Public support is key to winning greater access to information, and greater public support may be the silver lining in the cloud of controversy generated by the Special Report of the Auditor General into the new Court Building, Tourism's advertising contract with GlobalHue and the Berkeley Institute Performance Bond.

The Report has been the talk of the town since its publication last Wednesday – and rightly so.

Here's one quote in the Auditor's report that should make anyone concerned about what is happening:

"My extended audit procedures revealed persuasive evidence of inappropriate behaviour and seriously compromised internal control systems. The internal controls that should have prevented such behaviour were rendered ineffective by ministerial intervention and failure by senior civil servants to carry out their responsibilities, and in some cases, to resist actual or perceived ministerial pressure."

Despite such findings, the Auditor's report has not yet been the subject of rigorous examination in Parliament, and while that is a pity, there is a reason why that is so.

It has to do with practice, procedure and precedent which have developed on Parliament Hill under the Rules of the House of Assembly, all of which are in serious need of repair and reform if we are to achieve a greater level of public scrutiny and participation than has been the case to date in Bermuda. The controversial report followed usual practice when it was presented to the House through the Speaker. Most of us, particularly those of us in the Opposition, did not know it was coming, let alone what it said, and we spent the rest of the day scrambling to read up on the report as the rest of Bermuda learned about what the Auditor General had to say through the news media.

The Government had a pretty good idea what was in the report – the Auditor General and his staff had been meeting and working with the Ministries concerned and at least one of the two Ministers involved, as well the Minister of Finance, who is an ex-officio member of the Audit Committee which reviews such reports before they are published.

It was not surprising then that the Premier wanted to address the report and its contents when it was tabled in the House of Assembly. What was surprising is that he was permitted to do so through a Ministerial Statement but also through Cabinet Minister El James, who read the statement for the Premier who was off Island at the time. Sadly, it was less of a spirited defence of his Government in the face of a damning report and more of an attack on the integrity of the Auditor General and his motives.

The battle lines were thus drawn and partisan politics began – outside of the House ironically, not in. Here's why: your elected representatives are supposed to tackle the issues by other more focused and disciplined means – through the Public Accounts Committee, which is a standing select committee of the House of Assembly with responsibilities to examine, consider and report on reports of the Auditor General.

The committee also has investigatory powers and the right to summons witnesses. It is comprised of five members: two from the Opposition and three from Government and the chairman is and always has been the shadow spokesman for finance in the House.

Now the difficulty with this set-up – and I want the public to know this because it points out the inadequacies of our system in getting to grips with serious problems such as those raised by the Auditor – is that the Committee has to get a quorum of three members for a meeting to take place. Because of the small numbers involved, these meetings can be easily thwarted if people can't get together or don't want to get together.

Another inadequacy is that the committee also meets privately. Its business gets discussed in camera; a report gets generated that has to be signed. The Finance Minister then gets to review the report to provide a commentary. It is an unnecessarily time-consuming process. In the case of the Auditor's Special Report, the process might extend into the next Parliamentary session, even next year! That is too late. It becomes historical.

This system we have in place is too slow and too secretive. It's simply inadequate for what's required. What we need is a Public Accounts Committee that tackles these things contemporaneously, as they occur. We need to increase its membership so that meetings can be held promptly. Its meetings must be open to the public and the press; even carried live on radio. That's where accountability happens, so that when you read things in the Auditor's report, or the Auditor has questions, people are summoned before the committee to give answers; it's open and it's live and it becomes a matter of record. There's no more dodging and ducking and waiting for days, or months or years for these matters to be addressed in the sunshine of public scrutiny. That, in a paragraph, is what we need.

Members of Parliament have a responsibility and a duty to tackle these matters. But right now we're not doing it because the system hampers the prompt and open conduct of business. With the support of my colleagues on both sides of the House, I make the plea once again for support for reform in this area.

Bermuda is falling behind. It is necessary if we are to going to develop and keep up with other jurisdictions in these matters of good governance. It is necessary if we are going to develop, maintain and hold public confidence and trust; not just in the Government or the Ministers concerned, but Parliament. Reform for more transparent, more accountable and more responsive government is the only way Parliamentarians are going to be able to do a better job for the people of this country. They deserve better than what they are getting.

John Barritt, JP, MP, is United Bermuda Party spokesman for Government reform