Relocating Bay Street's commercial shipping facilities to the proposed southwestern New Providence port would cost $400 million, the minister for works and transport announced, adding that moving them to Arawak Cay instead - if only in the short term - would be a more "cost effective and efficient" way to eliminate downtown Nassau's traffic congestion woes.

Dr Earl Deveaux said that - even if Arawak Cay proved to be -a short-term solution, and a permanent port site was selected elsewhere, this would be cheaper than the southwestern location that became the focus for former Christie administration. "The port relocation, based on the preliminary estimates we got, appeared to be $400 million. The short-term relocation to get the container terminals off Bay Street is an infinitely more modest sum," Dr Deveaux explained.

On the Arawak Cay site, which appears to be the port location now favoured by the Ingraham government, Dr Deveaux said "It would immediately get container traffic out of downtown and out of the congested area....
"Clearly, we support the opinion that something needs to be done to remove congestion, and the relocation of the container terminals from downtown is a desired objective. How do we achieve that in the most cost effective and efficient way? This is one way we feel we can accomplish that"

The Government already owned some 50 to 70 acres on Arawak Cay, which could form the new port's core, although some of it was already leased. With the land available, the vertical construction of warehouse facilities and wharfs would be the remaining requirements.

The minister also revealed that the Government was looking at using the spoil excavated from Nassau Harbour later this year to expand Arawak Cay's land mass and the land available for the new port. He indicated that the spoil extracted would also be used to make improvements at Woodes Rogers Wharf and along Nassau harbourfront going east. Dr Deveaux said that when Balfour Beatty dredged Nassau Harbour in the 1980s, Arawak Cay was filled to 20-30 feet with spoil, which was subsequently used to put out fires at the garbage dump. The dredging will be used to expand Nassau Harbour and enable Prince George's Wharf to receive the largest cruise ship class, the Freedom ships, from 2009 onwards.

Charles Klonaris, the Nassau Tourism and Development Board's (NTDB) chairman, had urged the Government to conduct a feasibility study on the economic, social and transportation consequences of using Arawak Cay as the new port location. In response, Dr Deveaux said: "We are undertake terms of reference to do this as we speak, so we can make an informed judgement about it. Hopefully, in a few weeks, we will be able to speak publicly to a few specifics." He added that with the Government now possessing the 2004 study. on Nassau revitalization by urban planning firm, EDAW,-and other work done by Bahamian Jackson Burnside, it was now talking to the NTDB on the best way forward for downtown Bay Street. The Government, Mr Deveaux said, wanted "to improve that whole area from Blake Road going into town and all the way out to Fox Hill".

The Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) had alleged that Deputy Prime Minister Brent Symonette was in a potential conflict of interest situation when he chaired a July 24 meeting that discussed the Arawak Cay plan despite his family's estate being landlord for at least one shipping company.

Dr Deveaux blasted that such claims were "obnoxious". Adding that it was wrong to malign and impugn Mr Symonette "in that way", he added of the allegations: "I condemn that in the strongest possible terms. I utterly and totally reject it. I cannot reject it strongly enough.- It is completely wrong to put that kind of spin on it."

Dr. Deveaux said the Christie government focused on the southwest port location to the exclusion of all others,
with no cost-benefit analyses – such as the $350,000 one conducted on that site by Dutch consultants Ecorys-Lievenese –ever performed elsewhere.

When asked whether the Government had received the Ecorys report and come to any decision on it, Mr Deveaux said no copy had been formally presented to the Ingraham administration. Nor had there been any private sector requests to review it, he said, adding that he had himself been able to obtain a copy through the public sector consultants who worked with Ecorys on the study.

"The best answer I can give you is that I have received the report itself, but the Government has not formally received that report and we have not had any request from the private sector to review it," Mr Deveaux said. "Nor have we I been asked to make a decision on it."

The Arawak Cay plan is similar to one that was proposed at the July 24 meeting by John Bethel, of Bethel Estates, and Jimmy Mosko, and involved the creation of an inland terminal at Gladstone Road. This was billed as relieving 75 per cent of the cargo traffic in downtown Nassau, as shipping containers could be bussed to Gladstone Road after the normal business day ended, broken down and goods recovered by their recipients or shipped to their businesses. The inland terminal's construction was estimated lasting for one year.

All these suggestions have been adopted by the Ingraham administration, based on the Prime Minister's New Year's address to the nation. Government land on Gladstone Road near the Faith Avenue, Carmichael Road junction, and adjacent to the Bahamas Hot Mix site there, has been earmarked as the inland terminal's location. This site will also tie-in well with the New Providence Road Improvement Project, it is understood, as this is being eyed as the creation of a highway direct from Carmichael Road to Bay Street. Until that is constructed, though, container traffic will either have to make its way to the inland terminal via Nassau Street, Thompson Boulevard and JFK Drive, or westwards via west Bay Street and then over Prospect Ridge. There has been some discussion about constructing a new road that would link JFK Drive with West Bay Street where the Zoo nightclub used to be.

The Ecorys report found that relocating the commercial shipping facilities from downtown Nassau to southwestern New Providence would generate $497 million in' economic benefits for the Bahamas over a 30-year period, compared to net present value (NPV) costs of $192 million.

It concluded that relocating the shipping companies to the proposed port, which would be located between BEC's Clifton Pier power plant and Commonwealth Brewery, would "generate a net socio-economic benefit of approximately $50 per TEU [shipping container' compared with handling the containers at the current location".

Finding that the port relocation proposal, first put forward under the former Christie government, was "soundly feasible from a socio-economic perspective", Ecorys estimated that the $235 million cost of constructing the new port would be acceptable given a 15.8 per cent internal rate of return (IRR) on investment.

Even in a worst-case scenario. described by Ecorys as one where twenty-foot equipment units (TEUs) would grow by only 50 per cent to 144,000 units per annum, rather than the forecasted 263,000 units, the report said "a sound" 12.1 per cent return on investment would still be generated.

Ecorys added that the volume of shipping containers transported to New Providence will come close to quadrupling over the next 30 years, increasing from 66,000 twenty-foot equipment units (TEUs) to 243,000 TEUs by 2035.

Source: The Tribune