Your tax dollars - gone up in smoke

It might have been the worst kept secret in Bermuda but the full extent of the wastefulness, poor leadership and inefficiency of the public sector is now sinking in.

If the SAGE report is to be believed, bloated departments and perks, duplicated work and abuses of the system have cost you — the taxpayer — millions.

The report lays bare a grim reality facing the island in the wake of four straight years of decline and calls for ‘difficult and painful’ decisions to be made.

The fear among staff and their unions is that this will mean job cuts, and observers say the OBA faces a choice between breaking a promise not to shed jobs and ignoring SAGE’s recommendations.  

Chairman Brian Duperreault says SAGE members were “shaken by the magnitude of the financial challenge... Bermuda is labouring under a cost of Government that continues to increase an already substantial debt and threatens to destabilize the financial foundation of the country.”