The latest revelations about the Bermuda Housing Corporation, as reported in Friday's Bermuda Sun, suggest that the problems within the organisation go much higher than they first appeared.

It is too soon to determine the veracity of the allegations made by fired general manger Raymonde Dill.

But Mr. Dill's own words paint a picture of an organisation where accountability seems to have gone out of the window and where the normal procedures required for construction and maintenance of properties were either forgotten or ignored.

The shame in this is that no one denies that most of the Corporation's employees have done good work and did their best to address the Island's housing shortage. But Mr. Dill's own comments beg the question of how much money may have been wasted when normal tendering policies were apparently ignored and when sub-contractors were apparently handed cash on demand with only the most cursory documentation of how the money was being spent.

Mr. Dill has said he will not be the fall guy for the Corporation, but he admits he himself succumbed to political pressures, alleging he agreed to give construction jobs to one company that had not even tendered a bid.

And he said in the case of painter Paul Young that requiring detailed accounting of how money was being spent was "unrealistic", adding: "The record keeping for a small contractor is not likely to be able to provide the detailed analysis people might want project-by-project. ... Information is available on salaries paid to sub-contractors, but that would cover multiple jobs. It's unrealistic to ask a small contractor to provide job-costing at the level requested here."

Quite how the general manager of a publicly-funded body thinks it is "unrealistic" to account for how the money is spent, seems incredible.

It's debateable whether Mr. Young can be described as a "small contractor" when he was paid $810,000 over a period of six months and employed 13 to 16 people a day. At any rate, it should be easier for a small contractor to account for what money was spent where than a large contractor; there are far fewer details to chase up.

Whether Mr. Dill and Mr. Young have cleared their names is questionable. What they have done is give a firsthand insight into how business was done at the BHC and in doing so they have tarred the names of others, most notably Cabinet Ministers Nelson Bascome and Ewart Brown and former Environment Minister Arthur Hodgson.

Dr. Brown's involvement seems to be entirely peripheral. Mr. Dill states a project at Southside was held up as a result of Dr. Brown withholding money to a contractor working on his own house who was also employed at Southside. Dr Brown must be entitled in a private transaction to withhold money if he was not satisfied with the work performed, and cannot be held to be responsible for any subsequent delays the contractor claims this caused.

It would seem Mr. Hodgson had a greater role in the scandal. The allegation - which he denies - that he threatened Mr. Dill is very worrying and must be investigated. If the allegations are true, Mr. Dill should have complained to his board, or resigned, and not succumbed to the alleged veiled threat. At best, he is guilty of terrible weakness of character.

Of the three politicians, Mr. Bascome faces the most serious allegations. As the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation, Mr. Bascome should have offered his resignation when the scandal first broke; that would have been the honourable thing to do. Ministers in Bermuda and abroad have resigned or have been removed for much less.

Now allegations have been made directly against him and even the blind must be able to see the case for resignation. Nonetheless, there are at least three reasons why: First, it is only by going that Mr. Bascome can clear his name. Second, the credibility of the Government rests, as the Premier said on Friday, on it being as seen as being purer than pure and the Government as a whole now looks dirty. Third, it is now essential that another Minister with no previous connections to the Housing Corporation comes in and cleans up the mess.

Responsibility for BHC ultimately rests with Mr. Bascome, and it clear, from Mr. Dill himself, that the way the organisation was run was completely unacceptable.

Mr. Bascome has a long record of trying to do the right thing for the ordinary person and for his party. Now he needs to do the right thing and resign.