Perhaps there should be a board of inquiry into the handling of the Berkeley project.

The Bermuda Industrial Union would presumably like one in order to demonstrate that Government short-changed Pro-Active Management Systems Ltd., in turn putting as much as $10 million of the union's cash at risk.

Such an inquiry would also, according to the Union and Pro-Active, show that most of the extraordinary delays at the project were the fault of Government and the Ministry of Works and Engineering because of poorly drawn plans and subsequent changes.

Those are good grounds for an inquiry, which should also be held in public, unlike presumably the arbitration which is now getting under way.

From the Government's point of view, such an inquiry might show whether the Works Ministry was pressing Pro-Active to put more employees on the site to increase the work rate, which was clearly lagging as long ago as two years ago.

But a case can be made that the remit of such an inquiry should also examine whether the bidding process was fair and whether the right company was selected for the job.

One key issue here concerns the financing of the project. Yesterday's story in shows that the Bermuda Industrial Union was prepared to go to extraordinary lengths ? including breaching the regulations under which its own Credit Union must operate ? to funnel more than $2 million to its subsidiary Union Asset Holdings Ltd., which issued the performance bond to Pro-Active.

The public should know how this public project was financed and members of the Union and Credit Union shareholders have the right to know how their money has been spent.

What's not in dispute is that Pro-Active, having received the contract for the school, had difficulty securing both the performance bond and lines of credit in order to start work.

But that begs the question of why Pro-Active was no required to have those matters lined up beforehand. Then there would have been no surprises when the company ran out of difficulty at the outset.

On another matter, there is a supreme irony in the fact that Somers Construction will now be assisting in the management of the project.

As Shadow Works Minister Patricia Gordon Pamplin has pointed out, Somers managed the CedarBridge project, which was essentially completed on time and on budget.

In doing so, it sub-contracted work to as many as 180 companies, large and small, and gave many of them a real start in business.

It's reasonable to assume that if the current Government had followed the former Government's model ? and presumably it chose not to do so out of sheer pride ? the new Berkeley would now be filled with students ? and there would be a lot more empowered businesses around too.