business@tribunemedia.net
FRIDAY, JUNE 9, 2017
$4.10 ‘BATED BREATH WAIT’ FOR CONSTRUCTION REGULATION * Act needs Board to take effect * Contractors chief: ‘We’re in limbo’ * Eyes $1bn boost from regulation THE Bahamian construction industry is “waiting with bated breath” to see when legislation to regulate it will be given effect, one contractor yesterday suggesting implementation could provide a $1 billion economic boost. Leonard Sands, the Bahamian Contractors Association’s (BCA) president, told Tribune Business that appointment of the Board that will oversee the Construction Contractors Act is the last remaining obstacle to its implementation. He added that the construction industry was “kind of in limbo” until the Minnis administration acted, with the situation putting Bahamian contractors “in a difficult position” due to the uncertainty surrounding whether the Act’s new regulatory regime was in effect. Explaining that the legislation had been passed by the previous Parliament, Mr Sands said the sector was “only waiting on” the Minister of Works, Desmond Bannister, to appoint the members of the Construction Contractors Board that is key to the industry’s selfregulation. “It only needs Government to appoint the Board, and we’re certainly hopeful that will happen by July 1,” Mr Sands told Tribune Business. “If that SEE PAGE 4B
THE Bahamas’ fiscal “credibility” depends on it providing a convincing explanation for why the 2016-2017 fiscal estimates changed so drastically in just two months, the Chamber of Commerce’s chairman said yesterday. Gowon Bowe told Tribune Business that while the original $100 million deficit projection had been long blown by Hurricane Matthew, international credit rating agencies and investors would want to understand why the estimate had
By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE Government can generate a desperately needed $70 million revenue windfall by “pulling the trigger” on its sale-ready majority interest in the Aliv mobile operator, Tribune Business was told yesterday. Gowon Bowe, one of the Government’s advisers, said the Minnis administration just needed to give the word to proceed with welllaid plans to sell-off the 51.75 per cent equity stake held by HoldingCo. He explained that the former Christie administration had decided to delay the private placement of HoldingCo’s shares to ensure its credibility was not
THE Bahamian Contractors Association’s (BCA) president yesterday said the Government does “not have to reinvent the wheel” on public procurement, but simply make the existing system work properly. Leonard Sands told Tribune Business that while the reforms, unveiled as part of the 2017-2018 Budget, were laudable, the current Public Tenders Board process “can do the job” when it comes to accountability and transparency provided it is “adhered to”.
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* Aliv exit just awaits ‘go ahead’ * Advisers confident HoldingCo ‘all picked up’ * Quick boost for 2017-2017 performance undermined by political campaigning in the run-up to the general election. HoldingCo’s Board, and committee charged with arranging the private placement, “stand ready and waiting” to act on the Government’s instructions to initiate the offering, Mr Bowe said, which would generate a much-needed cash injection for the Public Treasury given the Government’s dire fiscal position. He added that the success of Aliv’s own bond offering, which was 100 per cent oversubscribed at $60 million, had “piqued” institutional investor interest
in HoldingCo, especially given that this would lead to an equity interest in the Bahamas’ second mobile operator. As a result, Mr Bowe expressed optimism that the Government’s full $70 million interest in HoldingCo would be acquired by private investors. Explaining why the Government’s exit from HoldingCo had suffered further delay, Mr Bowe told Tribune Business: “What had transpired is exactly that: The election. “All the documents and trigger being pulled for the placement had been lined
GOWON BOWE up, and then we went into the election cycle. The timelines and effort required were not a high priority for the previous administration.” He explained that the
Christie administration “decided to defer to the end of the electoral process” the Government’s exit from HoldingCo, so that campaign rhetoric did not overshadow or undermine the offering’s prospects for success. Meetings to determine the way forward on HoldingCo are planned with Prime Minister, Dr Hubert Minnis, and K P Turnquest, minister of finance, once the Government’s 20172018 Budget is passed by the House of Assembly. Mr Bowe said that while it was unclear where responsibility for communications, and cellular liberalisation, lay in the new Cabinet, HoldingCo’s Board of DiSEE PAGE 4B
LANDFILL BID CANCEL ‘A GRAVE MISTAKE’
By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
Members of the all-Bahamian group selected as the ‘preferred bidder’ for the New Providence landfill management contract yesterday warned the Government it was making “a grave mistake” by cancelling the process. Henry Dean, United Sanitation’s principal, told Tribune Business is was “kind of disrespectful” for the Minnis administration to publicly confirm it was annulling the Request for Proposal (RFP) launched by its predecessor without informing the Waste Resources Development Group (WRDG) or its partners. He was reacting after Romauld Ferreira, minister of the environment and housing, told the House of Assembly yesterday that the new
* ‘Reconcile’ $150m mid-year, full-year deficit difference * Budget ‘wrong speech at wrong time and place’ now had increased to $500 million when March’s midyear Budget pegged it at $350 million. Underscoring that greater economic growth was the solution to the Bahamas’ fiscal and other problems, Mr Bowe said it was “incumbent” on the Minnis administration to demonstrate it has a sound recovSEE PAGE 3B
DON’T ‘REINVENT WHEEL’ ON PUBLIC PROCUREMENT By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
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$70m Gov’t windfall if it ‘pulls the trigger’
BAHAMAS’ ‘CREDIBILITY’ HANGS ON PROJECTION REVISION EXPLANATION By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
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* Contractors chief: Make existing system work * Would achieve same as Gov’ts reforms * Says too many ‘back door dealings’ He called on the Government to adopt “municipal-type” processes when it came to bidding and awarding public contracts, arguing that advertising all tenders worth more than $50,000 would both create open competition and prevent “back door deals”. K P Turnquest, in his SEE PAGE 5B
* Preferred Bahamian bidder hits at Gov’t * Says proposal ‘holistic, comprehensive’ * Process should be ‘above politics’
government was preparing its own public tender process for the landfill management contract (see article on Page 3B). The Minister, in his Budget debate contribution, slammed the eight-day RFP launched in late April by the Christie administration as “deeply flawed”, arguing that the process had been “rushed” due to the impending May 10 general election and public pressure following recent landfill fires. Mr Dean, revealing that WRDG and its members spent $80,000SEE PAGE 4B
CLOUDS of smoke rising from the landfill last year.