Vexed Bermoothes

Some encouraging news today.  A cross-party parliamentary committee reviewing how educational reform is being implemented in the wake of the Hopkins Report wants to hold its meetings in public, according to its chairman, PLP MP Neletha Butterfield. She said that its members were determined to be “accountable and transparent”.
In June the British House of […]

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So, someone finally pulled the tax filings for the Urban Health Institute, the charity at the centre of Dr. E Brown’s Playboy scandal.
It turns out that, of the $200,000 spent by the charity in 2006, only $15,000 went to charitable causes.
By comparison, $80,000 went to paying rent for use of office space in Dr. K […]

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I hear from friends in the public sector that the Cabinet Office welcomes the opportunity to get involved at the detail level in Government’s procurement and contracting.  If true, this is just begging to create political conflict of interest, waste, and over-expenditure.
Some may say this Cabinet’s role.  No, it isn’t.  Their role is to set […]

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The BPSU has won a stay against the Government’s outsourcing of the New York tourism jobs because Government failed to live up to its obligations under the Collective Bargaining Agreement to consult with the union before undertaking any outsourcing or privatisation.
This is the classic problem with the Bermuda Government these days.  It follows a pattern:

A […]

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The UBP has chimed in following the Auditor’s Report.  No matter what type of “Plantation discount” you might try to apply to them, their points are valid and must be listened to.  The Bermuda Government is falling down on basic managerial controls.  Government’s Code of Conduct states:
“The individual responsibility of a Minister for the work […]

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Bermuda’s Auditor General is speaking out again about the political attempts to intimidate and interfere with his work.
He points out that the Auditor role is protected by the Constitution and the Audit Act 1990 which states that “the auditor is not subject to the direction or control of any other person or authority in the […]

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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 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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Explaining the huge sums being spent on Beyoncé and others for the Bermuda Music Festival, thus spinneth the Disco Doc:
This festival like most music festivals in the world are not done to make a profit but they have an effect far beyond the show itself…
He added that anyone focused only on how the […]

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The Department of Tourism has announced that the tourism statistics will now only be released quarterly as part of the Minister’s luncheon.  For the past eight months (wrapped around an election and amidst claims that the tourism numbers were being artificially boosted with business arrivals), they had been handed out monthly.  The schedule and content […]

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