Former Cabinet Minister Derrick Burgess has accused the Auditor-General of bias, unfairness, carelessness and inaccuracy in his official response to the damning report she released last year.

Mr Burgess has been silent since the 315-page report into the spending of public funds between 2009 and 2012 was issued by Heather Jacobs Matthews in November.

The document detailed how millions of dollars of taxpayers’ cash was spent without financial rules being followed and a commission of inquiry has since been appointed to investigate the findings.

The inquiry by Mrs Matthews and her team found that there was a failure to comply with financial instructions in relation to capital projects worth more than $35 million from 2009 to 2010.

This week Mr Burgess released a 17-page response, which sets out to explain his actions while Works Minister between December 2007 and November 2011.

In its introduction, the Progressive Labour Party backbencher said as a “Bermudian, trade unionist and long-serving member of Parliament” he fully subscribed to the mission of the Auditor-General to promote improvement in government’s financial administration.

But he said he needed to “set the record straight” as it related to his time in charge at Works and Engineering.

“Whilst the Auditor-General is undoubtedly correct with respect to many of her conclusions, it is my submission that some, as they relate to the Ministry of Works and Engineering, where I served as Minister from December 2007 to November 2011, reflect bias, a lack of fairness, careless preparation, inaccuracy and resulting ill-founded or altogether erroneous conclusions,” he wrote. Mr Burgess claimed he saved taxpayers more than $600,000 by “interfering” in the tender process for the new commercial courts and Ministry of Finance HQ refurbishment.

He cited other examples where his “interference” had resulted in “significant savings” for the Bermuda Government, including the demolition of the former Club Med hotel, the replacement of Cockburn Bridge in Sandys, and the relocation of the Ministry of Education to St David’s.

He also disputed the Auditor’s findings in her 2012 report on the misuse of public funds in relation to his dealings with the Bermuda Land Development Corporation.

Mr Burgess said Mrs Matthews’s claim that he gave directives to the BLDC which breached legislation governing that quango were a “fallacy or a fairy tale”.

In a note at the end of his response, Mr Burgess revealed that he complained to the Governor about Mrs Matthews’s “attitude” after she told him in an e-mail in November 2010: “I do not answer to you or take direction from you.”

Mrs Matthews has yet to comment on Mr Burgess’s response.

• To read Mr Burgess’s response in full, click on the PDF under “Related Media”