Leader of the Opposition Dr. Grant Gibbons has accused Works and Engineering Minister Alex Scott of trying to deflect attention over the progress of the Berkeley project by suggesting that a new Auditor General be found.

Dr. Gibbons said the Auditor General was a Civil Servant in Bermuda and so did not have a limited contract as they maybe did in other countries.

He said: "I think under the circumstances, Mr. Scott is simply raising this issue to try and distract attention from some of the performance and other issues that the Auditor General has brought out in his report."

But Mr. Scott reiterated his belief last night, as first reported in The Royal Gazette yesterday, that the position of Auditor General should become vacant at regular intervals to allow new eyes and a fresh approach to monitor Government finances.

And he is calling for the role of the present auditor to be reviewed, claiming that he has acted outside of his remit.

Mr. Scott said he believed that after a few years, an auditor begins to audit his own work and should therefore be changed.

And he said he believed there would be many more people on the Island who could qualify as Auditor General, should Bermudian Larry Dennis step down.

When asked to comment on whether or not limited contracts should be given to the Auditor General, Mr. Dennis said yesterday that it was not a matter for him.

But Mr. Dennis said it was very much dependant on the make-up of the country. He said in large countries, for example in the US, the Auditor General had a term of 15 years and was then pensioned off after that.

Dr. Gibbons also said the previous Government had been subjected to a number of audits, and the latest audit on Berkeley was not new.

He said during his tenure as Finance Minister, in 1995 there were management control systems audits of Westgate, stamp duties, social assistance programmes and housing allowance programmes.

And in 1996, he said there were special audits of the tourism department, Customs, airport operations, tax concessions, grant expenditures, overseas travelling and debt collections.

He said: "These were all special audits. It's quite normal and it's quite wrong to say that he had not in the past performed management control systems audits, because he did.

"Some of the audits were critical of the Government at the time, but I think its about fair to say that at no time did we impugn the Auditor General's integrity, even though there may have been areas in which we disagreed with his recommendations.

However, Minister Scott denied there had been reports like the Berkeley one - carried out while the capital project was still ongoing and presented to Parliament separately from the annual report.

He said the audits carried out in the past were standard audits, not special audits.

"To say he has read the newspaper and is therefore doing a special audit, that has never been done before," said Mr. Scott.

"But whether or not he did a special audit was not my point, it was the extravagance in which he chose to use language and which went outside of the audit."

And he added: "The fact that the Auditor General may remain in office until he is 70-years-old, leads me to conclude that a review is in order."

But former UBP Works and Engineering Minister Dr. Clarence Terceira said in the 80s he discovered that many of the Mr. Dennis' reports then were four years late and discovered it was because his office was understaffed and underfunded, and sometimes did not receive assistance from the Ministries.

But he said: "Larry Dennis was relentless in criticising the UBP Government whenever the facts warranted it.

"He practised this with such ardour that I was convinced he was a member of the PLP. To shoot the messenger is one of the oldest of political ploys and the recent efforts of (BIU leader) Derrick Burgess and Mr. Scott go beyond the pale.

"To include the charge that he is a racist must surely trouble Mr. Dennis' long-time friend, the present Minister of Finance (Eugene Cox)."