A dedicated office has taken over oversight of the Government’s Economic Recovery Plan, the House of Assembly heard on Friday.

The Government had announced last November they had hired professional services firm KPMG to serve as project managers for the plan.

But Jayson Hayward, the Minister of Economy and Labour, said the role would be carried out by a newly created project management office.

“While the Government had initially intended to retain consulting resources who would be dedicated to the PMO effort, I am pleased to report the identification of talented and qualified public officers who have been reassigned to the PMO,” Mr Hayward said.

Roger Todd, the director of the Department of Public Transport, has been reassigned to the newly established Project Management Office as project leader.

Meanwhile, Richard Hazlewood, quality assurance officer, has been named the body’s monitoring officer.

Mr Hayward said the PMO had began operating on June 1 and immediately started work to assist initiatives such as the rehabilitation of Tyne’s Bay, the development of Uptown Northeast Hamilton, building Bermuda’s casino industry and the introduction of vertical farming.

He said detailed action plans for each of the initiatives were completed in April and stakeholders had continued the work required to move them forward.

“The goal of the PMO is first and foremost to ensure successful implementation of all the initiatives under the Economic Recovery Plan – working to monitor, track, report and lend assistance where required, while placing significant emphasis on the four lead policy initiatives,” he said.

“By securing internal resources to lead out in the ERP PMO in a close to cost-neutral scenario, the Government is now able to allocate its limited resources to retain subject matter experts to become directly engaged in progressing the individual initiatives on a project-by-project basis as required.”

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He said that the rehabilitation of the water and waste treatment facility at Tyne’s Bay was a focus of the economic recovery plan and a “full business case for it’s replacement” was expected to be completed in the coming months.

Mr Hayward said that work on plans for Northeast Hamilton and the Casino Industry Plan were still ongoing, and progress was being made on vertical farming.

“While the details of the financing for the large-scale farm are being finalised, planning towards leveraging this initiative to support the development of small and medium-sized vertical farms has been advanced,” he said.

“Internal consultation has commenced and will be followed by consultation with the local farmers to ensure they are supported and have the opportunity to fully participate in this sector.”

Mr Hayward said other initiatives intended to help bolster the island’s recovery had also progressed.

He told the House he hoped to update the public soon on the success of the economic investment certificate, and said that the Department of Immigration had been processing applications from long-term residents to become permanent residents.

He added that efforts to promote the island as a hub for sub-sea communications had begun and the online marketplace, byBermuda, was now live with work under way to improve its effectiveness.