Health Minister Walter Roban continued to maintain on Friday that he had never said that he would abolish the Corporations of Hamilton and St. George's.

An examination of the record of his Ministerial Statement from last summer shows that to be true.

But the fact remains that when Government put out its request for proposals last summer for a consultant, Cabinet Secretary Marc Telemaque said Cabinet had decided that "that the most practical, efficient and effective reform would be to repeal the Municipalities Act 1923 and transition the operations of the municipalities into the relevant government departments".

So whether Mr. Roban had said it or not, Cabinet had, and there had apparently been no change since. Further, if you transfer all the services and functions of the Corporations to Government they will be left as empty shells and might as well be closed.

And yet, the rationale for the "reform" of the Corporations remains as unclear today as it was seven months ago, apart from the fact that some American and Bermudian lawyers are going to get some big fees out of it.

Even that is not clear. What exactly does an American law firm, even one with a large practice in Government contracts, bring to the table with regard to the transfer of services from the Corporations to Government. They are not, by definition, experts in Bermuda or even Commonwealth law. They are not management experts, apparently, so they are not necessarily the best people to judge whether the services currently carried out by the Corporation will be managed better by Government.

The betting here remains that the Corporation of Hamilton should be able to show that it can manage the delivery of services like garbage collection, sewage, landscaping, road painting and the like more efficiently than Government. Indeed the Corporation has shown a vastly better ability than Government to live within its means in the last couple of years.

That is not to say that the Corporation is perfect. Its franchise needs reform. The political soap opera that was the last Corporation made the possibility of abolition very tempting.

But then a funny thing happened. A new Corporation was elected. Under Mayor Charles Gosling and his team, the Corporation has opened up its processes. It has delivered services well. It is talking to its constituents. When murders were occurring on what seemed like a daily basis, it was the Mayor and his team who were shopping on Court Street. A successful and peaceful New Year's Eve event was held on Front Street. The list goes on.

Nonetheless, it will be interesting to see what the consultants come up with. Mr. Roban refused on Friday to commit to making the report public, which is extraordinary. What does he think will be in the report that will need to be hidden?

If these firms are to be paid $800,000, the public should at least know what it is paying for. And it should see if there is a rationale for the Corporations' abolition – so far, Government has not presented one.