Alston Stewart

THE board of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA), including executive chairman Alston Stewart, resigned en bloc yesterday following an emergency meeting with Local Government Minister Portia Simpson Miller.

Bevon Morrison

In a statement following the meeting, the Ministry of Local Government said that while there was no evidence of corruption, the entire board agreed to the minister's decision to restructure the board and tendered their resignation to facilitate the process.

Karl Binger

An interim management team, headed by the permanent secretary in the ministry, Loraine Robinson, has assumed responsibility for the authority until a new board is named, the statement said. Robinson had also served on the board of the agency.

Horace Williams

Electrical engineer Steve Ashley resigned from the board earlier this week, two months after his appointment. Ashley, who partners KSA Engineering, had declined to state the reasons for his resignation.

Apart from Stewart, the members of the board included:

. Karl Binger;
. Angela Brown-Burke;
. Robert Bryan;
. Neil Lawrence;
. Bevon Morrison;
. Errol Needham; and
. Horace Williams.

The agency has been embroiled in public controversy over allegations of cronyism and corruption at the authority, largely in relation to the management of contracts to transport and dispose of solid waste. However, the NSWMA has consistently rejected the charges, stating that a loose contracts management system, which it had inherited and was in the process of reforming, had led to the charges which are currently being investigated by the contractor-general.

The solid waste agency, a public company, admitted to overspending its budget last year by $193.4 million of which the Hurricane Ivan clean-up deficit accounted for $82.4 million, capital rehabilitation $53 million, and trade and other expenses $58 million.

Allegations made against the agency in recent months include unavailability of audited financial statements for the auditor-general to review and the award of contracts without any discernible process of tender or transparency.

Opposition spokesman on local government Pearnel Charles had called for a forensic audit of the authority by special investigators assigned to the auditor-general to look primarily into issues of overall mismanagement which had resulted in massive overspending. He also called for the removal of the entire board.

Minister Simpson Miller had responded that she had asked both the contractor-general and the auditor-general to investigate the charges after she had received a report from the agency's board on the issue.

However, the ministry is still awaiting the reports from the contractor-general and the auditor-general.

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