Government announced reforming the Corporations of Hamilton and St. George's will cost $800,000 yesterday.

Minister Walter Roban, who has been tasked with overseeing the reforms, announced that local firm Attride-Stirling & Woloniecki Barristers & Attorneys and the international firm of McKenna Long & Aldridge have been hired as consultants to prepare a detailed review of all aspects of the municipalities.

Cabinet will base its decisions on the report prepared by the law firms, which will be completed by June.

Mr. Roban said the report would not necessarily be made public but added that he expected the process would be "open and transparent".

The announcement came two years after Government pledged to overhaul the corporations in the 2008 Throne Speech, saying their framework was "outdated" and did "not reflect modern good governance".

A year later in June, 2009 Government announced it planned to reform the Corporations of Hamilton and St. George's by repealing the Municipalities Act 1923. A letter from Cabinet Secretary Marc Telemaque said Government was to invite private firms to bid for a contract to reform the corporations. An RFP (Request For Proposal) published in the Official Gazette stated: "Cabinet determined that the most practical, efficient and effective reform would be to repeal the Municipalities Act 1923 and transition the operations of the municipalities into the relevant Government departments."

Yesterday, Mr. Roban added: "In meetings with stakeholders I have advised that the Government will rely on the report from our consultants on how best to approach this reform effort in terms of the franchise, governance, efficiency, accountability and ensuring the tenets of democracy are available to all in the Municipalities and Bermuda."

And he said the law firms will be:

¦ Identifying the relevant legislation, ordinances, regulations and other governing rules that may need to be reformed.

¦ Developing a simultaneous process for drafting any new legislation and/or regulations required to seamlessly absorb the operations currently performed by the Municipalities

¦ To identify the function and operations that would transfer from the Municipalities to the Government of Bermuda

¦ To produce a plan with specific recommendations describing the process, sequence and timelines for the absorption of municipal functions within specific Ministries, Departments and administrative entities of the Government of Bermuda and, finally;

¦ To oversee and manage the actual implementation of said plan until the transition is complete.

However, yesterday Mr. Roban stressed that the Government has no "preconceived notions" and is waiting until the report is complete before making any decisions.

And he denied that the Government intends to close the two entities, saying that he had never used those words.

McKenna Long & Aldridge is an international law firm with 475 attorneys and public policy advisers. The company is recognised in the US as leaders in the complex field of government reform according to a Government press release.