Bob Richards makes another valid point in his riposte to Brown’s Belt-Busting Budget: the Government spin machine insists that it is committed to accountability; but it does not put its money where its mouth is.
In the past year, a range of important international authorities have had less-than-lustrous things to say about Bermuda’s governance and fiscal responsibility. They include:
- the National Audit Office of the UK
- the International Monetary Fund
- the Privy Council, and
- the Standard & Poors rating agency .
One area that attracts particular comment is Government’s failure to provide accountability with audits and/or interference with the independent Auditor.
Mr. Speaker, as I noted earlier, we live in a world of consequences, and there are consequences, both local and international, for shackling the Auditor General.
And how does the Bermuda Government respond? Here’s how: they held back the Auditor’s already meagre budget to a mere 1% increase - far less than the rate of inflation. Indeed they cut the budgets for salaries by 1% and for hiring outside audit specialists by 9%.
Compare this to the 33% increase given to the Cabinet Office, whose budget is already several times larger than the Auditor’s.
This type of political manipulation and opacity makes one ask “who’s got something to hide?”