Minister of Environment Romauld Ferreira has  refuted claims that the procedure into acquiring new management for the New Providence landfill was not as transparent as it ought to be.

Mr. Ferreria told reporters that some items within the contractual agreement between the government and the landfill’s new management are commercially sensitive,  but that in due time, the public will be made aware.

“Firstly, we had the RFP and then the technical team had to evaluate each proposal. Once those propo0sals were evaluated, they were short listed.” 

“I  gave several interviews indicating who the short listed persons were;  eventually it was narrowed down to one preferred bidder and we made the announcement as soon as that became available.

“Now  the selected bidder and the Office of the Attorney General and the Minister of Environment and Housing are in negotiations as to how the contractual arrangement should look that will govern the  relationship between the parties. 

“That’s what’s going on now and as soon as that’s complete, we will have a signing ceremony and expose that,” he said.  

The minister gave this  update as to where things are now with completing that document.  

He said, “as you are aware , the government put out a RFP and a number of persons participated, we had a selected bidder which was announced.” 

“Now the lawyers are in negotiations to come up with a contractual document,  that will meet the expectations really of both parties. 

“Since this is sort of  like lawyers like to say ‘breaking new ground’,  because never in the history of this country has something like this been attempted, certainly not at this scale,” the minister said.  

Mr. Ferreria said at this point, the agreement is largely complete.

Back in August the government awarded Providence Advisors the letter of award for the New Providence Landill.

At that time Minister Ferreria said that negotiations would only take a month.