help Government to buy a $5 million house for the Tourism Ministry raises several questions which deserve answers.

The first is whether the Tourism Ministry requires new offices at all. In tourism's boom years, the Ministry was housed in the old Hamilton Fire Station on the corner of Court and Front Street. This was later judged to be inadequate and the Ministry moved to Global House on Church Street.

Some cynics may see an inverse relationship between the quality of the Ministry's offices and the results achieved. Since the Ministry's move to the more spacious Global House, tourism has steadily declined.

It is difficult to see how improved or larger office space will genuinely improve arrivals -- the structural problems of price and quality which are hurting tourism will not be magically solved from Pitts Bay Road rather than Church Street, and one would have thought the $5 million asking price for Cragmore on Pitts Bay Road could be better spent improving the Island's product.

It was presumably for these reasons that Mr. Deuss, whose support of the Progressive Labour Party has long been alleged, apparently went out cap in hand to the private sector.

Government has long promoted the idea of joint ventures between the public and private sectors. For the Government, having the private sector fund initiatives saves the taxpayer money and gives the public a stake in policy.

For the private sector, and especially for successful exempted companies, it is a way of giving something back to the community; less altruistically, anything which improves Bermuda's economic and social stability makes Bermuda a better place to do business.

Several international companies have made major contributions along these lines: XL Capital funded a computer education initiative for public schools and RenaissanceRe has provided the seed money for a massive study on alternative sentencing. Both companies have rightly been praised for their efforts.

It could be argued that Mr. Deuss's initiative fits into this category. The taxpayer saves money and the private sector is doing something -- although it is debatable how much -- to help a vital economic pillar.

But there are other questions: PLP maverick Rolfe Commissiong has questioned the morality of a primarily black and liberal party getting help from a man who admitted busting sanctions against apartheid South Africa. That is a legitimate question which deserves an answer.

For some reason, the Government has opted for a course of denial on this story. First Tourism Minister David Allen denied reports that Government had looked at this property, but admitted Government was looking for a new tourism headquarters.

When it later emerged that Mr. Deuss, and Ernst & Young partner Jan Spiering, had written to business leaders seeking financial support and Shadow Tourism Minister David Dodwell raised the issue in the House of Assembly, Premier Jennifer Smith cut short debate, thus raising more questions than answers about this whole episode. If all of this is straightforward and above board, then why not come out and say so? The Opposition has rightly stated that only the incurably naive could believe that Mr. Deuss would proceed with his letter writing without the knowledge of Government. There are serious questions to be answered and Government has been less forthcoming in making them clear. That is not good enough.