Works and Engineering Minister Alex Scott’s revelations that an officer in the Works Ministry had been harassed and “stalked” by an approved candidate of the United Bermuda Party over the Berkeley project seem at first glance to have sprung from a bad political novel.

But they are serious allegations and should be completely investigated. The wrong-doers, whoever they are, should be dealt with fully.

Mr. Scott told the House of Assembly last Friday that the unnamed officer had been approached by the unnamed candidate, now thought to be construction company executive Roger Russell, and told that the Police were going to “raid” the Ministry for documents relating to the Berkeley project and that this officer would be made the fall guy.

The unnamed officer could avoid this if he turned over certain unidentified documents to the candidate, thus pre-empting the efforts to make him the fall guy. Having blown the whistle, the unnamed officer in Works would be “looked after” by unnamed powers within the United Bermuda Party. Not only did the unnamed candidate approach the unnamed officer, he also approached his wife, or according to Mr. Scott, “stalked her”, scaring her half to death.

Nonetheless, Mr. Scott said, the Works officer would not be intimidated, and rather than do as the candidate wanted, he instead went to his superiors, thus preventing the “new school project and the Government” from being “compromised, if not destabilised”.

If a member of the Opposition was attempting to threaten and blackmail a civil servant into handing over documents then that is quite wrong. Mr. Scott is right to bring the matter to the attention of the House and the authorities, although what criminal charges might be brought on the basis of Mr. Scott’s description is far from clear.

Mr. Scott must have been relieved to have some muck that he could throw across the House at the Opposition land on his desk in time for the resumption of the House. It is a shame that the Government has not been as forthcoming over the Housing Corporation as it has been in this case. Nonetheless, there are some questions about this matter that remain unanswered and any investigation, whether it is carried out by the Attorney General’s chambers, the Director of Public Prosecutions or the Auditor General, must deal with them. It should not be noted that this is not an investigation that the now political Attorney General’s chambers should carry out since any findings would be seen as less than independent.

The first question to be answered is who are these nameless people? The officer concerned has no need for protection, since he is, according to Mr. Scott, blameless. He should be named and praised. And if Mr. Russell is the nameless candidate, Mr. Scott should say so instead of tarring all candidates with the same brush. The greater mystery, as Opposition Leader Grant Gibbons has pointed out, concerns the mysterious documents which Mr. Scott says would have caused the new school project, and the Government, “to be destabilised and compromised”.

How? What do they contain that is so damaging? If the documents do point to problems within the Berkeley project, then the public has the right to know what they are — and soon. Indeed, the mystery documents pose a Catch-22 for Mr. Scott. If they show there are no problems at the Berkeley site, as Mr. Scott has claimed and still claims, then the Government and the mysterious officer in the Works Ministry had nothing to fear from them being made public by the UBP. If on the other hand, they show there are problems at the Berkeley site which would destabilise the project and the Government, then surely Mr. Scott should be as concerned about these problems as he is about the mysterious threats against the mysterious Works official. Instead Mr. Scott is claiming that all is well at the site. Either they are damaging or they are not. The Minister cannot have it both ways.

In the end, Mr. Scott should, as Works Minister, be completely transparent when it comes to progress in the Berkeley site. He has not been, refusing to release work-in-progress schedules and the like. And like it or not, there are any number of rumours flying around that the project is in trouble, which the vague assurances that Mr. Scott and contractor Pro-Active Construction have issued have done little to assuage.

This latest contretemps, while serious, has done more to muddy the waters than anything else. Mr. Scott has more explaining to do.