Vexed Bermoothes

The Minister of Finance has released a response to the Auditor’s Report.

As usual it is on the PLP website but cannot be found on the Government website.
The Auditor’s Report does not seem to be publicly available either.

It is beyond me how Government can have so many communications people yet be so bad at communicating its [...]

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I’m amused that Bermuda’s proto-blogger Phil Wells has completed his 12 step programme of internet detox and has now started writing Letters to the Editor:

Dear Sir,
I was intrigued to read in today’s newspaper (July 10) that the PLP’s free child care will only be available to Bermudian parents with a gross income [...]

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Larry Burchall made a comment in one of his editorials several years ago that Bermudians personalise every issue.  In other words, no idea is measured on its merits but rather in the context of who said it.  Larry fondly calls this one of Bermuda’s unique traits, a result of our small community.  It is however [...]

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 Last year’s “Son of the Soil” crises - which involved surprise office moves and the abusive arrest of the Auditor General as well as several very expensive trips to the Privy Council in an attempt to muzzle the press - were an attempt to shift the attention from what the BHC investigation contained onto other [...]

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The Cayman Islands recently passed a public access to information law, which will come into full effect in January.  The law was based on a wide ranging public consultation (including experts from the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative or CHRI).  With a rapid deployment schedule, the Cayman government has been active in training the civil [...]

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The news today reveals that the Bermuda Department of Tourism is making staff of its New York City office redundant, having outsourced operations to an unnamed company.
We hired a US company to sell to US people … Their agreement is that the more they sell, the more they get paid. The less they sell, the [...]

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Lots of Ministerial statements on the PLP website this week that do not appear on the Government media outlets.  As usual.
Here’s a nice reminder from Dr. Brown:
As you know, Mr. Speaker, we believe it is in the best interest of the country that a Press Council be established to create a code of ethics and [...]

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Alex Scott revealed to the Royal Gazette today that the PLP caucus is due to discuss Public Access to Information in the near future.

“Without going into details, it has been officially put before us,” he said. “It probably doesn’t do harm for me [...]

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Dr. Brown has just announced:
“The Bermuda Government has embarked on a journey to become a financial contributor to the University of the West Indies which would give all Bermudians the opportunity to attend the school at deeply discounted tuition rates.”
I am deeply skeptical about this linkage.  It’s more ideology than about educational opportunity, [...]

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The Select Committee on Foreign Affairs of the UK House of Commons has published their Seventh Report on the Overseas Territories.

It includes a wide variety of “housekeeping” suggestions regarding ways to improve governance in the Overseas Territories as well as to improve the UK’s relationship with them.
It includes a whirlwind tour of Bermuda’s dysfunctions including [...]

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