MP Charlie Swan has called on Public Works Minister and Deputy Premier Derrick Burgess to resign over the Global House lights scandal.That’s a heavy demand and not one that should be made lightly. The Minister concerned should either have been dishonest or have committed a major error in judgment.So where does Mr Burgess stand? Do his statements bear scrutiny?In his statement on Monday night, Government said: “Minister Burgess has made clear also that at the time that the installation of the LED lighting in Global House commenced in May 2009, he had not seen his technical officers’ report setting out concerns about the LED lighting. The technical officers’ report is dated April 2010.”The report is indeed dated April 2010. But most of the concerns raised predated the issue of the 2009 contract. Is Mr Burgess saying he did not see or was not made aware of these concerns before he decided to give the sole tender to ETM, the company that was contracted to install the flawed LED lights?The report said: “The Electrical Section, after studying what had been proposed, issued correspondence detailing concerns with respect to the LED lighting and indicating that it would be difficult to support a total retrofit from Fluorescent to LED lighting.”Was Mr Burgess unaware of this correspondence?The report added: “In addition, a demonstration of the LED lighting was set up in an office located in the engineering department. Light levels were recorded and compared with a similar office equipped with T8 fluorescent lamps and found to be significantly less. All those who visited this office expressed concern about the low level and type of light (intense bluish white), the cave effect whereby vertical wall surfaces are poorly illuminated, glare and other factors, which had been previously pointed out.”All of this occurred before the contract was issued to ETM, and it has to be assumed that either Mr Burgess saw these findings and was aware of the recommendations, or he was badly let down by his senior civil servants.That’s because, despite the very clear recommendation of the civil servants, the report then says: “In the spring of 2009, a decision was made to proceed.”Immediately afterwards, complaints were received from civil servants in the building. A few of the lights were changed, but most remained in use.Even if Mr Burgess was somehow unaware of the recommendation not to proceed in 2009, he was still Minister in 2010 when the report was submitted.Despite the clear statement in the report that the lights were “a contravention of the Bermuda Occupational Health and Safety Regulations as well as the Bermuda Building Code” and that the project should be investigated by the Department of Planning, almost all of the lights remained in place and no investigation took place.Nor has there been any further explanation for the sole sourcing of the tender.A Government statement said: “It was determined that this work should be expedited. Consequently, the services were sole-sourced: only ETM was invited to provide a cost for these services.”But this makes no sense. There was no urgency about this project. Just the opposite: If, as the statement says, it was intended as a pilot project for all Government buildings, then more time should have been taken to ensure the Works Ministry had got it right.And in fact, it seems the Ministry’s technical officers did approach it in a measured way, asking for substantial analysis and carrying out their own tests. The full analysis was never received and the Ministry’s own tests showed the proposal was flawed.For a pilot project, a full tender should have been the only option. Because this was new ground, all prices and approaches should have been canvassed since Government could not know all the options available.Instead, “the decision was taken” to sole source it. Only Mr Burgess could take that decision.Ministers have discretion to overrule their technical officers and can take other factors into account which may override technical concerns. But when they do, they need to be right.And in this case, Mr Burgess was wrong. This has been proven by the decision to replace all the lighting. He was wrong to overrule his technical officers and he was wrong to sole source the project.As a result, civil servants have had to work in substandard conditions for more than two years. That cannot be acceptable behaviour. Mr Swan is right. Mr Burgess should resign.