conference rooms and housing for up to 120 students, raising the project’s estimated cost from $14 million to $18 million, Amilcar Camilo, the consortium’s director, said in a 2008 interview. The plans were cancelled and after a lawsuit, government paid the architects $770,000 for their design costs.

JOHNSONS GHUT

PURCELL POST OFFICE Year started: 2008 Total project cost: at least $5.2 million Mirsand’s payment: $237,847.45 Supervising agency: Ministry of Natural Resources and Labour

• The project, initially forecast to cost $3.5 million, included a boulevard and a series of grates. It was designed to remedy a longstanding flooding problem in the Johnsons Ghut area.

Mirsand received three petty contracts totaling $237,847.45 for design and supervision works related to the project, according to a list included in the 2008 and 2009 reports filed by the Office of the Auditor General. Communications and Works Minister Mark Vanterpool told legislators in December 2011 that the “quite controversial” project had been transferred from the MNRL to his ministry. The Public Works Department, Mr. Vanterpool said, would implement additional measures to mitigate flooding in the area.

VIRGIN GORDA FISHERS’ RAMP Year started: 2008 Total project cost: about $138,000 Mirsand’s payment: N/A Supervising agency: Ministry of Natural Resources and Labour • Mirsand acted as engineer and supervisor on the ramp’s construction, which was initiated by Mr. Hodge, then-Premier Ralph O’Neal said at the project’s Feb. 26, 2008 groundbreaking ceremony. Construction was initially expected to last four months, Ministry of Natural Resources and Labour officials said at the time. However, the project faced a “slight delay” due to the need to prepare the seabed, Mr. Hodge told House of Assembly members in January 2009. It was subsequently completed.

Sources: Mirsand website, Beacon archive.

| Page 23

Year started: N/A Total project cost: N/A Mirsand’s payment: N/A Supervising agency: Ministry of Finance • The listing of “featured projects” on Mirsand’s website shows a drawing of a “study tender” for a general post office once planned for Purcell Estate, which is in the Sixth District that Mr. Hodge represented until 2011. The study tender was completed in partnership with the Belgian architecture firm Atelier D’Art Urbain. Government’s cost to develop the plans is unclear. But according to the report of the 2006 Standing Finance Committee, then-Postmaster General Kevin Smith told legislators that the proposed Purcell Estate site that had been earmarked was not suitable for a post office. The Purcell Estate post office was never built.

BEEF ISLAND BRIDGE Year started: 1999 Total project cost: At least $6.6 million Mirsand’s payment: N/A Supervising agency:Ministry of Finance • Work on the bridge connecting Tortola to Beef Island began in 1999 and was forecast to cost about $2.3 million. The construction work was carried out by the Dominican Republic-based firm Samuel S. Conde and Associates, but Mirsand performed engineering work on the project, according to the firm’s website. After a lengthy standoff with Conde involving disputes over design changes, delayed government payments, and disagreements about a site for the project, government paid $3 million in 2002 to settle Conde’s legal claims. The bridge opened in 2003.

Mr. Hodge, the former minister who was voted out of office in November 2011, said the greenhouse delays that occurred near the end of his tenure happened because monies weren’t available to pay IBT promptly.

“We owed the company some funds. The premier [Ralph O’Neal] didn’t send the funds on.

They had their ideas. So we couldn’t finish the project, which I think is a great mistake,” Mr. Hodge said.

Contacted about the settlement Monday, Mr. Castellanos, Mirsand’s director, deferred comment to the MNRL, but he added that his firm was one of several whose payments were delayed.

Mr. Hodge said that he remains confident that if the project was functioning as intended it would bring significant benefits to the territory in terms of lower prices, increased food security and a general economic boost.

“This is a massive thing and had we completed that and certain things we’d be in a much better position now,” he said of the former government’s plan to diversify the territory’s economy through agriculture. “I thought it would be best to pursue that line of action.

We had evidence of the fact that these [greenhouses] work. We agreed that it was the best way forward and I pursued that.”

Mr. Hodge added that much of the vociferous criticism that government received was due to farmers’ concerns that they wouldn’t be included in the project.

‘Intellectual property’ Deputy Premier Dr. Kedrick Pickering, who succeeded Mr. Hodge as MNRL minister, recently called the greenhouses a “very tricky issue,” asserting at a December HOA meeting that the ministry had to resolve issues of intellectual property before proceeding with the project.

Asked about those intellectual property issues, Mr. Hodge said that the current delays need to be addressed by Dr. Pickering.

“I think what happened there is: I don’t think he understands the way forward, but he’s not going to go ahead and say that because he’s a politician,” Mr. Hodge said.

Dr. Pickering did not respond to requests for comment for this article. But, at an April “agriGreenhouses see page 24

Page 24 | Thursday, June 20, 2013 | The BVI Beacon

Local News

Gov’t settles 2009 payment to surveying firm Company mapped out Anegada lands

By JASON SMITH jsmith@bvibeacon.com A surveying firm hired by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Labour in 2009 to help resolve a more-than-100-year-old land dispute in Anegada was only recently paid for some of its work.

According to a May 14 con-

tract filed at the High Court Registry, Premier Dr. Orlando Smith agreed for $94,950 to be paid to Chalwell Surveying Services for its work to survey more than 1,000 lots in eastern Anegada.

Along with former Premier Ralph O’Neal, representatives of the firm inked a $607,050 contract on July 7, 2009, to carry out the works.

In a June 10 interview, Ronald Smith-Berkeley, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Natural

Resources and Labour, said that payment had been delayed because the work took longer than expected due to difficulties posed by the terrain of the island’s interior.

On Monday, Shirley Chalwell, the firm’s director, declined to comment about the delay.

The survey work was necessary to resolve uncertainties about land ownership on the island that have existed since an 1885 agreement was reached to hand out land titles to Anegadians.

Greenhouses from page 23 business seminar,” he told farmers that in addition to the outstanding bills he inherited upon his 2011 ministerial appointment, he found that the designers of the greenhouses could have asserted claims to be compensated for their intellectual property used in the project.

“What that means is the designers of the greenhouses, they’re going to claim ad infinitum — in other words for the next 200 years — they’re going to be claiming money from government if we’d proceeded along the same pathway,” Dr. Pickering said. “We have to sort those issues out if we are going to do something about the greenhouses.”

He did not name the company that could have asserted the

claims, but he added that his ministry was “that close” to working out final agreements with the firms that have unpaid bills related to the project.

“The plan is, as soon as we’ve completed that process and government then has a clear pathway to move forward, we’re going to open up the greenhouses to private investment,” Dr. Pickering said, adding he’d like to see farmers invest in the project.

Mr. Smith-Berkeley, the MNRL permanent secretary, said last week that although he couldn’t give definitive timelines for the unresolved issues to be settled, Dr. Pickering and the MNRL remain “very committed” to the project.

“The minister mentioned practically from his first day on the job that he intends to move forward on the project,” Mr. Smith-Berkeley said.