in the first week of February<\/span><\/a>, lawmakers expressed frustration that the official from W.M.A. that could have provided pertinent information relative to the apparent stall in payments for the trash haulers, Mr. Merritt, was not present.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s disturbing to me,” said a perturbed Senator Marvin Blyden. “Every time we have a hearing or trying to get a hearing, I have to postpone or cancel because the director is off island. That\u2019s a problem. That\u2019s a serious problem. I\u2019m concerned about the haulers and their payment.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ire of senators was across the board. Nonpayment for five months\u00a0\u201cwould literally cause some small contractors to go bankrupt,\u201d said Senator Kurt Vialet. \u201cBecause they got to meet payroll, they got to meet everything else and they have not been paid yet. I want to caution that we have a window of time to be fully reimbursed, and that window of time is March 20. So all the parties need to meet in one room and be able to decipher whatever issue is stopping payment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Public Finance Authority Executive Director, Valdamier Collens, said agencies such as W.M.A. most likely started gathering information about project worksheets in September or early October. However, at that time the government did not have consulting firm Whit O\u2019Brien on board, part of whose job is to maximize federal dollars available to the territory. Mr. Collens said a mechanism should be in place that would allow the V.I. government to quickly retain and pay waste haulers following the passage of storms.<\/p>\n
But Mr. Vialet protested, stating that haulers received a partial payment in December, an indication, he added, that the process of paying waste haulers had already been in place.<\/p>\n
W.M.A. gave a list of haulers whose services the authority had retained. They included 6 in St. Thomas, 8 in St. Croix and 11 in St. John. When asked to provide a total sum of what has been paid to these contractors, W.M.A.\u2019s director of procurement, Sandra David, could not say. Her response invited Senator Positive Nelson\u2019s displeasure, who stated that such information were to be par-for-the-course during hearings.<\/p>\n
The lawmakers appeared genuinely frustrated with the situation, many of whom have been bombarded for help. But the most impassioned response came from Senator Brian Smith, who lamented the situation of the waste hauling companies, most of them small operations.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the big fancy names, all the big contractors, these guys getting paid on time, on time!\u201d said Mr. Smith, his voice peaking. \u201cBut our small guys \u2014 our small guys! \u2014 the guys them I represent, stopping me on the road all the time, running in front of my truck to cut me off, their eyes all bloodshot, and they\u2019re saying they ain\u2019t get paid in months! They haven\u2019t been paid in months! How is that fair? Anybody, is that fair?\u201d<\/p>\n
The room fell silent.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a big travesty, it\u2019s an injustice when the small guy isn\u2019t paid for months,\u201d Mr. Smith added. \u201cWhat is his wife to do? What is his banker to do?\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms. David said invoices were submitted two weeks ago for waste hauling services from September 2017 to January 2018, to Whit O\u2019Brien to prepare project worksheets and submit them to FEMA for funding. A timeline on when the consulting firm would complete the worksheet was not provided, however.<\/p>\n
It was not too long after the February 6 hearing that Mr. Ebessen’s tenure at W.M.A. came to an end, seemingly beginning an exodus of the authority’s top brass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Waste Management Authority (W.M.A.) has lost three of its top brass in the past two weeks, according to information provided by the authority, and details of the exodus received by The Consortium. In a release issued late Thursday, W.M.A. announced the resignation of Roger Merritt, giving no explanation as to why he left, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":61038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[854,191,147],"tags":[121,1669],"yoast_head":"\n
Roger Merritt No Longer Executive Director Of Waste Management - V.I. Consortium<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Find Virgin Islands new, opinion, politics, lifestyle, business and more\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/wp.viconsortium.com\/?p=61037\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ernice Gilbert\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/wp.viconsortium.com\/?p=61037\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/wp.viconsortium.com\/?p=61037\",\"name\":\"Roger Merritt No Longer Executive Director Of Waste Management - V.I. 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I've been the Editor-In-Chief at my videogames website, Gamesthirst, for over 5 years, writing over 7,000 articles and more than 2 million words. I'm also very passionate about where I live, the United States Virgin Islands, and I'm intent on making it a better place by being resourceful and keeping our leaders honest. VI Consortium was birthed out of said desire, hopefully my efforts bear fruit. Reach me at ernice@viconsortium.com.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/ernicegilbert.com\/\"],\"url\":\"http:\/\/wp.viconsortium.com\/?author=1\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Roger Merritt No Longer Executive Director Of Waste Management - V.I. 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