Vexed Bermoothes

Back in November, Bermuda was fixated on our little race war, I mean election, so it’s understandable that the release of Barack Obama’s Technology platform did not get much attention.

Now that Obama is officially a Contender, it’s worth a read. You see, Obama is a big proponent of Open Government – as in transparent and accountable government. So, his vision is to use technology to enable citizen participation in forming public policy, and to open up the closed practices of government.

Most politicians see e-government as a way of doing transactions. Obama has positioned it as a way of improving democracy. It is a fundamental mistake for a country to ever allow its politicians and bureaucrats to have an exclusive reign on public policy making – and technology makes it possible to allow the people to participate in government at a meaningful level.

It’s hard for Bermuda to play in this league, although we like to pretend. The truth is that we are years behind in establishing freedom of information laws, as well as whistleblower laws, and anti-corruption laws.

The fact that our PATI effort has dragged on for so long shows that we are not serious about it.

Our government is plagued by inside influencers – like the “Saturday Group” – that impact policy, while major public outcries are ignored.

Our contracting standards are very poor.

It is truly sad that we have invested millions in a Government TV station that does not broadcast all sessions of the House and Senate in their entirety.

Our legislature doesn’t even have a website to lay out agendas, provide minutes and answers to parliamentary questions, and seek public input on laws.

And our e-government primarily exists as a department of the civil service.

We have no vision for open government. Obama is talking about doing wheelies when Bermuda still has training wheels on. Formation of the Ombudsman was a good start; but it was only a start.