Government is to blame for Bermuda's declining reputation – not its critics, says United Bermuda Party leader Kim Swan who lamented plans to spend public cash on a US PR firm.

Mr. Swan said Premier Ewart Brown's statement that the Opposition is the cause of Bermuda's sagging international standing was beneath contempt.

Yesterday Mr. Swan said: "His announcement that he is prepared to spend public money to hire a US public relations firm to improve Bermuda's image speaks volumes not about the Opposition but about where his Government has taken this beautiful island."

He listed nine scandals which had emerged under the watch of the Progressive Labour Party including the Bermuda Housing Corporation scandal, the failed attempt to suppress the media in the courts, the missing Berkeley bond and the Coco Reef lease which was changed to benefit a PLP supporter.

Listing more recent scandals Mr. Swan mentioned how Andre Curtis, the Premier's constituency campaign chairman, was given hundreds of thousands of dollars by Tourism to attract tourists to faith-based events yet questions about how the money was spent and about what was actually accomplished remain unanswered.

Mr. Swan said Bermuda's rankings had slipped among world financial authorities. After being ranked as one of the most advanced offshore jurisdictions in 2000 by a KPMG review he said the 2007 review by the International Monetary Fund gave the Island a "less than satisfactory" rating in terms of anti-money laundering regulations, placing Bermuda below Panama and Vanuatu in its international rankings.

And he criticised Government on the IPOC case where the Fund, established here in 2000, was found to be the tip of a complex billion-dollar money-laundering scheme involving the assets of Russian telecom companies and had cast doubt on the island's integrity as an offshore jurisdiction.

He said: "The Bermuda Government allowed a convicted felon to set up a company in Bermuda."

Recent efforts by the Premier to shut down debate in the House of Assembly on the controversial Coco Reef deal and to avoid answering Parliamentary questions on Government travel demonstrated a dangerous trend, said Mr. Swan.

"Holding a government – any government – to account for its decisions and actions is one of the most important responsibilities of our Parliamentary system and the principle duty for the Opposition, any opposition.

"By requiring governments to answer questions and to engage in open debate, the people have the means to determine if the government is doing the job it was elected to do."

He said shutting down the Coco Reef debate and moves to avoid answering Parliamentary questions, if not challenged, will damage representative government in Bermuda.

"They will weaken the community's ability to find out what their Government is up to and, at the same time, strengthen the Government's ability to fashion the news to its own ends.

"We call on the public and Parliamentarians on both sides of the House to help stop this drift toward one-man rule."

The PLP declined the chance to respond to Mr. Swan's statement yesterday.