A financial controller is to be installed at troubled Bermuda College — three years after the previous holder of the post was made redundant after raising concerns about credit card spending.

Government Senator Kim Wilson said this week that the position was being reintroduced on April 1 following a highly critical report from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) into financial practices at the college — including the payment of perks for president Charles Green from public funds.

The last financial controller was Jane Smith who was offered a redundancy package in 2004 after 24 years at the college. She claimed at the time that she lost her job because she questioned credit card charges made by former president Michael Orenduff and vice-president Larita Alford.

Ms Smith was placed on administrative leave after management claimed she followed the wrong procedures. When she returned she was offered a redundancy package by the college which she accepted. The college said she was offered the deal after repeated instances of “professional misconduct” following her unsuccessful bid for the more senior post of chief financial and operations officer (CFOO).

The college’s current CFOO Lloyd Christopher was heavily criticised in the PAC report, which said he was unable to prioritise and complete important tasks and that his inability to do his job led to “compromised standards of fiscal responsibility”.

Nalton Brangman, who was sacked as chairman of the college’s board of governors last year, said the post of financial controller was axed as part of a cost cutting exercise.

He said: “The last person to hold the post was Jane Smith and the argument then was that with declining numbers of students there was a need for cost cutting.

“I don’t think it should have happened in the first place and I’m disturbed that it’s being reintroduced.”

Former Opposition Leader Grant Gibbons said the key to improving financial controls at the college was for its board to implement a proper set of financial rules as recommended by the PAC or to ensure it abided by Government’s Financial Instructions.

“It’s not just sufficient to add another body,” he said. “You have got to have procedures that you are adhering to.”

Sen. Wilson revealed on Wednesday in the Senate that numbers are declining at the college. She said there were now 327 full-time students, 364 part-time students and 323 in professional or career education. The total of 1,014 is down on last November, when the college’s enrolment was 1,130. In November 2005 it was 1,226. The college’s budget increased this year from $17.2 million to $18.1 million.

Sen. Wilson told fellow Senators that enrolment for technical education was down at the college because of the National Training Board (NTB) choosing to send apprentices abroad rather than to study locally. She added that the NTB and college were now “working together”.

Mr. Brangman, who is also a former chairman of the NTB, said: “The only reason the students are being sent abroad is because the college has failed to implement the programmes. If the NTB is sending more students overseas, what’s wrong with the picture?”

Dr. Gibbons said the introduction of proper technical programmes and trained instructors at the college would increase student numbers.

“The NTB is sending fewer and fewer students up to the college,” he said. “There clearly needs to be a review of how the college is carrying out its mission for the taxpayer and for the students and parents.”

Neither the college nor its board chairman Larry Mussenden responded to requests for comment yesterday on the reintroduction of a financial controller or declining student numbers.