January 18, 2003

WOULD somebody please inform Alvin Williams that two negatives - or any multiple thereof - do not make a positive. His continuing efforts to defend his attacks on the integrity of the Auditor General's Office only serve to make both Mr. Williams and your newspaper look ridiculous, not Larry Dennis.

I'd considered writing a point-by-point rebuttal of Mr. Williams' latest claims regarding both the role and constitutional mandate of the Auditor-General (Mid-Ocean News, January 17). But clearly your columnist holds beliefs (fantasies?) that cannot be dislodged by mere factual refutation.

So I'll just take a trio of representative for-instances.

First, Mr. Williams seems to be blissfully ignorant of the fact that under the Bermuda Constitution the office of the Auditor General is responsible to the Governor, not the Government of the day. He is a Crown Officer, not a civil servant.

It is Mr. Dennis' duty to report any irregularities or suspicions of malfeasance to Government House, not the Cabinet Office. This is not the moral equivalent of a school student running to the headmaster's office to tell tales on a classmate to the headmaster, as Mr. Williams thinks. It's part and parcel of the Auditor General's job description.

The situation is exactly the same in all Commonwealth countriesa, a deliberate attempt to ensure those elected officials who spend public money do so responsibly because they are answerable to another, independent body which audits the public books.

It is part of the system of constitutional checks and balances designed to ensure that the government of the day does not succumb to power mania or corruption. It's called accountability, Mr. Williams, surely not that obscure a concept although it does seem to have gone AWOL in Bermuda of late.

Similarly, if Mr. Williams thinks that the Bermuda Institute of Chartered Accountants, which has spoken out in defence of the Auditor General's professionalism, is just "some anonymous group of accountants" with neither the expertise nor the right to make valid commentary on the integrity of public finances, so be it.

Finally, Mr. Williams' caustic comments regarding the Association for Due Process & the Constitution underscores precisely why such a watchdog organisation is necessary. Presumably after having ripped out the pages of the Bermuda Constitution regarding the electoral system without the public's consent by way of a referendum, a precedent has been set which will allow the PLP to remove those sections which cover the remit of the Auditor General - a course of action the Works Minister is already on record as supporting.

REALIST

City of Hamilton