Leroy La Paix
~ We’re asking for fairness ~
PHILIPSBURG--Local contractor Leroy La Paix of Waste Solution told Parliament on Tuesday that the current procurement process for National Recovery Program Bureau (NRPB) projects is shutting out St. Maarten’s own professionals from participating meaningfully in the country’s recovery.
Speaking before Parliament’s Petitions Committee, La Paix said that the bundling of large contracts has created financial and technical barriers that local contractors cannot meet.
La Paix was joined in Parliament by Hans Hootsmans of Liccom, Yuri Daal of Independent Consulting Engineers (ICE), and Windward Roads Director Michiel Witteveen. The group represented a wide coalition of local heavy equipment operators, contractors, consultants and architects. At the centre of the discussion was a petition submitted by the group urging Parliament to review how recovery projects are being tendered and to push for more inclusive procurement practices.
La Paix said that while the World Bank and NRPB have played an important role in advancing recovery, the way projects are being structured has made it increasingly difficult for local businesses to compete.
“We come before you not to lay blame, but to seek understanding and propose a constructive path forward,” La Paix said. He said the group’s goal is to ensure local professionals are not sidelined in the rebuilding of their own country.
La Paix explained that after the initial tenders in 2019 and 2020, which had mixed results, the approach began to change. From 2020 onward, projects were increasingly grouped together into single packages that required large financial and technical capacity. He said this bundling made it nearly impossible for small and medium-sized local firms to qualify.
He said that while joint ventures are often suggested as a way to meet these requirements, they are not realistic for small companies. “It is unrealistic to expect two small businesses to open their books to one another and accept full joint responsibility for a multi-million-dollar project,” La Paix said.
He added that putting together a bid under World Bank guidelines requires a significant investment of time and money, which smaller contractors can rarely afford to risk.
According to La Paix, the situation became even worse in 2023 when financial thresholds increased further. He said that even St. Maarten’s largest contractors were unable to qualify for some tenders, and that the contracts appeared to be designed to attract large foreign firms.
He pointed to a series of recent contracts awarded to a firm from mainland China, including the renovation of 13 sports facilities, 12 school gyms, the expansion of the Fire and Ambulance Building, and the reconstruction of Sister Marie Laurence School. He questioned why these works could not have been divided into smaller contracts for which local contractors could bid.
“Twelve school gyms couldn’t be divided? Thirteen sports facilities couldn’t be divided? How does it even make sense to bundle them together?” he asked.
La Paix noted that local agencies like GEBE and the Ministry of Public Housing, Spatial Planning, Environment and Infrastructure VROMI regularly break up projects to make them accessible to smaller companies, and he questioned why the same approach was not being used for Trust Fund projects.
He also warned about the long-term impact of allowing foreign firms that operate with cheaper labour and imported materials to dominate the local construction market. He said this practice distorts the local job market and risks pushing local firms out of business.
“Flooding the market with artificially low prices from abroad risks undercutting and eventually destroying our local construction industry,” he said.
La Paix argued that this goes against the core principles of the Trust Fund’s Strategic Framework, which calls for increasing local capacity and leveraging local labour. He warned that the current approach could even contribute to brain drain, with young St. Maarteners choosing to stay abroad instead of returning home to work. “Can we seriously expect our young professionals to return home when they see foreign firms, rather than local talent, repairing school gyms, constructing new schools, and building our national library?” he asked.
He urged Parliament to advocate for a more inclusive approach to public procurement. La Paix said the government should review the current structure of tenders and assess their impact on local participation. He also called on NRPB to break up large projects into smaller contracts and to apply the Strategic Framework’s commitment to local labour more deliberately and transparently.
In his closing remarks, La Paix welcomed NRPB’s announcement that it would reissue the demolition portion of the Sister Marie Laurence School project as a separate tender. He called the move “a very positive step” and said it supported the argument that overly-bundled tenders can cause unnecessary delays and limit local participation. He said this decision shows that smaller, more focused contracts are not only possible but also more practical.
“We are not asking for favouritism, we are asking for fairness, for opportunity,” La Paix said. “If local firms are not given a fair shot at participating in these milestone projects, St. Maarten will continue to undermine its own future.”
