OBA critical of Minister’s vague answers

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Parliamentary responses from former Transport Minister Derrick Burgess were so vague they left Government open to accusations of cronyism, according to Shadow Minister Patricia Gordon-Pamplin.

Mr Burgess revealed his former Ministry spent $470,000 on consultants in the last fiscal year, nearly half of which went on IT work, when he tabled answers to Mrs Gordon-Pamplin’s questions released last Friday.

The One Bermuda Alliance initially homed in on the fact GMD Consulting, whose majority shareholder is Junior Finance Minister David Burt, was paid almost $74,000 for tasks including running the driver and vehicle registration system and TCD website.

Bermuda Information Technology Systems, Rippe and Kingston, and Transcore Limited were also paid a combined $150,000 for IT support and maintenance.

Mrs Gordon-Pamplin asked why there was the need for four companies to carry out maintenance work, and suggested it was merely a move to get Senator Burt on the Progressive Labour Party’s “friends and family plan”.

She said further conversation with Sen Burt has now alleviated those fears and instead raised concerns of the inaccuracy of the initial responses.

“The expenditure on the eTCD.gov.bm website cost the tax payer over $221,000 in the period from April 1, 2011 through March 31, 2012,” said Mrs Gordon-Pamplin.

“This appeared on the face of it to be triplication of effort and money, and led to the belief that the Government must streamline this cash cow and consolidate support services.

“We have subsequently been advised by Sen Burt that the responses from the Department were inaccurate in the description as to what work was actually conducted, and that in fact there were different pieces to the system.

“He said, ‘What you are seeing is not support, there are enhancements that are needed. Changes to programming due to changes in law. New features and additional interfaces to other Government departments.’”

According to the OBA MP, Sen Burt said in fact there is more than one IT system, and each of the companies performed significant roles. He added that TCD got a good deal because it only pays for maintenance on its core systems, and not the additional annual support fee typically charged by IT vendors.

Mrs Gordon-Pamplin continued: “The reason that we ask questions is that we expect to receive truthful answers in order to ensure that we are vigilant on the expenditure of public funds.

“Given the concerns that we have expressed regarding value for money, and a tendency for the friends and family plan of which we have all heard, we would be remiss if we fail to probe the level of expenditure. We do not expect to have to investigate answers for them to make sense.”

According to Mr Burgess’ responses, GMD Consulting was paid $73,770 for “ongoing project management and IT support for driver and vehicle registration system, eTCD.gov.bm, appointment management system and electronic vehicle registration system”.

BITS, of which Mrs Gordon-Pamplin says Shadow Finance Minister Bob Richards has a minor interest, received $57,994 for “IT maintenance for driver and vehicle registration system”.

Cincinnati-based Rippe and Kingston was paid $13,750 for “IT support for eTCD.gov.bm and the appointment management system”.

Transcore Limited collected $75,775 for “ongoing maintenance of electronic vehicle registration system”.

A Transport spokesman said: “The costs should not be added and headed under the website etcd.gov.bm simply because the costs pertain to a variety of services, some of which are totally unrelated to the website.

“The hours required of BITS has reduced significantly and will continue to do so with time as they implement enhancements to the system by request.

“Transcore Ltd is responsible for the devices that you can find along Bermuda's roads, the function of which are to take a photo and record vehicles being used without a license or registration.

“The Bermuda Government is able to recoup these monies that would have otherwise gone uncollected.

“Prosecution cases are strengthened as they provide indisputable evidence and facilitating the issuing of fines to be added to the public purse.

“These devices do not take care of themselves and will need to be maintained by the proprietors accordingly. Not unlike the BITS contract, the Transcore contract has been reduced as well from $100,000.

“Rippe and Kingston manages, among other tasks associated with IT, the credit transactions online, a function that will continue.

“TCD has many IT projects in addition to what has been listed that is managed by GMD. If the Department was to take this function in house, the cost would undoubtedly rise considerably to meet industry standards.

“GMD manages numerous applications for only $73,700, an amount that the Bermuda Government, or any corporation, would find to be quite favourable.

“Each software application serves a completely different function that has translated to a more user friendly TCD.”

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