Dear Sir,

I noted from your article today (June 27) that the Commission of Inquiry held its first public meeting at St Theresa’s Church Hall. I presume there must be some cost to the use of third-party venues for these types of official meetings — even if minor.

In a financial resource-constrained environment, I cannot help but wonder how it is that with hundreds of publicly owned buildings in Bermuda, the Government could not provide a room for the commission to use for an hour — especially now that schools are out for the summer — and instead had to contract for the use of a privately owned facility.

The Government may be well advised to learn the axiom “take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves”.

If that lesson had been learnt some time ago, perhaps we would not have need for this Commission of Inquiry and the extra expense it represents, nor the billions of dollars in public debt that is crippling the country and its citizens, who will have to shoulder that debt burden for generations to come.

JASON BENEVIDES