Opposition Leader Kim Swan yesterday urged Auditor General Larry Dennis to expedite his investigation into faith-based tourism and declared: "Nothing adds up."

Mr. Swan says Premier Ewart Brown's responses to his Parliamentary questions on the controversial subject have produced more questions than answers over the way hundreds of thousands of taxpayers' dollars have been handled.

"The people of Bermuda deserve a clear and full explanation for this state of affairs as soon as possible," said Mr. Swan in a statement. "We cannot have clouds hanging over the administration of public money. We therefore urge the Auditor General to expedite any performance audit he has scheduled for the faith-based tourism initiative."

Mr. Dennis said in May that he would be carrying out a performance audit into former scheme boss Andre Curtis' relationship with the Department of Tourism this summer. He did not respond to a request for a comment yesterday.

Mr. Curtis' company Harvest Investment Holdings received $345,000 of taxpayers' money to run the scheme last year.

However, Harvest spent $415,000 throughout the year organising events and on operating expenses, according to figures released by Dr. Brown and the Department of Tourism.

The closest anyone has come to explaining the $70,000 difference is this statement from Tourism: "The Ministry of Tourism and Transport expects the additional funds are the result of money invested by Harvest Holdings."

Mr. Swan replied in his statement: "It is not clear what any of that means, but we have serious concerns about the possible inference that Harvest was investing public money it received for faith-based events.

"Earlier today, my colleague Wayne Furbert said of the numbers: 'Something is not right.' I agree completely Something is not right. Nothing about Government's faith-based tourism adds up, not the answers, not the dollars and not the number of visitors it purportedly brought to the Island."

As part of Mr. Curtis' contract, he was supposed to bring 2,200 tourists to the Island.

Last Friday, Dr. Brown claimed the number who visited was 482 — but that figure is inflated by three events to which Mr. Curtis contributed no financial support, including one whose organisers had written to him beforehand telling him they did not want his help and instructing him to remove all references to them from his website.

Without those three events, the total was 238. Mr. Furbert believes if you discount the performers themselves, the number would drop to as low as ten.

Whether the actual figure is 482, 238 or ten, taxpayers will hope Mr. Curtis will not be collecting the extra $20,000 he was promised by Tourism if he met his target. One of his requirements for the bonus was to produce a report including copies of international and local media coverage supporting and recording each event.

But no details have ever been made public for mystery event Weekend Fit For A King, which Mr. Curtis and the Premier claim took place at an unnamed venue at an unnamed time on an unnamed date last September.

So far, nobody who attended Weekend Fit For A King has come forward to confirm it actually happened, although one group which organised similarly named events, Lunch Fit For A Prince and Tea Party Fit For A Princess, made it clear Mr. Curtis had absolutely nothing to do with them.