Former Premier Ewart Brown has lambasted the $2.2 million police expenditure investigating corruption allegations against him as “shameful”.

On Monday, The Royal Gazette revealed the seven-figure sum spent to date on the investigation, after a public access to information request to the Bermuda Police Service.

“$2.2 million is the admitted cost between 2013 and 2016. How much money and manpower can we assume was wasted between 2011 and 2013? How much more money will be wasted? Who is in charge?” Dr Brown said.

“This OBA Government is directly responsible for presiding over throwing away taxpayers’ money when crime in Bermuda is at an all-time high, when the police themselves have had their budget slashed, when our elderly need medicine, our children’s schools need repair, people need jobs and our families need help.

“At what point will the Premier, Michael Dunkley, stand up for the people of Bermuda and say that no more taxpayer money will be allocated for this senseless pursuit?”

Dr Brown also chastised the Governor, George Fergusson, for starting the investigation and for allowing it to continue.

“At what point will the Governor say to the police that enough is enough?” he said.

“If the police have not found any clearly prosecutable evidence of criminality, after investigating for more than five years, what is the point?

“They knew for sure that I was a criminal, but they cannot find a crime. They will not find a crime, because I have not committed a crime.

“It is bad enough that this money has been wasted, but it is shameful than the people in authority appear to accept no responsibility whatsoever.”

Allegations of corruption against Dr Brown, who served as leader of the Progressive Labour Party and the country from 2006 to 2010, were made under oath in the Supreme Court by disgraced financier David Bolden in June 2011.

They prompted a police inquiry, as reported by this newspaper on June 16, 2011, when Michael DeSilva, the Commissioner of Police, confirmed detectives had “commenced inquiries to determine whether any criminal offences have been committed”.

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