An opposition senator has called on the Bermudian public to assess whether their interests were properly served in a string of multimillion-dollar payments and legislative moves by the Government that he said “frankly make no sense to me”.

Remarks by Douglas De Couto, the Shadow Minister of Finance and Economic Development, prompted rebuttals from the government side during the motion to adjourn in the Upper House yesterday.

After the Senate approved legislation aimed at cutting healthcare costs, Dr De Couto highlighted $1.2 million in payments to Ewart Brown, the former premier, at the direction of David Burt, to offset losses to Dr Brown’s medical practices after the One Bermuda Alliance government cut diagnostic imaging fees.

Noting that “the Premier instructed civil servants to make a grant” to Dr Brown, Dr De Couto said the public should consider whether their interests were “truly looked out for”.

He went on to list an $800,000 loan approved in 2018 by the Cabinet to Savvy Entertainment, with the money now “gone”.

The Royal Gazette reported in 2020 that promoter Anthony Blakey was being sought in the United States as part of a criminal complaint to recover the funds.

Dr De Couto next cited a company owned by the Premier’s fintech adviser reaping $3.6 million in payments between 2020 and 2022 through “a no-bid contract in violation of government procurement rules and laws”.

He added: “We know that for fiscal years 2023 through 2025, $480,000 or, as I like to say, nearly half a million in consulting fees were granted to the wife of a different fintech adviser to chaperon cabinet ministers around Dubai.”

In 2023, Dr De Couto raised questions in the Senate regarding payments to Alexia Hefti, a lawyer taken on by the Government to advance the island’s economic opportunities in the Middle East.

Speaking this morning, he was ordered to retract a reference to the Premier “directing” the transport minister to implement taxi ridesharing in light of Mr Burt’s involvement with a digital taxi-dispatching service.

Owen Darrell, the Senate Leader, said Dr De Couto was impugning improper motives, and that the Premier had “not directed the Minister of Transport to do anything of the like”.

Dr De Couto rolled back his comments under orders from Joan Dillas-Wright, the Senate President.

However, he said it was a “factual statement” that Mr Burt told MPs in the House of Assembly in May 2023, referring to poor taxi service late at night: “What I have told the Minister of Transport is very simple. If the taxis won’t pick them up, then we need to make it available for others to do so.”

Dr De Couto added: “I would urge the listening public to make their own determination on how a minister, when spoken to by the Premier, might interpret that.”

He met further objections from Mr Darrell over $3.2 million paid to bring solar power to the National Sports Centre, claiming the project was “still not complete”.

Mr Darrell called the remarks “factually wrong”, saying he had already spoken about the project being partially finished.

“This line is whatever he is going down is inappropriate.”

Dr De Couto agreed to curtail his comment from “this project is still not completed to the project is not fully completed”.

“I have added it up. That’s $9.3 million of direct spending by the Government.

“Now we have another $16 million spent on the gaming commission, with no gaming. Is that in the interests of the general public?”

Dr De Couto then turned to legislation passed in March that allows “Government to borrow money put in the Sinking Fund and then spend it without any accountability to the legislature or the people through the budgeting process”.

He added: “All these actions frankly make no sense to me.”

Arianna Hodgson, a government senator, said she was “disappointed with senator De Couto’s remarks, only because I do not want people to think that this government cannot manage money”.

“Every government that there is could be accused of diverting money one way when it should have been another.”

Ms Hodgson defended the Progressive Labour Party administration’s accountability and fiscal responsibility in its handling of the public purse.

“I can remember when the OBA was in government and all I have to do is say the word ‘Jetgate’ and we can go down that path.”

That reference, to former premier Craig Cannonier stepping down in 2014 over political turmoil regarding his meeting with a wealthy US developer in 2012, was also taken up by Mr Darrell, who lamented Dr De Couto’s “grandstanding”.

Mr Darrell spoke after Robin Tucker, the Opposition Senate Leader, told the Upper House that Dr De Couto had stated facts that were on record, rather than making allegations.

Mr Darrell told the Senate there had been “no wrongdoing in some of the matters that were brought up earlier”.

He added: “There’s only one political party in this country’s history that has had a leader step down in disgrace, and that directly comes from financial interests, and whatever happened in their back room as a reason why that party forced him to step down”.

Mr Darrell criticised Dr De Couto’s comments as an effort to “throw smoke, mirrors and innuendo”.

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