The need for transparency and accountability in Government, improving the civil service and increasing Bermuda?s profile on the world stage are among the topics to be discussed at a public meeting on sustainable development tonight.

The Government?s second forum on the draft document Charting Our Course: Sustaining Bermuda will take place at the BIU Headquarters on Union Street, Hamilton, between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m.

The theme under discussion will be Transforming Governance and the Public Sector, the section of the strategy which deals with how to put mechanisms in place in Government to ensure sustainable development is achieved.

The speakers will be Larry Burchall, the Island?s Administrator of Defence; Amanda Outerbridge, a member of the independent Sustainable Development Round Table and former National Trust director; businessman and independence commissioner Bob Steinhoff and Kenneth Dill, assistant cabinet secretary.

Erica Smith, the Government?s director of sustainable development, invited members of the public to attend the meeting and have their say on the theme.

She said: ?I think there should be a lot of discussion because it?s essentially about how we achieve sustainable development. How can we do it? It?s about the whole issue of accountability and governance.

?I would encourage people if they can to actually read the document or that theme before the meeting. I would say to people please come out because I think this is truly revolutionary for Bermuda and it?s truly the opportunity for people to make change and have input into the direction that Bermuda will go.?

Ms Smith said the need for accountability was a key theme of the sustainable development plan. ?I think it?s just part and parcel of any government that is a modern, effective government,? she said.

?In order for sustainable development to be entrenched within the workings of the Government it needs to have a civil service that is accountable to itself as well as to the public.

?That can only be achieved through clear targets, business planning and making those targets publicly known so there is another mechanism that holds us accountable.

?Certainly that system doesn?t exist or at least not to the degree that it should exist. We are not all singing to the same tune.?

Opposition Deputy Leader Michael Dunkley said he welcomed the proposal for more accountability. ?It?s something we have been talking about for the past eight years. That?s the way that taxpayers really see where their money is being spent.?

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