The Opposition United Bermuda Party yesterday continued its call on Premier Jennifer Smith to make public the Auditor General's latest annual report.

But the Premier says she hasn't seen it and described the Opposition's insinuations as a "desperate attempt from a desperate party clutching at straws".

"Of course I haven't seen it, he does not submit it to me," the Premier said when the topic was broached on Monday.

UBP leader Grant Gibbons said this week that he had written to the Governor asking him to assist in the release of the report, saying it was wrong to deny the public important information on the Government's handling of public funds as the country headed for a general election.

Speculation has been rife that the Premier called the election when she did to avoid embarrassing information outlined in the report coming to light. The report was due to be tabled in the House of Assembly when Ms Smith named the date last month, and cannot now be tabled until after the election.

The reports were denounced as "pure fiction" - a stance echoed by Ms Smith this week.

"I certainly will not be basing my call of an election on any delusions from that side," she said. "Everybody over the age of infancy knows - single seat constituencies were the valid reasons for my election call and the fact that I wanted Bermuda students to be at home. Nothing else."

But yesterday shadow Tourism Minister David Dodwell joined Dr. Gibbons in saying that even though the Audit Act stipulates that the Auditor General publicise the report by handing it to the House Speaker for tabling, the Premier was in a position to, and should release it.

"It's hypocrisy to say you can buy a ferry and go to Jamaica but you cannot release a report," said Mr. Dodwell.

"You know as well as I do that the law is not the sole governing issue here. It's accountability. If parliament had met we would see the report. I'm suggesting that unless the report is tabled one of the reasons the election was called is to hide the report. That's a possibility. Why wouldn't the Premier release the report to eliminate that possibility?"

Governor Sir John Vereker is expected to respond to Dr. Gibbons' letter by pointing out that by law the Auditor General must send his annual report to the Speaker with a copy to the Governor and the president of the Senate and because there's no parliament that cannot be done.

"The law they wrote in their 35 years of office includes the Audit Act," Ms Smith told us this week.

"And as a former government they are aware of what the Act says. And they knew before they started that the Audit Act does not provide for what they are asking for."

She added that the Opposition Leader could have urged the Auditor to table the report sooner if he had "some information available to him" in his capacity as the chairman of the House Finance Committee.

"I don't read minds or read crystal balls," she said.

And she questioned why the Opposition did not go to the public on the matter earlier if they had a valid point.

Dr. Gibbons, who is in fact chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said he had not seen the report either.

He stressed yesterday that under similar circumstances a UBP Government would release the report. He said with the agreement of the Governor and the Premier the report could be released.

"What we have seen is a style of government. We've seen a government which has had numerous reports which have been done and have been suppressed for a number of reasons," said Dr. Gibbons.

"This is simply the last in a long pattern of behaviour."