A former accountant for Government testified in the case against a former Works and Engineering manager and his wife.Kyril Burrows and Delcina Bean-Burrows are on trial accused of using Mr Burrows’ position as buildings manager to swindle the taxpayer out of more than $553,000.Shelley Bablitz, from Canada, worked for the department from 2004 to 2006. She returned to Bermuda to testify as a prosecution witness.Ms Bablitz told the jury yesterday that she was brought in to balance the fixed asset sub ledger against the general ledger as they did not match.She explained that fixed assets are items such as Government houses, vehicles and roads.Ms Bablitz worked to fix this and got the books to balance, later putting measures in place to ensure the problem did not occur again.She was later assigned to work in the same department as Mr Burrows, the buildings manager.In the process of her job she looked in detail at items of expenditure in his department.Mr Burrows cross examined her over a number of accounting documents including Government payments to the companies J&M Construction and his wife’s companies Health Tech Rennaissance and Theravisions.He took her through various figures and got her to explain how she had constructed her spreadsheets and classified certain items of expenditure.Prosecutors allege that Mr Burrows got construction companies including J&M to do work on his home in St George’s at taxpayers’ expense by fiddling with the payment process.It is further alleged that he abused his position to get payments made to his wife’s companies.The couple deny 35 charges encompassing allegations of cheating Government, obtaining Government money by deception and false accounting, and the case continues.