Senator's complaints draw attention to Gov't's errors

Last week Senator Bean sent a letter to the Bermuda Sun about several “major factual errors” in a column I wrote on June 11.

The first of these, he said, was that my statement that taxi drivers “had their dispatching company shut down” was not true.

He then goes on to admit that “one company did cease operations“.

My phrasing could have been interpreted that all dispatching was shut down.

The point was that the industry was dealt a blow, essentially in retaliation for not bowing to the Minister’s wishes.

Spin

As the point is about a loss of service, there’s no difference between a dispatching company being “shut down” and “ceasing operations”.

All the rest of the spin in Senator Bean’s letter about the reason it was shut down and that Bermuda was never without a dispatching service was just that, spin. My statement holds and I stand by it.

The second factual error he pointed to was my statement about the closure of the New York tourism office.

You may have got me there, Senator Bean.

I was challenging the advertising of Bermuda’s tourism product. What I should have written was: “Advertising. As for the administration and promotion of tourism, the closing of tourism offices in Toronto, Boston, Atlanta and Chicago, the so-called ‘restructuring’ of the New York office and the opening and operation of tourism offices in Washington D.C. and London are still shrouded in mystery and of questionable advantage.”

The fact is, whether the New York office was closed or “restructured”, the circumstances are still obscured by secrecy and intrigue.

Senator Bean’s third dart was thrown at my reference to Global Hue’s “no bid contract”. How exquisitely poignant that in the same issue of the Bermuda Sun, Auditor General Heather Matthews exposes that “the Tourism Department did not go through an ‘open tendering’ process when it first recruited GlobalHue, instead putting out an RFP to selected firms”.

Contract

She added that in the renewal of the Global Hue contract: “Government had bypassed its Financial Instructions by not soliciting at least two other bids.”

I expect Senator Bean was dispatched in an attempt to throw people off the scent by picking at what he termed “three major factual errors”, which are now reduced to one at best. All he has really done is draw attention to the dozen or more truths that should have been the focus of his attention.

Seriously, merely pointing out errors does not absolve Government Ministers of the responsibility to address the truths.

For example, the business and sunny disposition of many taxi drivers has been ruined. They have been:

• irritated by derogatory comments;
• frustrated and financially challenged by the mandatory GPS policy;
• prejudiced against by unfair competition from limousines, trolleys and Government’s own buses and minibuses.

All this is in addition to a dispatching company “ceasing operations”. One point I was making was how the devil does anyone in Government expect taxi drivers to continue being front-line goodwill ambassadors for Bermuda when they are getting such a shafting from their very own Tourism Minister?

The other key point was that all of this turmoil in the tourism industry has a negative effect on the success of tourism and all of it has one common reference point — the policies and practices of Premier and Tourism and Transport Minister Dr. Ewart Brown.

Threats

The loss of our historic cordiality, our hostile and congested traffic, the threats to our environmental and social wellbeing from overcrowding and the hatcheted promotion of our island were the meaty points of my column.

Tourism’s Junior Minister Senator Bean has chosen so far not to address these points, deciding instead to focus on dubious errors.

It’s this kind of piecemeal, reactionary stance to issues that has helped bring Bermuda to its knees.

For Bermuda to regain its stature we will need enlightened leadership, not misguided nit-picking.

I invite the Senator and other elected/appointed leaders to stop looking for excuses to not answer questions, to not deal with pertinent issues and to not stick to the point.

It is not too late to begin the rise to statesmanship.