Yesterday's article on race and opportunity noted that this will be the first time that both parties have fully embraced the concept of economic empowerment as a central policy in a General Election campaign.

The Progressive Labour Party has long promoted the idea, especially with regard to black Bermudians, and the United Bermuda Party has always stressed the need for equal opportunity.

And the UBP has probably come further than ever before in this election. It proposes an Office of Economic Empowerment that would promote opportunities not only for black Bermudians but also for small businesses and for geographic areas that have traditionally been left behind.

The UBP would also make age discrimination illegal and would seek out venture capital for small businesses. The Progressive Labour Party has not yet announced its platform, but will no doubt put its record of the last five years forward. Community and Culture Minister Randolph Horton has also stated that he also wants to put more resources into the Commission for Unity and Racial Equality so that allegations of discrimination can be investigated.

He also says he will move forward on proposals to change the law to require reporting on nationality and gender, saying he gets complaints of discrimination from black males. Over the last five years, the PLP has also awarded contracts to businesses that are primarily black-owned, a policy most famously explained by Telecommunications Minister Renee Webb when she said she saw nothing wrong with giving contracts or licences to people who "look like me", a statement which was first applied to blacks and later to women. And there is nothing wrong with that. Only the statistically challenged would deny that whites, and especially white males, benefit from the economy far more than blacks or women, even though some progress has been made.

And it is obvious that this needs to change, not only to ensure that Bermuda continues to flourish socially and economically, but because no one could agree with the proposition that white males are inherently better at getting ahead than anyone else. The problem is determining the best possible way of moving forward.

Any policy of economic empowerment needs to be both fair and open, and this is where the current Government has failed.

There was nothing wrong with Ms Webb's statement, assuming that the beneficiary of the "policy" is qualified to do the job and that the policy is fair, well known and widely supported.

The problem in the case to which she first referred - the grant of the Berkeley project to Pro-Active Construction - was that there was no such policy in place, at least according to Works Minister Alex Scott, who subsequently said Pro-Active was simply the best company to do the job.

Of course, Mr. Scott's judgment on that point was not shared by his own civil servants, who have since been proven at least partly right. And the Government did want to give a company that had not previously had an opportunity to do a project of this kind a chance. In doing so, it demonstrated why a carefully thought out constructive programme is so necessary. Had Pro-Active bid for and received a smaller and more manageable project more suited to its then size instead of Berkeley, it might have completed it on time and successfully. It has done neither at Berkeley, not because black owners could not manage a project of that size, but because Pro-Active apparently could not. Whether Berkeley was an exercise in economic empowerment or not is academic at this point. What is clear is that it is an object lesson in how not to award a contract.

Whichever party is elected on July 24 needs to be much more careful about how it goes about this approach to widening opportunity. The UBP has said it would look at parcelling out parts of major contracts to more companies, an approach that was surprisingly successful when CedarBridge was built. Mr. Horton hit on the real answer, at least in part: Education. Most companies are desperate to hire Bermudians, regardless of race or gender, provided they are qualified. Giving young Bermudians more educational opportunities to gain qualifications and then monitoring companies' promotion and training practices carefully will ultimately eliminate the race and gender gap.

But turning the Bermuda College into a four-year institution is not the answer. That money and more should be spent on scholarships and financial aid so that Bermudians can attend the best educational, trade and professional institutions in the world and return home able to compete with people of any race, gender or nationality.