Shadow Tourism Minister Wayne Furbert has labelled as a “scam” Government’s claims that the Tourism Authority will be independent from politicians.Government tabled the bill creating the new body in the House of Assembly on Friday but a comparison with the Tourism Board Act 2012 shows that the role of the Minister in appointing the governors of the Authority will be almost unchanged.Mr Furbert noted that the Minister would have a hand in all appointments of the governing board of the Tourism Authority, according to the provisions of the bill.The Minister is to appoint the chairman, determine all the fees of the board members and must be consulted by the board before it elects any new member.The bill also provides that in the event of death, incapacity, resignation or termination of a member, the board must appoint a replacement from a list of candidates nominated by either the Minister or the chairman.“There’s nothing independent about that,” said Mr Furbert.Tourism Authority chairman-designate David Dodwell was an early advocate of a Tourism Authority when he was Tourism Minister in the United Bermuda Party government. He was appointed a member of the Tourism Board by Mr Furbert last year.Mr Furbert said: “David could have advised the Minister that the Tourism Act we had in place was sufficient and was enabling the Minister to do what he wanted to do — with some minor changes — instead of spending all this time — nine months and hundreds of thousands of dollars to cover the same thing.“I think the Minister probably thought that the structure would be different from what we laid down last year,” Mr Furbert said.“If he didn’t think the structure would be different then there’s a lot of questions about why the Minister would spend the money on what he did.”He said had the PLP won the election a transition plan, under which the Department staff would have been transferred to the Board, would have been implemented.“In 2012, the PLP moved in that direction but didn’t call it a Tourism Authority. We called it a Tourism Board.“To tell the country that it would be totally different from what we had is wrong.It was a waste of time and it was a waste of money.”He said: “The country should call for another election. They misled this country and painted the PLP as a party that didn’t know anything about tourism. And now they are doing the same thing we did. There’s no difference besides the name.”Mr Furbert piloted the Tourism Board Act 2012 through Parliament last year when he was Tourism Minister and has always maintained that his board had a strong degree of autonomy and was effectively a Tourism Authority in all but name.A transition plan to flesh out the new board was to have begun before the Progressive Labour Party lost the election in December last year.Mr Furbert’s Tourism Board Act, which will be repealed by the new bill, also provides for the Minister to appoint the chairman, but differs from the new bill in that the board is composed of eight members appointed by the Minister, five by the Bermuda Hotel Association, the executive officer of the Bermuda Chamber of Commerce, and the president of the Bermuda Industrial Union.While Mr Furbert’s ire is focused on the Minister’s role in determining the composition of the Authority’s governors, his board could not exercise certain powers without the Minister’s approval.Those powers include the power to make land or property deals, acquire stocks or shares in tourism enterprises, and enter joint ventures.It also needs approval of both the Tourism and Finance Ministers to borrow money.And Mr Furbert’s board needs the Tourism Minister’s approval to invest in businesses promoting Bermuda tourism, enter into joint ventures and manage tourism enterprises.Tourism Minister Shawn Crockwell’s Tourism Authority would need the Finance Minister’s approval to borrow money.And Mr Crockwell wants to reserve to the Minister the power to approve any loans made by the Authority in excess of $1 million. Most of the other provisions of the TA bill are almost identical to those in the Tourism Board Act.The establishment of the Tourism Authority was a central plank of the One Bermuda Alliance’s election platform.The party told voters it would “move with urgency to put professionals, rather than politicians, in charge of our tourism industry by setting up a professional, results-oriented and accountable Tourism Authority to rejuvenate tourism and create jobs”.It promised to set it up with new legislation within six months of taking office, and among Mr Crockwell’s first actions as Tourism Minister was to appoint a consultant on a $120,000 year-long contract primarily to carry out a “comparative analysis of the various tourism authorities and their enabling legislation in addition to fulfilling the Tourism Plan.”Mr Crockwell also moved quickly to appoint hotelier and former Tourism Minister Mr Dodwell — appointed to the Tourism Board by Mr Furbert — as the chairman-designate of the new body.Last month, Mr Crockwell said that the Department of Tourism was to be dissolved and interested staff would have to reapply to the new body or be placed in other areas of the civil service.The Royal Gazette is awaiting a response to Mr Furbert’s comments from Mr Dodwell and the Tourism Ministry.