The Auditor General wants his office to become a legislatively independent entity, and he cites the row over office space last year as Exhibit A in the case for why it is necessary.

The call for greater independence comes in one section the Auditor General’s 230-page annual report made public on Friday.

The document explains, last May, the Ministry of Works and Engineering relocated the AG’s Office in Hamilton with less than 24 hours notice — a move necessitated by an expiring lease. The abrupt action rendered the Government watchdog virtually inoperable for almost three weeks.

Auditor General Larry Dennis called the move ‘an attack’ by a Government unhappy with his professional findings. Works and Engineering Minister David Burch strongly denied the allegation saying the Government would not operate in such a manner. In the AG’s newest annual report, Mr. Dennis revisits the office relocation brouhaha and details his account of what transpired.

After his narrative, he recommends he be allowed to operate the office’s bank accounts and payroll, negotiate and arrange office space for his staff and, most importantly, he wants legislators to establish the AG Office as an independent body.

The Minster of Finance presented a nine-page response to the annual report, but the subject of greater independence for the Auditor General was not broached. The Finance Ministry would have to authorise the AG to be responsible for his office’s bank accounts and payroll.

The office move was announced to members of the Auditor General’s staff on Friday, May 26, 2006, between 4 and 5 p.m. Staff were told the move would happen over the weekend.

It all happened just three weeks after a hard-hitting annual report by Mr. Dennis who was critical of Government because $800m of public money could not be readily audited because it is was unaccounted for.

At the time of the notification and the move, the AG was in Canada. When informed of what happened, he said: “I think it is an outright plan to get at the Auditor General and attack his ability to audit.”

One of the main sticking points during the dispute was the size of the office. The AG was being housed in Victoria House in 5,287 square feet of space, but Works and Engineering was downsizing Mr. Dennis to 3,787 square feet in the same building. The public purse steward had previously said recommended moves to Dockyard or St. David’s would be unacceptable.

After the dust settled and the office was finally running again, Mr. Dennis filed a formal complaint with the Head of the Civil Service against the Permanent Secretary of Works and Engineering.

Mr. Dennis said: “I was informed that an investigation had concluded that although my complaint had seemed to imply political motivation or direction, no evidence of this had been found. The investigation also concluded that the move was the result of an unfortunate series of bad decisions by civil servants.”

Mr. Dennis does not say in his report whether or not he found the findings to be fair or not.

He said: “Audit organisations operate independent of the Government apparatus, similar to QUANGOs.

“The drafters of the Bermuda Constitution and the Audit Act 1990 presumably supposed, as I did, that such extensive safeguards to auditor independence were unnecessary because the Executive and Government administrators would respect the independence of the Auditor General. The events of May 2006 expose the naivety of that assumption.”