Walton Brown, the Shadow Minister for Immigration, has said the House of Assembly was “brought into disrepute” yesterday after Public Works Minister Craig Cannonier disclosed that Mr Brown made a request through the Public Access to Information (PATI) Act.

Mr Cannonier was responding to a question by the Opposition asking whether the minister would release all e-mails in relation to the removal of stone from the Black Watch Pass construction site last month, to which Mr Cannonier said the communication has been released already to the ministry’s internal audit department.

Mr Cannonier said he had discussed the issue of the PATI request with Mr Brown when he was at the Ministry of Public Works to provide identification for his request to be processed.

Mr Brown said that Mr Cannonier told him he had already heard about the request.

A PLP statement yesterday afternoon read: “The PLP is duly concerned at comments made by Minister of Public Works, the Hon Craig Cannonier, in the House of Assembly, regarding a PATI request.

“According to Section 12(4) of the Public Access to Information Act: ‘The identity of a requester shall be kept confidential and, except with the consent of the requester, may not be disclosed to any person other than a person who is required to deal with the request under this Act.’

“Ministers are not involved in the handling of PATI requests, so the only likely conclusion is that someone told Minister Cannonier, and he has in turn, told the public via his comments in the House of Assembly. This unidentified person and Minister Cannonier have both violated Section 12(4) of PATI. This is very disconcerting.”

The statement went on to point out that responsibility for PATI sits with Cabinet Office and the PLP called on Premier Michael Dunkley to investigate how Mr Cannonier obtained the information about the request. The party added that Mr Cannonier repeating the information in the House, “shows a complete lack of professionalism and tact. The public must be concerned that a Cabinet Minister would place confidential information into the public domain in violation of the laws of Bermuda”.

Attorney-General Trevor Moniz said Mr Brown asking a question in the House that was already subject to a PATI request for information was a “misuse of process in the House”.

Mr Cannonier, who apologised to Mr Brown for bringing his PATI request into the public domain, said he was as perplexed as the Opposition as to why the member of public would remove the stone prematurely without authorisation, despite having formally applied for it through the ministry.

Mr Cannonier did reveal that the stone was worth $875, backtracking on an earlier pronouncement that the rubble fill material was worth nothing and was merely trash.

The material was removed by a member of the public who claimed a Works and Engineering employee said that he could remove it because it would have been heading to the dump otherwise. However, the employee was not authorised to grant permission and the rubble was ordered to be returned to the government quarry.

An internal investigation is continuing into the miscommunication that led to a member of public taking the stone and into the timeline of events.

• For the full ministerial statement, click on the PDF file under “Related Media”.