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The Bermuda government has abandoned its claim to at least $6.9 million from a performance bond or insurance policy owed the public purse by Union Assets Holding, Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of the BIU. With interest, the public's loss is more like fifteen million dollars. In exchange for not pursuing payment through the courts, the Union agreed (almost) to give 48 to 72 hours notice before walking off the job. Now the government is patting itself on the back. What a farce.

It's easy to speculate that the key reason for not pursuing court action is that court cases lay open lots of information that otherwise doesn't see the light of day (barring an inquiry, of course).

As examples, a Court case:

• Could prove embarrassing for those members of the leadership of the BIU and the PLP who have made contradictory statements such as 'the Union has assets that would easily cover the performance bond if it was called' vs. 'the Union would be destroyed if it had to pay up';

• Might divulge exactly who or what are Union Assets Management (UAM) and Union Assets Holdings (UAH);

• Could expose where the $700,000 bond payment (that was handed by the government to the contractor, and for which no receipt could be found) actually went;

• Might disclose how a bond could be issued on a date eleven days before the company that issued it was formed;

• Could reveal whether and where materials intended for the jobsite were spirited away.

The list of faux pas in managing Berkeley Institute construction is very long. In short, however, the government subverted the established tendering process; dissed the advice of its own technical officers; fixed the contract; duped the public; sandbagged the union; sullied the school's good name; made a patsy out of interim Works Minister DeVent; raided the public purse; attempted to intimidate, discredit and muzzle the Auditor General - the people's watchdog; really fudged up its attempt at "black empowerment"; and has had a hand in corrupting the morals and poisoning the image of an entire union.

Lame excuses

And don't hand us that "well the UBP did it". Is that going to be all the PLP has left of a claim to fame, that "when the UBP was in power, we railed against their crookedness; now that we're in power, we're doing it better than they ever did"?

It appears that our government has been usurped by charlatans; it would seem that anyone with a shred of decency is being booted out, and even they are lacking stiffness in the backbone.

And if that's the only way for a party to stay in power, by out-deceiving or out-cheating the opposition, then the U.K., which imposed this system, has a lot to answer for. It's bad enough that for centuries England's monarchs and nobles looted its riches. Why saddle us with a system that enables and even rewards the commoners looting each other?

How long is it going to take the U.K. government to acknowledge that it has a corrupt mess on its hands here in Bermuda?

Virtually every week there's another example that the safeguards of the system it put in place have broken down, that the lawful and orderly conduct of governance has been breached, that the villains are getting more brazen at plundering the public purse. Are they going to wait, as they did in the Turks and Caicos, until our previously platinum fiscal reputation is too rusted to repair? Are they again going to wait until it's too late to salvage anything - our reputation, our treasury, our very island?

Or maybe it's time for us habitually placid islanders to rise up.[[In-content Ad]]

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