November 20, 2012Dear Sir,Farmer Brown once said: “It’s time to plough the fields.” Right about now $800,000 would go a long way to helping the needy at these tough economic times, would you not agree? What concerns us is that there are so many examples, since 2007, of the gross mismanagement of the public purse resulting in large unsustainable fiscal deficits. One only needs to review the Auditor General’s reports for the past three years to verify mismanagement and lack of financial controls. Our government contracted to pay $800,000 to an international law firm, with governmental expertise to help reform a system of local government that was in place for nine decades. The terms of reference were to examine our 1923 Municipalities Act, which governed the cities of Hamilton and St George’s, and to suggest ways to bring it up to date. The firm partnered with a Bermuda-based law firm. It would be very interesting to know what was the split, was it 60/40 or 40/60? There is so much give-a-ways these days, no wonder we cannot keep track of where the money went!The assignment was to find efficiencies and reform the ways government is doing business given the economic and fiscal chaos. What we find amazing is that this government, who pride themselves on an ideological position to that of the Democratic Party in the United States of America, took advice from the lead strategic advisor of this project, and who was also a strategic advisor to Romney, a Republican. The people of Bermuda paid $800,000 to dismantle nine decades of a system of local government. This manoeuvre was clearly designed to consolidate party political power, while at the same time undermine our colonial heritage, and we paid an America law firm to help the government of-the-day to achieve their ultimate objective of self preservation and empowerment.It had nothing to do with finding efficiencies and reforming the ways government is doing business, it was all about economic empowerment and our government, to justify the project, used the pretext notion of the need to modernise local government practices, or was it really needed? So, what the government of the day accomplished for us is that only the people who live in the city get to vote and have a say on how the City of Hamilton and St George’s gets to run its business. The business owners who do not live within the city limits, but pay taxes are without a voice. This sounds like a double standard to us. What you think?Now some will say that they support farmer Brown’s initiative to plough fields and plant new seeds of prosperity. The question is who did really benefit from this exercise on economic empowerment, the people of Bermuda or farmer Brown? We are still waiting to see the trickledown effect of this great manoeuvre and vision for our Island home! All this sounds conspiratorial to us. That is the nature of party politics; divide and conquer; and share the spoils and forget the other 48 percent. Does this phrase sound familiar? Clearly, this government is managing our affairs for the vengeance of our forefathers, instead of future generations of our grand children.DAVID J TAVARES AND –ERWIN ADDERLEYIndependent Candidates