Six PPP contracts came under heavy fire from the Minnis administration

The government has unveiled its framework for ‘public-private partnerships,’ which contains a number of safeguards for the public interest. “This came after six PPP contracts entered into by the former government came under heavy fire from the Minnis administration, which inherited them upon being elected to office on May 10.” Deputy Prime Minister K.P. Turnquest said “we have created a streamlined process that is fair and transparent with essentially only three stages: Project Identification and Screening; Business Case Analysis; PPP Procurement. The oversight and management structure has four reasonable tiers: Sector level/project specific management teams; overall PPP operational unit at the Ministry of Finance; oversight bodies responsible for all approvals in the PPP steering committee and Cabinet. This creates the needed checks and balances for responsibly managing public money, and protects the return on investment for the Bahamian people.” But these safeguards did not satisfy elements of the corporate community, who are complaining that it is “overly bureaucratic” and arguing that “opening up projects to bids from international companies and investors was ‘detrimental’ to the needs of small and medium-sized (SMEs) Bahamian enterprises.”