Shadow Works and Engineering Minister Pat Gordon Pamplin urged Government not to form a public-private partnership (PPP) to rebuild the Causeway.

Last week the Works and Engineering Minister Derrick Burgess said Government is awaiting a final report on the bridge and is considering a PPP to finance the New Crossing Initiative.

A PPP would ensure financing by a private entity to fund the construction and/or operation of a public asset. The private company would be refunded either through direct tolling of the public or through a structured Government payment commitment. Yesterday, Works and Engineering permanent secretary Robert Horton said this type of financing is one option the Government is considering and direct tolling would not be an option.

However Mrs. Gordon-Pamplin warned that PPPs regularly run over budget. She said she believed an economical approach would be to issue a bond.

"While an undertaking of the magnitude of a new crossing will be tremendously expensive, the PPP route will invariably prove to be far more expensive than a traditional contract," she said.

"A private investor's return on investment requirement is usually far higher than the government would have to pay if funding is raised via the traditional route.

"Government ought to have set aside funds for the purpose of this project on an incremental basis, which when added to the $11 million received from the US government, would have gone a long way to fund this project, for which they have a preliminary TAF [total allocated fund] of $65 million.

"Since they have failed to set aside funding for this major expenditure, an alternative to providing cash would be the floating of a bond for the purpose of the building of the bridge.

"Such a bond could be managed by the Finance Ministry, the terms of repayment would be crystallised, and the cost of borrowing predetermined."

In 2008 Cabinet ratified the form and location of the New Crossing after public consultation.

An environmental impact assessment is still under review.

Last year Mr. Horton said construction could take up to three years and that it carried a preliminary cost estimate of $90 million. Yesterday he added that Government has not issued a request for proposal (RFP) and would continue to debate various different PPP models including: design, build, finance (DBF) and design, build, finance, maintain (DBFM).

He added: "It is to be noted that the form of procurement for the New Crossing Project has not yet been decided and that no [RFP] has been marketed.

"All options remain open to the Government at this time and the position of the financial markets at the time of the decision to proceed with procurement will play an important role in the decision.

"If a PPP option were to be pursued in the case of the New Crossing Project, the Government would not consider a model involving foreign ownership of Bermuda infrastructure.

"The two most likely options are the [DBF] or [DBFM] models for which the payments would be made from Government to the private partner rather than through direct tolling.

"If a traditional procurement method is adopted, then that would likely be a design-and-build model."

Mrs. Gordon-Pamplin, however, reiterated the UBP's desire to place strict control measures on such projects and to establish a contractor general to oversee them.

She added: "You will recall that we have proposed the establishment of a contractor general whose oversight of government tendering and construction projects would, by its very nature, materialise savings for the taxpayer, as their project oversight will be far more vigilant than has been done historically."