Government MP Derrick Burgess has backed under-fire Calvin White after allegations he tried to arrange pay-to-play activities while helping manage Government?s pension funds.

While admitting Mr. White should not have signed his name as chairman of the Public Funds Investment Committee (PFIC) while inviting US money managers for a PLP a charity golf day, Mr. Burgess said the aborted event would have raised money for other causes.

Mr. White has since been removed as head of the PFIC while Government conducts a probe.

In a press statement Mr. Burgess said: ?The only thing that Bro. White did that may be questionable, but not illegal, was to sign his name on the invitation as Chairman of the PFIC.?

Mr. Burgess said the golf day would have raised money for the Sunshine League and Hamilton Parish council as well as the Hamilton branch of the PLP ? a party Mr. White and his family had supported for years.

However he could not say how the money would have been split if the event had gone ahead.

Mr. Burgess said members and supporters of the PLP had for years held events to raise cash for the party while the United Bermuda Party had raised funds from business.

?Despite that well-known association, the PLP has never charged them with engaging in ?pay-to-play? with those businesses as they have charged the Hon. Dr. Ewart Brown and Bro. Calvin White.?

He said it was no secret that the UBP ?took care of those who took care of them?.

Mr. Burgess said he didn?t think it wrong for members of either party to use their contacts in business to raise election money but Mr. White, who he said had successfully administered BIU pension funds for years, had become the victim of a media campaign.

He said the press had given the impression the golf day was arranged solely for money managers and was illegal but he said the invitation list had included PLP MPs, Bermuda business leaders and anyone else the branch felt would pay the $125 entrance for a round of golf.

With globalisation many Bermudians had business partners living abroad said Mr. Burgess.

?Are PLP members not supposed to seek donations from overseas connections if the opportunity presents itself??

Opposition leader Grant Gibbons said he was pleased Mr. Burgess acknowledged it was wrong of Mr. White to use his position, as Chairman of the PFIC, to attempt a fundraising exercise from Government?s pension fund investment managers for the PLP.

Dr. Gibbons added: ?It?s a clear conflict of interest to use his official position for this activity and was undoubtedly part of the reason for the Minister of Finance asking him to step down.

?Mr. White?s activities also form part of the pay-to-play culture, including Dr. Brown?s US fundraising lunch, that has been revealed in connection with the management of the Government?s pension funds that necessitated the need for a forensic review.

?However, it?s unfortunate, but predictable that Mr. Burgess would then go on to make a number of unsubstantiated and groundless assertions about the United Bermuda Party, as well as claim media bias, to somehow justify inappropriate behaviour by Mr. White.?