"When it is dark enough, you can see the stars." – Persian proverb from the book Three Cups of Tea.

Things, Mr. Editor, are looking pretty dim, grim even, when it comes to the state of the country's finances. The most recent Report from the Office of the Auditor General makes this much clear. It illuminates too, not just the need for reform – what an understatement in light of what he uncovers – but for serious overhaul.

Legislative oversight and scrutiny need to be stepped up like never before, to develop a more effective system of checks and balances (pun intended as well) that stands a better chance of reining in some of the many sad, sorry and tragic (for the country) excesses catalogued in the Report.

Here is a short list of some of the immediate steps which should be taken. They are not new; in fact, they have been around for some time. What is required is the political will to make them happen.

The Legislature itself needs to be strengthened and its independence enhanced. The House on the Hill has got to exert greater budgetary control over Government. Backbenchers from all parties need to be put to work in a more effective committee system which demands, and makes routine, parliamentary oversight over the Executive (Cabinet and Ministers) to get a stronger grip on how taxpayers' money is being spent.

Top of the list is the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) which should be meeting publicly, and much more often than it does, when taking into account the entire litany of loose spending detailed in the Report.

PAC already has some of the necessary legislative powers needed to get on with the job – to summon witnesses and to subpoena documents – and the committee should begin to exercise its muscle by calling people to account, whether civil servants or Ministers or both, and not always after the Auditor General has reported but during ongoing contracts with the assistance of the Auditor General.

The Office of the Auditor General also needs to be strengthened. This most recent report is for the financial year 2007/2008. We need to be far more current than this, particularly given the number of special investigations the Office is taking on these days. Ironically, as the Auditor General himself points out, the PLP won the Government in 1998 on the strength of a platform which promised greater legislative safeguards to protect the independence of the Office. They have not delivered; just the opposite.

Parliamentary questions need to also become the order of the day on the Hill: a contemporary and robust Question Period a centrepiece. This is how Ministers are held accountable in other modern jurisdictions. There should be no opportunity to duck or dodge critical questions aimed at eliciting factual information on what Government is doing and why.

Bermuda, taxpayers, definitely deserve not just to know what is going on, they are entitled to know, and to this end they need a more watchful legislative eye.

The case for change is there in black and white for all to read in the latest Report – and it should be required reading for all voters. Even as an Opposition member, I could not have made this up if I tried.

For those who haven't yet had a chance to read a copy, let me share some of the high points – or should that be low? – in the first 30 pages of a 200-plus page Report:

¦ At January 31, 2009, only nine of Government's 37 entities had issued audited financial statements for the year ended March, 2008, down one from the year before. The Auditor highlighted ten of most concern, topped by the National Drug Commission (NDC), the Board of Trustees of the Golf Courses, Government Employees Health Insurance Fund and the Health Insurance Fund.

¦ The total expenditure for which Government has not been accountable now totals almost $890 million, up from $485 million the year before.

¦ Of 30 completed audits during the year ended January 2009, 16 received qualified or denied audit opinions. How serious is this?

Serious: "It is extremely rare for an entity in the private sector to receive a denied audit opinion. Denials … are considered so serious they would likely provoke an extensive management shake-up and urgent action to rectify the problem.

Yet some Bermuda Government entities have received denials for several consecutive years with no apparent consequences for the entity, or its financial or other senior management."

¦ During the audit process over the past few years, the Auditor General's Office has been "detecting suggestions of ministerial interference on the operating and administration processes of Government" and acquiescence on the part of civil servants who should be standing up to it, but are not.

¦ The absence of any mechanism like whistleblower legislation to protect civil servants, some of whom complain that they cannot report what they regard as "questionable activities" for fear they will endanger their jobs and livelihood. "This perpetuates an environment where fraud can persist and flourish."

¦ Outstanding tax and pension arrears which have more than doubled in eight years from $24.8 million in 2000 to $51.1 million in 2008.

¦ Numerous instances where contract tendering requirements were ignored or circumvented: "The lack of a transparent open tendering process has now reached such proportion that in my opinion it has affected the integrity of the financial statements."

¦ A creeping, questionable practice of entering confidentiality agreements with a view to shutting out examination of the expenditure of public funds. "I have difficulty understanding the appropriateness of any limitations on the disclosure of expenditure of public funds.

In my mind, confidentiality and spending funds are two concepts that simply do not go together."

¦ The allegations of fraud and the call for police investigations into Faith Based Tourism and questionable expenditures by the NDC.

¦ His claim that 70 recommendations for improved governance dating back to 1992 remain unaddressed.

This, Mr. Editor, is not a pretty picture. This is not time to shut up and it is time to put up.

I end with another quote from Three Cups of Tea: "Trust in Allah yes, but tie up your camel." We are nowhere near over the hump.

Something to say? Write jbarritt@ibl.bm