Government. That is why it is so important for Government to be clean and to be seen to be clean. That is one reason why the entire Vesey Street Equestrian Centre plan is causing so much alarm.

First of all it is important to bear in mind that the four acres of virgin hillside which it is proposed to level is Government land...the people's land which will be converted to use by a relatively small organisation. When the hillside is levelled, the new scar in the hillside will be as high as the Bank of Bermuda's Front Street building and big enough to hold ten buildings the size of that bank building.

The cost of removing the hillside will be enormous and the resulting amount of soil and rubble huge. There are two curious elements involved in that. The soil is said to be worth about $1 million. Who would get that return from public land? It is also said that there is a shortage of rubble for fill and we have to wonder if that might be a factor in the proposal.

Now it is becoming clear that for a second time there is a connection between Warwick East United Bermuda Party officers and a controversial planning decision. David Summers is the chairman of the Warwick East UBP branch which is represented in Parliament by Environment Minister Irving Pearman. Mr.

Somers is a developer who has constantly been at odds with environmentalists.

People might well have thought that as soon as Mr. Pearman knew his branch chairman was involved in what was bound to be a highly controversal development scheme alarm bells would have sounded.

Instead he is quoted as saying: "What has that got to do with allowing a development application to go through?'' If Mr. Pearman does not know the answer to that, he has not learned much in politics.

He had a precedent to follow. Before he was the Environment Minister there was an enormous row when David Saul filled in for the substantive minister and approved THAT Harbour Road, Warwick, house. That also involved an official of the Warwick East UBP branch. Surely that was enough warning.

The Planning Minister's right to overrule the Development Applications Board and the planning regulations was conceived as a step only to be used in extraordinary circumstances and when there had been an injustice caused. Mr.

Pearman shows every sign of thinking that he is there to make decisions even before the normal process has been followed.

Again, Mr. Pearman is quoted as saying: "The fact is the development order has to go through two processes -- the Cabinet and the Caucus.'' Both of those are a political process in which Mr. Pearman would reign supreme. He is denying the fact that there is a proper planning process which should be followed in every instance. If he is going to do that, then we might as well abandon planning.

It may well be that Bermuda now has a minister who does not know how the Planning Department should be administered and who certainly does not know how to protect his own Government.