He was the most beleaguered Cabinet Minister of the last Parliamentary session.

But Alex Scott, Minister of Works and Engineering, says his greatest successes during that session happened to be the most controversial projects under his purview.

And his Opposition counterpart CV (Jim) Woolridge could have done a better job in keeping him accountable, he told The Royal Gazette.

"I think if you have a good opposite number you have to cover your bases all that much better."

What might also surprise Mr. Scott's detractors is that he counts among his successes his chaperoning of the still controversial Berkeley construction project and a campaign to rid the Island's highways of encroaching foliage.

Both attracted scrutiny from the media and a fair amount of public outrage.

Mr. Scott told The Royal Gazette, however, that he had been vindicated by results.

During his years in the Opposition, Mr. Scott gained a reputation as a fierce defender of the rights of Bermudians in the workplace, or the expatriate community's worst nightmare - a radical firebrand who would send them all back home if he was ever appointed Minister of Immigration.

Some observers lauded Premier Jennifer Smith's first Cabinet choices partly because Mr. Scott was not given the Immigration portfolio. But the man who had once challenged the Premier for the party leadership has been handling the Works and Engineering portfolio with gusto.

And if anyone is wondering what happened to that radical image, Mr. Scott has a ready answer.

"As Minister I have to address the national concern so I don't have to be out there yelling and shouting," he told The Royal Gazette.

"Now I have to actually roll up my political sleeves and go about carrying out the work and initiatives and the policies that I campaigned for.

"I campaigned for expanding the pie for Bermudians and so you found the Berkeley project very happily going to a Bermudian firm".

While he says the style has changed but not the substance, he denied a suggestion that his immigration policy as Shadow Minister was a hard line one. "No. We were forcefully articulating the rights of Bermudians. ... The methodology we used to win the Government are not the strategies we use to run the Government," he said.

"The Alex Scott that you saw prior to the PLP coming in was following an initiative and a methodology aimed at winning a Government so that we could further the interests of the general public we serve.

"Now that we are the Government it is my view that I have a responsibility to all the Bermudians - those that voted for me and against me," he said.

That said, the Minister was unhesitant in saying the White Paper on long term residents was the most significant debate in the House.

As Shadow Minister for Immigration he had made enemies from within his political party for insisting on a policy which gave security to long term residents and so the final policy document, debated during a marathon final sitting of the House of Assembly, was familiar territory.

But Mr. Scott, who did not say a word during the debate, praised Immigration Minister Paula Cox for her work in piloting the paper through Parliament.

"She had the task of what has to be the most difficult and vexing legislative challenges because you are affecting the lives of both Bermudian residents, long term residents and, yes, those who are to be granted status," he said.

"I thought the debate was healthy and it hit all the high points and low points that one would expect," he said.

Among the low points of that debate, he said, was a claim by Opposition Leader Pamela Gordon that "they were on the point of implementing what we were doing.. and she sort of suggested they would do more".

But Ms Gordon was contradicted by her own party colleague - the ostracised Trevor Moniz who referred directly to the United Bermuda Party's own Green Paper on long term residents almost immediately after Ms Gordon's comments.

He said he must have dozed off when Dale Butler made his infamous comments on the hygiene of European women during that debate.

Press reports of the comments were begging for context, he said, but "I suppose it qualifies for a certain amount of xenophobia".

He counts the high points of the debate as the contributions of Premier Jennifer Smith and Minister Paula Cox.

"They didn't get lost in rhetoric - they actually gave solid points... I think that's very important because you have to put politics aside and realise that you are touching the lives of children, you are touching the lives of folks who have spent 30 years here and you are touching the lives of people who know no other place and so the judgements that you take are very real."

Overall the six month session was "extremely productive," Mr. Scott said. He pointed to the Hotel Concessions Act, CURE's first annual review of the workplace and a "myriad" of legislative initiatives from the Minister of Finance.

Among his failings during the period under review, he acknowledged, was that he had been too busy performing his ministerial duties to give his all to his Warwick East constituents.

"I haven't been in the Warwick East community as much as I would have liked," said the Minister. He said he had to face a choice between doing the best possible job as a Minister or doing two jobs badly.

"It had to be a judgmnt call ... But I think I had to learn how to be a responsive and responsible Minister."

His running mate Mr. Butler was an "excellent" worker in the constituency, he continued. "So as a team he covers the constituency and I cover the Parliamentary and Ministerial ground. But I do hope to be able to put more time in the constituency."

Asked to assess the performance of his shadow counterpart, CV (Jim) Woolridge, who resigned two months before the end of the session, Mr. Scott joked : "My shadow is gone... I've lost my shadow !"

He continued: "As we speak I don't seem to have been provided with a shadow. I don't know whether I should take it as a compliment or as the greatest insult..."

He said Mr. Woolridge had the knack for livening up Parliament with his contributions. But "I don't know that he maximised the experience that he had as a (former) Minister of that portfolio. He would probably say he was gracious and he supported me on many occasions - he did support me - and for that we were appreciative.

"But knowing how we managed our portfolio when we were in the Opposition I would have thought that either we were doing a very good job or that Mr. Woolridge certainly could have drawn the Parliament's attention to ways in which we could have better served the public."

The contract to build the Island's second senior school facility was the most controversial issue. The Opposition led the charge against what they said was an unfair process followed in awarding the lucrative $70 million contract.

But the process, which ended with the contract being awarded to Pro-Active at $5 million more than the lowest bid submitted by BermudaTech, was lauded as a hallmark of Government's commitment to economic empowerment of Bermudians.

"It's early days yet," said Mr. Scott. But reports from the Chief Architect that subcontractors were giving full value for money and the workers were putting in extra effort on the site was heartening, he added.

"The successful firm has followed through and hired predominantly Bermudians ... and these firms seem to be showing their appreciation and really turning in."

His one big regret of the period is that he did not engage in prior consultations with the Bermuda Industrial Union whose president Derrick Burgess came out against an incentive programme for hiring Bermudians on the Berkeley construction site.

"I had not taken a key stakeholder into consideration," said Mr. Scott.

Subsequent consultations won over the union to such an extent that it ended up providing the security bond for the project, he agreed.

"You've leaped over a lot of the facts and if you were writing a novel you would have a right to do what you just did," he said when it was suggested to him that the whole scenario might strike some as a bribe to get the BIU on board.

"You've ignored the facts totally... I had nothing to do with bringing those two (Proactive and the BIU) together."

Critics also pounced on Mr. Scott for embarking on a campaign to trim highway hedges, saying the hedge-cutters were heavy handed and unskilled. Mr. Scott is not hanging his head in shame. In fact, he told The Royal Gazette, the media should be eating humble pie.

"No hedges, no trees, no shrubberies were lost," he said. And the project was potentially saving the public thousands of dollars that would otherwise have to be spent on replacing broken windshields. The upshot of the campaign was that members of the public were now contacting his department with congratulations, he said.

"They not only felt that it facilitated their moving about the Island but they felt it beautified the Island." He added : "All the shrubberies are growing back - even the infamous tree at Serpentine Road. It is now flourishing with a halo of new branches."