A year later, the law has not been put on the books and no commencement date has been given.  There is no sign of “freedom of information act” preparation in any part of Government.

The PLP wants to be able to talk about PATI, but doesn’t want to comply with it.  While Bermuda has hummed, hawed and delayed, other countries have created their laws, implemented them, and even had time to improve them based on experience.

This leaves me wondering.  After 12 years in power are the PLP still this bad at leading Government?  Or do they have 12 years of constant circus they’d rather hide from PATI?

However, the nascent law remains on ice and no timetable has been provided for implementation.

And I wouldn’t get your hopes up either.  I am told that this year’s budget includes a pittance for PATI.

Looks like they reset the dial again.  Is PATI a real commitment to transparency and accountability … or just a cyncial PR play?  In the same time that Bermuda has been humming and hawing, the Cayman Islands developed a law, implemented it, and now have several years of experience under their belt.

Waiting for PATI:  8 years and counting.

If done properly, this will improve “value for money” and fairness in Government expenditures.  It will also reduce the likelihood of the ethical eruptions that have embarrassed the PLP – and cost us all dearly – in recent years.

I am less thrilled about the Premier’s intention to double up as Minister of Finance.  I understand that she is laying her reputation on the line to turn around the financial incontinence that marked the last PLP administration, and I applaud that difficult task.  I genuinely wish her good luck.

However, longer term, I do not believe this particular combination of roles is good for Bermuda.  Whenever money is involved, there should be a separation of roles between those laying strategy and those overseeing the expenditure.  Recent history, from Enron to the numerous investigations in Bermuda, has shown us that control fraud poses devastating risks.  That is, senior leaders carry a great fraud risk as they have the power to undermine controls (or bully underlings) to disguise wrongdoing.

I do not wish to impute Premier Cox’s honesty or motives in any way, and others will correctly point out that the posts have been combined previously in Bermuda history with some success.

But this combined role means that PATI and its spirit of transparency must be forcefully asserted over the Government business as quickly as possible.

• The rules, process, and results of Government contracting must be public in a timely manner.
• Government audits must be made public in a timely manner (without the usual delaying tactics of the House).  And we deserve to know, in a step -by-step manner, what Government is doing to address the points made by the Auditor General … rather than seeing the same unaddressed issues appear year after year (and scandal after scandal).
• Publish Government’s Financial Instructions.
• And, we must turn away from the “Cliff’s Notes” approach to the annual budget that has been used in recent years, providing much more detailed info on Government’s financial plans.

It is assumed that it will be broadly supported.   But the beauty is in the details.  The PATI law does not dictate an implementation schedule.  It should, particularly given the long amount of time it took us to get this far.  The law should be effective within a year … not the 3-5 timeframe we’ve sometimes heard bandied about.

One has to wonder if this is about reform at all.  I wonder if the costly advice was really about how to slide through the takeover, rather than how genuine reform might be achieved.  That theory is certainly supported by the draft law:  it’s clear to me there is little public support for taking over the corporations, and the law seems to seek to crush them financially as an alternative.  Very tricky … but we’ve come to expect that, haven’t we?

It is being shoved through late in the Parliamentary session where, through poor planning, there are so many backlogged bills that they will need to add extra meetings next week.

Finally, let’s question whose priorities are running this country.  The takeover was a late entrant in Dr. Brown’s destructathon.  It gets bullied through like the proverbial shit through a goose.

By contrast, PATI has been an official goal of the PLP for a decade – one that I strongly support and applaud.  The law is written, many consultations have occurred, we’re ready to rock.  But apparently, yet again, there’s no time for it in this Parliamentary session.  They want to claim it without actually having it.  No, there are other prioritie$.

The new forty thieves are at work.

The NYT has an interesting article on India’s popular freedom of information access law pointing out that it may not have made a big dent in corruption, but it has given a powerful tool to citizens to resolve their complaints.

There is, however, a little warning from one of the law’s great supporters:

“But our accountability mechanisms are weak, and transparency has no purpose without accountability.”

I’d like to point out that PATI itself is not the end game;  it is just one step towards increasing the accountability of the budget-busting Bermuda Government.

And it seems that we may be on the home stretch, as Dr. Brown tabled the draft bill in the House of Assembly last week.  It will be voted upon in the coming weeks.

Of course, in true Bermuda fashion, the transparency law is not widely available to the public.

It makes you wonder how competent Government is to make public information accessible, when they don’t even make the PATI law accessible!

So, courtesy of a reader:  Bermuda Public Access to Information Act 2010 (pdf)

PS:  would it kill them to let us know what changed since the consultation draft?

UBP MP John Barritt then posed a question about several outstanding Parliamentary Questions that Government has so far chosen to ignore, relating to the controversial expansion of the Stonington/Coco Reef lease as well as the equally controversial Corporations takeover review.

The PLP frontbench quickly objected that the questions were out of order and the Speaker upheld the objection.

The message seems to be that we may have public access to information when the PLP Government feels like granting it.

The sooner the better.

For those interested, here are two successful examples of searchable parliamentary sites from the open source software world.  They do much to provide insight for voters into the workings of government, and to increase the transparency and accountability of the legislature.

• Canada – http://openparliament.ca/
• UK – http://www.theyworkforyou.com/

More transparency in the House dealings should improve the quality of debate, reduce the hotheaded bullsheet, and perhaps even raise attendance.

I still believe that meetings of the House and Senate should be video broadcast on Government’s costly CITV channel.

Let’s hope it incorporates the substantial feedback that was provided by both Bermudians and international experts in public access laws.

Meanwhile, the Cayman Islands Information Commissioner has launched a new website on their PATI law at http://www.infocomm.ky/

Take a look at it as a good example that small island country can introduce and operate a vigorous transparency regime without humming and hawing about it for years.

Bermudians woke up today (with the gunshots still ringing in their ears) to a daily newspaper that was also shot full of holes.  It appears that the Royal Gazette was the recipient of a last minute injunction filed by Government in the Supreme Court, as the paper went to press, to prevent publication of a news story.

In the international circles to which Bermuda aspires, such overt interference with the media is a rare occurrence, and this act will certainly attract attention.

The story has now become a story.  Which is more damaging:  whatever would be revealed in the story or Government’s heavy handed approach?

Now everyone is talking about what might have been in the story:  what are they trying to hide?  With the rolling barrage of scandals that have surrounded the PLP Government, most never resolved, there are so many options.

“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 of retroactivity right back to the Sea Venture.”

If he supports retroactivity, then why did he – as the Minister responsible – propose a draft law that did not include it?

It’s positive that the PLP seems willing to correct this major shortcoming in the draft law.  Let’s hope that they also deal with the law’s loose handling of exemptions, it’s lack of whistleblower protection, and the negative resolution approach to removing public authorities from transparency under the law.

If the PLP is sincere in their Throne Speech commitment to “modernise the Legislature”, then the updating of the draft PATI law should be undertaken by a bipartisan committee of the House, rather than be decided solely within the confines of Cabinet.

Dr. Brown also announced that Government will kick off an internal review of Government’s record keeping practices – with a report due in mid-2010 – to help lay ground work for an eventual PATI implementation.