Jackson presses for BHB salary details

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Salary figures for key members of the Bermuda Hospitals Board are being withheld due to Government stalling, the Opposition has charged.

One Bermuda Alliance MP Louise Jackson said Health Minister Zane DeSilva has “consistently refused to answer any questions on salaries”, despite a key stipulation of the Bermuda Hospitals Board Act requiring the information be released.

According to the BHB, the organisation’s annual report is to be printed this month.

It will include financial statements for the 2010/11 financial year, plus “commentary on the year’s activity”, a spokeswoman told The Royal Gazette.

Government’s inability to table the recent finances at the last sitting of the House of Assembly prompted an outcry from the OBA, but the delay was attributed in part to an audit that was “longer than expected”.

Ms Jackson said the Minister had declined to answer Parliamentary Questions on BHB “executive compensation” — telling her that quangos “do not publish such details”.

That was “nothing more than a dodge to further stall the release of important information”, she charged.

“Section 20 of the BHB Act requires the quango to set out ‘the scales of salaries and wages paid to officers and civil servants of the Board’,” said Ms Jackson.

“Conveniently for the Minister, that information is supposed to be contained in the BHB Annual Report, which he has failed to put before the Legislature.”

Asked if the details would be provided in the upcoming report, Mr DeSilva last night was unable to respond.

However, a Ministry spokeswoman said both the annual report and the BHB’s audited financial statements would go public “in due course”.

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