POLITICAL activist Raymond Russell has issued a fresh broadside against Government - accusing Finance Minister Paula Cox of "sitting back and hiding".

The Progressive Labour Party worker and Bermuda Industrial Union (BIU) stalwart urged other members of the Cabinet to speak out against the direction the island was taking - and also launched a broadside at the BIU for failing to look after its members.

Mr. Russell spoke out after recently making inquiries into the financial operations of the BIU Members Credit Union - set up to help union members save cash and provide them with low-interest rate loans.

He told the Mid-Ocean News he first became concerned about the organisation after it provided an illegal $3 million loan to Union Asset Holdings, a subsidiary of the BIU. Rather than take action, Ms Cox, made legislative changes to place credit unions under the authority of the Bermuda Monetary Authority. Mr. Russell maintains that Ms Cox, who is also Deputy Premier, "washed her hands" of the affair - and that the BMA has taken no action against the Credit Union since.

The Credit Union has not filed audited accounts since 2005, while the BIU is five years behind in its annual audits. Despite assurances from both organisations, Mr. Russell believes the $3 million loan has not been paid back to the Credit Union. He has also questioned why the BMA has not imposed a $250-a-day fine on the Credit Union for late filing of financial statements.

"When Ms Cox gave the BMA the authority to look into this, they still didn't do anything, so as far as I'm concerned the Minister did something unethical by allowing BIU Union Asset Holdings to steal our money which is basically what they did," Mr. Russell said.

"She said that she was going to give the BMA the authority to look into the situation but they just haven't taken any action. She basically washed her hands of it.

"How can she acknowledge that something is illegal and then deal with it by changing the rules so that it becomes the BMA's problem?

"Ultimately it's the Finance Minister's responsibility."

Mr. Russell argued that if Ms Cox and her Cabinet colleagues disagreed with any of Premier Ewart Brown actions - as some PLP insiders claim - they should speak out rather than put up a united front.

"Ms Cox has to tell the people of Bermuda whether or not she agrees with some of the things that the Premier is doing," Mr. Russell said.

"It's time for the Finance Minister to stand up because I'm really disgusted. She's also the Deputy Premier - she can't just sit back and hide. She has got to show integrity and character. I want her to answer these questions because this is ridiculous. You can't have a country being run like like this, with large amounts of money going left, right and centre. She has to tell the country. In any other country she wouldn't be the Finance Minister.

"She had nothing to say when Neletha Butterfield - an outstanding Minister - was removed from Cabinet, which says a lot about her. No, I'm not fussy about having Ms Cox as the Premier of this country after she allowed Union Assets Holdings to take our money and then changed the rules to justify it - to make it just. I'm very sceptical of her.

"I'm not talking about her intelligence or ability to negotiate, I'm talking about this country. There are people in need in this country and Government should be taking care of them.

"But part of the problem is, the PLP leadership is not made up of labour people - they just joined the party as a way of getting into Parliament. I would say 95 per cent are not labour-minded and so their thinking is not on a par with those of us who need help.

"Any Government would be mindful of our seniors who are getting a raw deal. It's the same people who run the credit union. They just take advantage of the poor and the uneducated and if we're not careful we're going to lose the country if these people are allowed to continue. The Finance Minister is just not doing the job that she's supposed to do which is provide protection to those that need protecting.

"People are attacking Premier Brown but there are eight other people in the Cabinet. As long as we continue to say 'Brown, Brown' we forget that there's a Cabinet - but he's got a Cabinet which is allowing it to happen - one vote shouldn't beat eight.

"This country is heading in the wrong direction - violence and drugs - and there's a lot of us who are out of the economic frame of this country. We have to say 'wait a minute, who are these Cabinet Ministers?' People are suffering in silence because they have no spokesman - their spokesman is meant to be the BIU but right now I would say 55 percent of workers are worse off than 30 years ago and yet the union bosses are parking their big cars on a piece of property that they could sell to build a housing project for the union members, giving them some relief from high rents.

"We have a Government that, as far as I am concerned, is heading for its last term because of its treatment and behaviour towards the people. My message to Paula Cox is that, as Finance Minister, it is her duty to let the country know if she's in favour of all the money being spent by the Premier.

"She's very low key on everything that's gone wrong. Paula could speak out - she has a big job in an international company, so what neck is she putting on the line?

"She can't have her cake and eat it too. Why should the rest of the people make sacrifices and not her?"

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