Former minister Quinton Edness is calling on the Cabinet to launch an immediate investigation into the most recent findings of the Auditor-General.

Mr Edness said scrutiny of the “litany of non-compliance with financial instructions (FIs) and related rules” uncovered by Heather Jacobs Matthews for the fiscal years 2010, 2011 and 2012 could not wait until the report was debated by MPs.

“The Premier should set up a team to investigate this matter,” the former United Bermuda Party politician told The Royal Gazette. “He has said he has to wait for the report to go to the Houses of Parliament. But when the Cabinet receives a report with such serious allegations as this, the Cabinet should not wait.

“It doesn’t have to go through the normal process. This Government has decided to go the normal route. They are not really applying any attention to the seriousness of the allegations.”

His comments echo those of economist Robert Stewart, who wrote in an opinion piece last week that the failures uncovered by Mrs Matthews were of “grave public concern and, therefore, the Government and Governor (British Government), with the help of other international agencies, should seek to proceed immediately with a view of bringing these issues before the courts so that a judicial process can determine the findings of the Auditor-General”.

Mr Edness said: “We need to have top people investigate it and they have to be able to have the independence to probe each and every thing they need to.”

The Auditor’s report revealed that official government rules on the spending of taxpayers’ money were violated so often between 2009 and 2012 that it became the “norm for which there are no consequences”.

The failures cited included contracts not being tendered, spending without signed agreements, duplicate payments, overpayments and payments made for professional services without prior approval.

Millions of dollars of public funds were involved but last week the Ministry of Finance refused to reveal whether any public officials had been penalised in relation to the examples in Mrs Matthews’s 315-page report.

A spokesman said: “Any breach of FIs in which the Accountant-General has been notified would have been dealt with appropriately either by the Accountant-General or the responsible accounting officer. Disciplinary matters within the Civil Service are confidential.”

Mr Edness said: “They can’t say this is an internal matter.

“It can’t be an internal matter because it is in the Auditor’s report. That’s a cop-out. This document is a public document and if there’s going to be any discipline or investigation, then the public has to know.

“From what I can tell, the general public is waiting to see exactly what the Government is going to do.

“I know there are processes before it can do something but it should tell the public it intends to do something or why it hasn’t done something.”

Mrs Matthews, the Island’s independent fiscal watchdog, has called for the civil servants responsible for failing to comply with financial instructions to be disciplined. Derrick Binns, the head of the Civil Service, issued a statement on Friday insisting that decision-making lay in the hands of ministers.

Mr Edness said: “He’s wrong. It’s absolutely true that the civil servants advise the ministers on issues and the minister makes the final decision.

“But if, in fact, the minister is making a decision that’s against established financial instructions, they don’t have to agree with that.

“What they do is call their chief — the head of the Civil Service — and say, ‘I have advised the minister about this. He is doing something which is wrong. I can’t live with that.’

“These allegations in the Auditor’s report are quite serious and all [some members of] the Civil Service has done is keep quiet.

“They have sat quietly and done nothing about it, so they are culpable as well.”

He added: “Derrick Binns, in his statement, he can’t cause civil servants to squeeze out of this at all.

“If they knew this was happening, they should have done something.”