The current board of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) is expected to remain in place for another two months, which should enable it to complete formalisation of $40 million worth of landfill contracts which breached the Authority’s protocol last year.

The Observer learnt that while current chairman Prakash Vaswani and the rest of the board had tendered their resignations last week, in keeping with the normal practice at the change of a political administration, Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller has requested that they, like other public boards, remain in place, at least for another two months.

This was confirmed at last week’s post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House, at which the new minister of information, Colin Campbell, informed the media that the issue of the appointment of pastors to public boards would not come up for another two months as the boards would remain in place until then.

Vaswani told the Observer yesterday that he had tendered his resignation by letter to the new minister, Dean Peart, last week but had been requested to stay on.

He said that he expects that the review of the controversial landfill issue could be completed in another 10 days, as the temporary contracts expire and are replaced by more permanent contracts approved by the board.

It was revealed last week that the board had given the NSWMA management 60 days, from March 28, to correct approximately nine breaches of protocol involving the spending of $40 million on contracts for emergency work at the Riverton landfill, which were not approved by the board.