Bermuda effectively has no functioning Auditor General?s Office today after what has been described as ?an outright plan to get at the Auditor General? resulted in the independent office being carted out of its former premises at the weekend and put into a smaller and unprepared office space.

Political shenanigans have been blamed for leaving the country?s financial watchdog resembling a storage warehouse without computer link-ups or telephones.

It may take a week or longer before any semblance of a normal working routine can restored, but for the coming days the Office of the Auditor General, whose stated mission is ?to add credibility to Government?s financial reporting and to promote improvement in the financial administration of all Government departments and controlled entities? will be in a state of flux.

The office move, announced at 4 p.m. last Friday and carried out over the weekend, comes only three weeks after a hard-hitting annual report by Auditor General Larry Dennis was critical of Government because $800 million of public money could not be readily audited in the latest round of checks.

Mr. Dennis, who is currently in Canada, believes the problems his office staff were now encountering was part of a deliberate act by Government, or elements of Government, to hinder the work of the independent auditing operation.

?I think it is an outright plan to get at the Auditor General and attack his ability to audit,? he said.

?It is atrocious to have arrived in the year 2006 and face a situation like this in a so-called democracy. It is how you bring an Auditor General to heel. It is an attack on the Auditor General. It is a classic situation.?

However, in a letter to Mr. Dennis last Thursday, Minister of Works and Engineering Sen. David Burch said: ?I wish to state categorically that there is no attempt by this Minister or Ministry, or Government to penalise you or your office.?

Mr. Dennis has yet to see what has happened to his office in his absence. Over the weekend the office furniture and equipment was moved by Works and Engineering staff from the 5,287 square feet office on the fourth floor to the 3,787 sq. ft. premises below. Chairs, tables, desks and filing cabinets were stacked up wherever space could be found.

The main computer server and database was left untouched on the fourth floor awaiting specialist computer technicians, but it is not known when such experts will be able to attend to it.

The suddenness of Friday afternoon?s announcement by the Ministry of Works and Engineering left no time to make arrangements for telephone lines to be transferred, for computer connections to be set up or for arrangements to be made for the computer server to be disconnected and reinstalled.

Mr. Dennis does not believe there is adequate space or office design to accommodate his office?s needs in the unprepared third floor, which has been vacant since February.

An unfinished attempt has been made by W&E staff to create a further room within the smaller office, and a new fire exit is also unfinished.

But it is the lack of IT and computer facilities that will be the greatest hurdle for the AG staff who were due to start the major task of auditing the Government?s Consolidated Fund on June 1, according to Assistant Auditor General Barry Neilson.

It has been known since late last year that the Office of the Auditor General would have to move from the fourth floor of Victoria Hall, Victoria Street, where it has been based for the past three years, due to the sale of the premises.

The lease on the fourth floor offices expired last Tuesday. A new rental and lease agreement was made in February to take over the third floor. But the issue of the smaller floor space and office plan had not been settled between the Auditor General and the Ministry of Works and Engineering, which has responsibility for housing Government and related parties.

According to Mr. Neilson, no agreed arrangement has been made by the Ministry of Works and Engineering for the AG?s office to be moved downstairs, therefore it was not possible to book telephone and computer and IT technicians.

A series of increasingly anxious memos and e-mails have been exchanged in the past three months between the AG?s office and the Ministry about the lack of action.

A design plan for the third floor, which needed to be agreed 12 to 15 weeks before any move in order for the office?s telephones and computer lines to be configured and prepared, was not presented to the AG by W&E until May 5. The plan, which omits 16 of the AG office?s filing cabinets, has yet to be agreed between the two parties.

Mr. Neilson said the new office had no IT ?hook-up?. He added: ?The server can?t be moved until we have an IT person. It needs to be planned and coordinated. We need the server but how long it will be out of our use I?m not sure.

?We are going to have to come up with temporary solutions to keep things going.

?Any move causes disruption. The last time we had two days of disruption up front and two days the other side. But it was done in September at the end of the major audits.

?Last time we had ample notice. We knew where we were going to go and the set-up and configuration was done for us.?

This time the sudden decision to send in the W&E removal team left no time to pack up the office. He said it had been thought that, as the third floor office was nowhere near ready, W&E might have negotiated an extension to the lease of the fourth floor or found an alternative location.

?At the end of April we started to get concerned. We did not see any work being done or any progress downstairs and we did not have a site plan for how the office would be configured,? said Mr. Neilson.

When the office plan arrived on May 5 it was judged inadequate and the matter was put before the Standing Committee of the Auditor General, which said it was unable to find a solution but recognised that the Office of the Auditor General ?is an independent office and should have secure premises with adequate facilities to carry out its mandated duties?.

If the AG and Minister of W&E could not reach a solution the standing committee suggested the Auditor General seek assistance through another office or party or seek to directly obtain suitable premises.

Mr. Dennis said he believes his office is the first to be confined within new W&E rationales, enacted last month.

Asked what he expected to happen now, he said: ?I have to believe that people with saner heads are going to take effect. People have to see what is happening. With something like this I will not be able to hold on to professional staff and how could I possibly attract any replacements??

Last night the Royal Gazette was unable to reach Sen. Burch, but in a letter to the AG on May 25 said his Ministry was ensuring there was a level playing field for all Government departments and ministries when it comes to allocating office space.

He stated: ?I?m concerned to note you feel you are being unfairly targeted, nothing could be further from the truth. This Government does not operate in such a manner.?

He said the Ministry was trying to reduce the cost of Government and associated departments in rented accommodation within Hamilton, and stated he would not allow the AG?s Office permission to procure its own office space in case it opened the floodgates for others to ask for similar treatment.