Health Minister Patrice Minors has insisted that there are valid reasons for concern over the governance of the government-funded Work Inc programme for the rehabilitation of former prisoners.

"This Ministry funds many organisations and I wish to advise the general public that we take accountability and the proper use of public money extremely seriously," she said yesterday.

"I intend to discharge my responsibilities as Minister fairly and in the best interests of all of the people of Bermuda."

And she refused to apologise for raising questions about the organisation as demanded by Executive Director Shaun Crockwell.

The Minister's concerns centre around the fact that a private business was being run on premises allocated to Work Inc.

Mrs. Minors acknowledged that she had concerns in an interview with ZBM television this week. Mr. Crockwell went on the offensive and challenged the Minister to either substantiate her concerns or apologise.

Yesterday Mrs. Minors defended her stance and said that the broadcast media reports had been "unfair" and that her Ministry would continue to take every step to ensure that public funds were used properly.

"An apology has been demanded of me and I'm afraid I cannot oblige," she said. "The awesome responsibility borne by a Minister of Government includes being prudent and effective stewards of the public purse. The money spoken of so flippantly by others is not my personal money nor is it that of Work Inc.

"This is the peoples' hard earned money and I cannot apologise for sensitively guarding every cent."

The Minister explained that at a meeting in mid August, she had told Work Inc chairman Charles Vaucrosson of her concerns that a "separate and unrelated" business was being run out of Work Inc premises, and asked him to satisfy the Ministry that there was no commingling of funds and that public money was not being used to finance a private business.

"This Mr. Vaucrosson agreed to do and was to hold a special Board meeting for this purpose. Mr. Vaucrosson then found out what I knew, that a separate business was being run as I stated and that there appeared to have been some miscommunication within the Board," the Minister said.

Mr. Vaucrosson had expressed his "shock" at the circumstances in a letter to the Minister soon after, she said.

He "chastised the members of the Board involved and ordered the activities to cease immediately."

Mr. Vaucrosson had asked for another meeting with the Minister to discuss "this and other outstanding issues" but did not respond to her request for a written account of what those issues were.

She did not specify what business was being run out of Work Inc premises, but The Royal Gazette has been informed that a company called Island Ice had operated out of premises earmarked for Work Inc at Southside.

No one from Work Inc could be contacted by press time last night. The charity, which provides vocational training and other services to former prisoners, was allocated a $125,000 grant from the Health Ministry's 2002/03 budget.