Vexed Bermoothes

Bermuda’s rolling barrage of fuss means that important issues are just forgotten by the wayside. One of those issues is that fact that our Government, with its ballooning budgets has not produced accounts for some of its operations since 2002. That’s not The Gold Standard™ that’s appalling. It seems our Parliament barely ever meets these days, so it’s up to the UK to point it out:

The CPA (Committee of Public Accounts), which is made up of MPs from all sides of the British House of Commons, raised concerns about other areas of good governance during the hearing on December 10.

Labour MP Ian Davidson, chair of the Bermuda-UK Parliamentary Committee, weighed in on Bermuda’s public accounts, pointing out some public bodies had not produced accounts since 2002 and 2003, as he suggested the UK’s National Audit Office might need to get involved.

Sir Peter [Ricketts of the FCO] said Bermuda was bringing in private sector expertise to improve its record but Mr. Davidson said Bermuda’s record was not acceptable but Britain had, in effect, accepted it by not doing anything about it. But Sir Peter said it was primarily a problem for the Bermuda Government which had the resources to deal with it.

I think he should have said “had the resources to deal with it if it really wanted to or had local pressure to do so.”