Good morning to members of the media and the listening public.
I am pleased to be here with my colleague, the Minister of Labour, the Honourable Jason Hayward to provide a further update on the Short Term Stimulus Programme that was launched on December 17th, 2020 to a maximum value of BMD $13,385,000 where small to medium sized contractors were invited to participate.
The programme was launched to address an urgent need to provide stimulus to the local economy in order to retain and boost employment numbers in the wake of the economic downturn sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result the Ministry of Public Works compiled a list of “shovel ready” projects that were executable almost immediately. These projects are mostly infrastructure improvements and will not add further burden to government operational expenses. The project’s selection principles are to maximize the employment of the private sector while providing much-needed refreshing of neglected infrastructure.
To ensure allocation of the stimulus funding across the participating businesses, the Ministry maintains a register of approved contractors and awarded contracts to ensure that no one company monopolizes the project list. Once a company obtains a project, they will be rotated to the bottom of the list to allow other companies an opportunity for work. The guiding principle is to prioritize all companies that provide the most employment benefit per dollar spent while spreading the work among Bermudian owned and operated businesses.
Many of these small to medium sized businesses have never worked for government before and oftentimes the challenge is cash flow. In light of this we have arranged with the Accountant Generals Department to accelerate the payment schedule to every two weeks – noting that those who owe government money must engage in a payment plan in order to secure the work.
However, I can advise that 93 out of the 98 Companies that applied have been approved and are pre-qualified to work with the Government. 6 projects have started and 11 additional contracts have been awarded. Those 17 projects are worth $1,176,930.63.
There are also several other projects out for evaluation and seeking quotes.
The entire team at the Ministry have been working extremely hard to get this initiative up and running, ably led by consultant Project Manager, Mr. Robert Richardson who has been assigned to coordinate the work of all those involved.
We are very pleased with the response to the Stimulus Programme thus far from both contractors and likely employees – all of whom want to get to work and help the economy improve. The aim here is to get as many people working as quickly as possible.
At this time, I invite my colleague Minister Hayward to provide some more great news. Thank you.