Some weeks ago, in the wake of the debacle over the Department of Tourism's arrivals statistics, this newspaper said the time had come for Premier Dr. Ewart Brown to give up the tourism portfolio because it clearly needed a Minister who could devote 100 percent of his attention to the portfolio.

It may be that some people felt that that was not sufficient justification – after all, the failure to tell whoever actually collated the statistics that non-Bermudian returning residents were not in fact visitors could not be placed directly at Dr. Brown's door. And the failure to question the sudden spike in people staying in private homes, along with the miraculous way that arrivals from New York , Canada and the UK held up while arrivals from all other gateway cities plummeted could not be entirely Dr. Brown's fault either.

So some people may well have given Dr. Brown the benefit of the doubt, even when the revised statistics demonstrated that the decline in 2008 arrivalswas amongst the worst in the Caribbean region. After all, 2009 may well turn out to be a better year for overall arrivals as the illegally constructed pier at Dockyard will now be available to berth a second cruise ship. And Dr. Brown's use of Government money to fund the demolition of the former Club Med and to kick start the former Golden Hind development will enable him to claim the so-called Platinum Period of hotel construction is back on track.

And yet, it must be clear to even the blindest supporters of Dr. Brown that the New York Tourism office debacle is solely his responsibility.

Dr. Brown destroyed the North American sales office in New York City, making around a dozen long-serving Bermudians redundant because they allegedly were not up to the job and brought in Sales Focus to produce what he claimed would be a better performance.

Now Sales Focus is gone, although the firm will continue to collect its pay for another six months.

And, in the words of one former employee: "The US sales office effectively no longer exists. Staffing levels are non-existent and what staff that are there are just going through the motions without any passion or love."

This, in the middle of the worst recession in almost 70 years, when Bermuda's tourism rivals are doing everything in their power to bring Americans to their shores. At this time, Bermuda's US sales office "effectively no longer exists" because Dr. Brown decided to get rid of the Bermudians who were doing the job and outsource the work to a company that after just six months has proven that it cannot.

And yet, as with every other error and mistake in the Ministry of Tourism and Transport, no senior official, least of all the Minister, is ever held accountable.

Bermuda has a Bus Terminal whose initial design was so fatally flawed that bus drivers need a colleague to bring them out of their bays for fear they will hit a car or run over someone. It is the equivalent of a man walking in front of a car with a red flag. But no one is held accountable.

So successful was Bermuda's $500,000 promotional deal with the New York Mets that it has been abandoned and the Ministry of Tourism has instead signed a $650,000 deal with the Boston Red Sox.

And 12 employees who gave dedicated service to Bermuda are out of work because the Minister knew better than them how to sell Bermuda. And now the firm he claimed would replace a decades-old sales model with something better is gone, and the change he claimed was in the best interest of the country has been reversed. And yet the Minister remains in place. Does this make any sense?