Havers scrap to be shipped away soon

Following an outcry from residents, the derelict vehicles piled next to the ocean in Havers will be cubed and exported out of the territory by the end of next month, according to government Waste Management Officer Ahdan Doward.

“Phase one of the project is to process the vehicles into cubes,” Mr. Doward wrote last Thursday in an email to the Beacon. “Phase two will include the loading of the cubed cars onto a barge. The final phase of the project is to export the processed materials to international locations to be recycled.”

After that, he stated, the site will be cleared of by-products and closed.

“The works on the site began on March 25, 2025, and are slated to be complete in two months,” Mr. Doward wrote, adding, “As of March 28, 2025, 110 vehicles have been processed. There are approximately under 390 that are pending.”

The update came after the Ministry of Health and Social Development announced on March 27 that it had signed a $110,000 contract with Shaquille Stoutt of ENS Excavation Trucking to process and remove the roughly 500 vehicles from the property.

At the time, the ministry didn’t say where the vehicles would be moved or provide a timeline.

Background

The derelict vehicles have drawn angry complaints from Havers residents, who said during a Jan. 23 meeting that they were moved to the site starting in late December.

Health and Social Development Minister Vincent Wheatley explained at the time that the Department of Waste Management, which his ministry oversees, had previously stored the crushed cars in Pockwood Pond on two acres leased from VI businessman Ashley Ritter.

Two tenders

But after Mr. Ritter informed government of his plan to terminate the contract at the end of last year, the DWM issued two tenders: one to remove the scrap and another to store it elsewhere, Mr. Wheatley said.

He also claimed that he had learned very recently that the cars would be moved to the Havers land, which in 2021 was purchased by JabberXS Limited, a company owned by Tortola Auto Group Managing Director Shan Mohamed.

Counting the cost

Department of Waste Management Director Marcus Solomon told the Beacon in January that Mr. Mohamed responded to a November tender with a bid to store the vehicles on two acres for $8,217 monthly for a one-year period.

This price was comparable to Mr. Ritter’s previous contract to store them on two acres for $4,000 per acre per month, according to Mr. Solomon.

The director added that the cost to transport the vehicles from Mr. Ritter’s property, a separate project tendered last July, came to $53,000.

Havers removal

During the Jan. 23 meeting, officials promised to work toward removing the vehicles from Havers as soon as possible.

Last Thursday, Mr. Doward told the Beacon that the community meeting prompted DWM to launch the tender process that resulted in hiring ENS to process the vehicles.