I am sadly amused by the public opinion polls in the Royal Gazette last week: the Premier’s rating is in the basement, while the Minister of Finance receives a solid positive rating from the public. Sure, Paula Cox is dignified and well-liked … but let’s not confuse that with job performance. I suspect that her [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Accountability'
Leadership and Budgets
January 22nd, 2010 · No Comments · Accountability, Bermuda Politics
Tags:Budget
Goes Both Ways
January 6th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Accountability, Bermuda Politics
Well that didn’t take long. Just days into 2010 and we already have a road fatality and an execution style murder. Not much word from Dr. Brown on Bermuda’s sudden violence, furthering his reputation of only stepping in front of the cameras when there’s good news to spin. However, Col Burch is finally saying the [...]
Tags:police
Squelching Accountability
December 14th, 2009 · No Comments · Accountability, Bermuda Politics, Transparency
The PLP pays a lot of lip service to transparency and accountability but, based on their actions, one has to question their actual commitment. The PLP leadership refuses to allow the Public Accounts Committtee (PAC) of the House of Assembly to meet in public – an abberation among modern democracies. And, it appears that the [...]
PATI Retroactivity
December 4th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Accountability, Transparency
The Premier has taken an about-face on the issue of PATI retroactivity, commenting: “I wish to advise this honourable House that when I invite Cabinet’s further consideration of the bill it will contain a recommendation that it consider the issue of retroactivity. Personally, I wish it to be clearly understood that I am in favour [...]
Post Office
December 2nd, 2009 · 2 Comments · Accountability
The Bermuda Post Office has been going through an exercise to get householders to properly install mailboxes and use correct addresses. This, in itself, is entirely logical and needed to be done. However, the project has ended up being controversial as the Post Office has “returned to sender” large volumes of mail with minor inaccuracies [...]
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Deliberate Distortion of Reality
December 1st, 2009 · Comments Off · Accountability, Transparency
Senator Walton Brown is all over the news and talk radio decrying the public complaints about weaknesses in the draft PATI law as a “deliberate distortion of reality”. He went on to describe how the section to allow the Minister to amend the PATI law by regulation was only intended to simplify updates to the [...]
Santa Bump and Grind
November 30th, 2009 · No Comments · Accountability
Santa Claus visited Hamilton this weekend, with big crowds of families and Christmas cheer. I think his eyes popped out at the sheer numbers of glittering majorettes who were clamouring to escort him around the city streets. I think he was also surprised by the dance moves as well, which were (cough), shall we say [...]
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Deadline for PATI Input
November 30th, 2009 · No Comments · Accountability, Transparency
This afternoon is the deadline for public input to the PATI “public access to information” bill. I encourage you to make a submission, no matter how brief. The PATI bill may be found here: Bermuda PATI Draft law [pdf] Bermuda PATI Consultation Handbook [pdf] Submissions should be directed to The Cabinet Secretary at pati@gov.bm. The [...]
Bribery
October 28th, 2009 · No Comments · Accountability, Bermuda Politics
As a small jurisdiction, many of Bermuda’s laws have not been tempered by the fast flow of legal challenges seen in larger countries. This leads, from time to time, to unhappy circumstances where the law has not kept up … and controversial deeds can only be officially characterised as being “unethical but not illegal”. A [...]
International Input on PATI
October 27th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Accountability, Bermuda Politics, Transparency
Article 19 has published a commentary on the proposed Bermuda freedom of information bill (aka public access to information or PATI). Article 19 is a highly-respected international human rights organisation with a specific focus on the defence and promotion of freedom of expression and freedom of information worldwide. While praising Bermuda for tackling PATI, they [...]