May 28, 2007

THE Premier surrounds himself with expensive “chiefs of staff”, “press secretaries” and the like at very considerable public expense. He travels in an oversized limousine, also at great public expense. He demands police outriders so he can speed through the streets like some beleaguered dictator, also at large public expense (not to mention loss of useful police activity). He spurns the official residence of the Premier, recently refurbished at vast public expense. He demands protection for his own private residence (which has two garages. Why?) also at vast public expense.He travels, needless to say, with his hugely inflated entourage, at vast public expense.

What has this arrogant, bombastic man done to justify this enormous expenditure of public funds on aggrandising his “image”?

He bills himself as the Premier “who gets things done”. But what, in reality, has this vain, pompous man actually achieved?

He would have us believe that he has increased tourism. The truth of the matter is that we just don’t know whether he has or not. There are more cruise ship passengers, certainly. But do they spend what air arrivals spend? We don’t know because he won’t (or can’t) distinguish between real tourists and visitors here on business.

He claims to have improved the Transport Control<\p>Department. But has he? Is it any more efficient? Is it any less unpredictable? Do we wait in line less than we used to? Does it detect whose car is legitimately licensed to the RVU resident and whose isn’t? No.

That’s just the Premier’s two portfolios. Then we get to his Ministers and their Departments. The catastrophe that is Public Education goes untreated.

The scandals associated with CedarBridge and Berkeley remain unresolved.

Proactive Management, who was picked to build Berkeley, is at or near the top of every list of tax delinquents. Who was Proactive? PLP cronies. What has been done about them? Nothing. What Minister has resigned? None.

Children almost die because of criminal lack of maintenance and the consequent mould at CedarBridge. Who gets sacked? No one. Who resigns? No one.

Lack of maintenance of public buildings has resulted in more problems than just CedarBridge. The Hamilton and St. George’s Police Stations are in dangerous disrepair.

Berkeley leaks. Our roads are horribly potholed everywhere even along the South shore Road where the premier speeds to work (?) from his protected private residence with his entourage and outriders. There is apparently a ten-year backlog of road maintenance and the Ministry of works and Engineering seems utterly indifferent. Who has resigned? Who has been fired? No one.

The Premier himself blames the civil service for the incompetent reporting of his travel expenditures and complains that the Opposition should have checked it out. The civil service should have ensured its accuracy. Failing that the Premier should have ensured its accuracy. Who was fired? Who resigned? The usual no one.

In the continuing raging scandal over the Ministry of Education one consultant after another has been repeatedly recommended firings. Who has been fired? Who has resigned? No one. The permanent Secretary, with whom the Ministry buck must stop, has been moved sideways in the Civil Service to another equally senior position where, no doubt, her proven incompetence will continue to wreak havoc.

Endless failures in Government financial reporting go unchecked and unresolved. What is the Finance Ministry doing about it? Nothing. Has the Finance Minister resigned? No. Has the Permanent Secretary been fired? No.

In the meantime no one has a clear idea as to whether his or her tax money is being spent wisely or just plain embezzled.

A large private company employs the Finance Minister. It is the Finance Minister’s responsibility to regulate the corporation that employs her. Is this a conflict of interest? Without a doubt. Why is she still Finance Minister? Ask Dr. Brown, but probably because there is no one else in the Progressive Labour Party capable of doing the job and she is the only Minister left whom the people still seem to trust.

The Minister for the Environment seems more than delighted to issue regular Special Development Orders to desecrate the environment when large amounts of development money are at stake.

Most recently she has delisted one of the island’s most important Grade One Listed buildings so that it can be torn down and replaced with a continuation of the ribbon development that her Ministry should never have allowed in the first place.

The widely held belief that more money changes hands than meets the eye in these environmentally lethal developments is hard not to credit. Has the Minister resigned? No. Has anyone been fired? No.

The list goes on and on. The Civil Service Union seems willing to use its muscle to protect the jobs of even its most blatant incompetents.

It seems that only criminal conviction can displace an incompetent civil servant.

In the meantime the Bermuda Industrial<\p>Union continues its unending series of childish tantrums, most recently leaving the island strewn with garbage over some dispute so obviously petty that the public has been kept in the dark about it. But will Government actually do anything? Of course not. The majority of BIU votes are cast for the PLP. Its leaders sit in the PLP Cabinet. Oh woe are we! If Bermuda is subjected to any more of this gross incompetence, foolhardy expenditure, waste of the taxpayers money on silly Ministerial vanity and the gross aggrandisement of the Premier we are likely to arrive at a state of collapse much more quickly than Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. Come to think of it, the similarities between Ewart Brown and Robert Mugabe are distressingly many.DIOGENES

City of Hamilton

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