the National Liberal Party, Charles Jeffers, urged Government to seek outside help in reforming Bermuda's correctional facilities.

The NLP leader was reacting to a study leaked to media last week which slammed past prison management and practices. Initially it was reported the Management Services Board had authored the study when in fact it was prepared by a Canadian management consulting group, PRET Inc., of Nepean, Ontario.

Minister of Health and Social Services, Harry Soares, reluctantly confirmed the report's origin only after a copy was leaked to PLP Shadow Minister Renee Webb.

"It's too easy to sit back and make scapegoats of the commissioner or ranking officers, but that doesn't solve our problems,'' Mr. Jeffers told The Royal Gazette .

"We need to get a consultant down here to work with the commissioner; we need to send senior officers to England or Canada to train and learn how to run a modern facility.'' But the NLP chief cautioned that using outside expertise is only a short-term solution; the long-term goal of prison reform must be worked out by Bermudians: "I don't want to see what happened with the Police happen with the prisons,'' he said.

"We can't ignore the fact that we don't know everything. Although Bermuda is a sophisticated society we're still small. We don't have prison experts here and we should recognise that.'' Noting that senior prison brass must bear some of the blame for problems at Bermuda's four institutions, "in the final analysis the buck stops with the Minister,'' concluded Mr. Jeffers.

"Look at the issues such as the radios not working. This report has been in the Minister's hands for a month and have the radios been repaired? What's happened in that month? These things have to be addressed post haste,'' he said.

Mr. Jeffers also expressed concern with the way the report was brought to public attention: "I don't believe it was handled right. It shouldn't have been made to look like it was done locally.'' Most of Mr. Jeffers fire however was directed at Labour and Home Affairs Minister Quinton Edness, under whose watch Westgate was opened.

"There have been complaints coming from that prison (Westgate) since day one and it was up to the Minister then to set the direction,'' he said.

"You can argue, at least, that Harry Soares has done more in the past few months than the previous Minister had done in the last few years,'' said Mr.

Jeffers.

"He doesn't know what he's talking about,'' an angry Quinton Edness struck back.

"While Mr. Jeffers was up in Canada selling life insurance I was working on opening Westgate. He forgets that.''