by Richard Coulson
First published in TheTribune.
I was putting away some conch salad at Goldie’s next to Arawak Cay, listening to Zeke and Amos, a couple of savvy truck-drivers on a lunch break.
Zeke: Wanna bet when we see all the containers movin’ here, ‘stead of downtown?
Amos: Maybe my life-time, maybe not.
Zeke: But didn’t Hubert say right over on Arawak was set for the new Container Port?
Amos: Sure, he say it! But ain’t no one can tell you exactly what that means. Ain’t got no details at all. Where they gonna dock the ships, all those boats Tropical brings in? Along the north wall? An’ where they gonna stack up the containers? Plenty from Crowley take all the space already. Maybe Gubmint soon tear down those Godforsaken old warehouses ‘long the eastern edge. Shoulda done it long ago, ‘stead of leaving them like a garbage dump for every cruise passenger to spot when he comes into harbor.
Zeke: An’ when you an’ me pull out with our rigs hauling them 40-footers, where do we go? Back into fightin’ every corner downtown? Straight south to upset all them good folks in Chippingham? Out west past errybody swimmin’ on Cable Beach? Man, we’ll see traffic jams leavin’ the Cay like you ain’t never seen before!
Amos: Well, I hear they maybe planning something just to west – take the fill from harbor dredging, dump it in shallow water in front Saunders Beach – bingo! new island all set to take container ships. ‘Course, they got to build a bridge and new roads for that, brand new routes goin’ every which way.
Zeke: Yeah, an’ how long that take?
Amos: They don’t tell me yet.
Zeke: An’ ain’t all them environment busy-bodies got something to say? Hold it up for couple of years to worry about the turtles and land-crabs?
Amos: You so right, Zeke.
Zeke: We useta hear the whole thing was set for out west, between the brewery and BEC, with good road comin’ in under the power-line. What happened with that?
Amos: Got shot down by Brent – Brent always has his reasons, you dead sure! Talked Hubert into agreein’ with him. So they dump the whole thing on that nice fella Earl Deveaux to sort out the mess. He in charge of Downtown too, so he got to promise errybody all the shipping leave Bay Street like tomorrow.
Zeke: Say, don’t I remember Brent sayin’ he has a quick solution - all the trucks would be off Bay Street by, when was it, last December? Or maybe this June? We’d all be drivin’ at night he said. You been doin’ any of that?
Amos: Man, you kiddin’? Who’s gonna unload my container at midnight?
Another fellow joined Amos and Zeke; talked and dressed like an engineer, hard-hat and all. They greeted him as Harcourt.
Amos: Now, Harcourt, you always get inside scoop. What’s up?
Harcourt: Here’s a little history to chew on. Just as the FNM took over in May last year, the Dutch consulting firm Ecorys was writing the feasibility study for a modern container port located like you said, right by the power plant. Ecorys had been selected by a joint task force of Government officials (then PLP appointees of course) and the private sector shipping companies led by Tropical, and studied every angle of our economy. But within weeks of the election – after maybe a quick look at Ecorys -- Brent was saying publicly and privately “You can forget about the Southwestern Port. It costs too much and takes too long. We’ll do it quicker”.
Zeke: Yeah, I heard them official reasons. Of course the real reason was, it was born in the PLP cradle, not the FNM.
Harcourt: OK, you said it. Later, at a face-off right here in Nassau, Brent told the boss of Ecorys, “You guys are doing a great job. But, like you were instructed, you’re only studying the southwest site. My Government needs to be satisfied there’s no better place on the island. Nobody has studied the alternatives”.
Amos: True?
Harcourt: That was a flat mis-statement. In 2005, a Florida marine consulting firm made a study of seven different sites – studied all the factors, environment, traffic, nearby residents – and gave the power plant top points, 41 against 32 for Arawak Cay. That wasn’t good enough for Brent and the new gang. Said the study wasn’t done right. I dunno – looked OK to me, but I’m just an engineer, not a politician.
Zeke: So where we is now?
Harcourt: Well, you can’t expect Government to rush into these things! It took until about New Year’s for Hubert to nix the Ecorys plan straight up and start promoting Arawak Cay for the new port. Then it took him another six months to decide who was going to build it. That big European shipping company, MSC, tried to muscle in and said they’d do the whole thing – construct, manage, pay. They already just about run the Freeport Container Port, so why not Nassau too? That didn’t look so good to the guys already doing the business here – Tropical, Seaboard and the gang – so they raised a big stink about a foreign-owned monopoly dominating Nassau shipping. I guess there was lots of back and forth, and seems like Hubert finally told the local guys to go ahead. Owners of the port have to be the present operators and other Bahamians, and nobody can hold more than 15%. Jimmy Mosko was named Chairman of the port company and told to get going.
Amos: So things are movin’ now?
Harcourt: Not so fast, my friend! Here we are, nearly September, and Jimmy still has to find a consulting company to do a complete engineering and financing plan. I hear it’s down to a short-list of two, but whoever is picked will take couple of months to complete. And the environment study ain’t even started! The turtles and the land-crabs still got a while to live.
Zeke: So they might start pourin’ concrete by end of the year?
Harcourt: That’s what they say, hope, hope. And maybe two years to finish the job, and build all the new roads to make it work.
Amos: At least a solution.
Harcourt: Sure, but you oughta know everybody I talk to outside Government (and even a few inside) – engineers, town planners, environmentalists, businessmen, even the shipping companies – think Arawak could be used for better things and making it the main port is a crazy decision. They grit their teeth and bear it, because no use fighting Government, but they’ll tell you that out by the power plant is still the best place. And look, if Hubert had put his OK on the Ecorys plan when he first took over, the thing could be about third - half finished by now.
Zeke: But a lot more bucks.
Harcourt: Maybe yes, maybe no. Ecorys put it about $330 million, and the Arawak budget could be less, we still don’t know exactly. Either way, it’s all on the private sector, not on the Treasury. And reckon this: the Albany Resort has already built, at its own expense, a slick new road out west that could have been part of the straight power-line highway to the inland terminal that’s part of every plan. More than that, I bet both Albany and South Ocean Beach could have been squeezed for fat contributions. Since both developers were fighting for crucial planning, dredging and construction permits, Government could have said “OK, but you’ve got to share the cost of building the commercial port that’s near you.” That’s the typical hard bargaining that happens around any big development. Joe Lewis wasn’t going to walk away from Albany over a few million more bucks. But I guess Hubert didn’t try to play that card.
Amos: Man, I always figure the FNM is better than the PLP at toughin’ it out on business deals. But, eh bulla, sometimes you gotta wonder.
Nassau, Bahamas, Saturday, August 30, 2008.
Mr. Coulson has had a long career in law, investment banking and private banking in New York, London, and Nassau, and now serves as director of several financial concerns and as a corporate financial consultant.
