CITV – THE GOVERNMENT OF BERMUDA TELEVISION



Malika Musson

Public Affairs Officer (Acting)

Phone 294-2795

Email: mdmusson@gov.bm

March 11, 2009

2:30 pm

Auditor General’s Special Report

Ignores Facts

The Ministry of Tourism and Transport raised concerns about the “unprofessional” nature of the Auditor General’s special report more than three weeks before it was tabled in the House of Assembly, but it appears many of those concerns were ignored in the final draft.

The Ministry’s concerns were presented in a letter to the Auditor General dated February 20th, 2009.

The letter, singed by Permanent Secretary Cherie Whitter, said: “The Ministry finds the tone of the entire report’s findings and conclusions disappointing.”

Additionally, the Ministry’s letter to the Auditor General explained some of the 2006 paper trail concerns raised in the special report have been fully addressed. The letter states: “Issues relating to lack of third party support for media invoices have been resolved and the Department can confirm that they are now receiving third party invoices as support for all broadcast media.” This important detail was not included in the Auditor General’s special report.

Meantime, the Department of Tourism will soon have an independent value for money audit to determine the value of the broadcast media purchased in 2007/2008. The report will help determine if the Department overpaid or underpaid for advertising given the typical industry standard. This was explained to the Auditor General but was not included in his special report.

Furthermore, despite it also being pointed out in the February letter, the Auditor General ignored the fact that New York Tourism Office employees are subject to a different pension plan than Bermuda-based civil servants. The New York Office’s pension scheme was devised decades ago and has created a significant cost burden on the taxpayer.

The February letter stated: “The Civil Service has rules and regulations governing the dismissal of public employees however these rules are not applied to the Department of Tourism overseas employees. Most employees in the overseas office are not in the Public Service Superannuation Fund (PSSF) programme but rather the Bermuda Tourism Overseas Pension Programme (BTOPP). Under BTOPP employees cash out upon termination. There is no option to become vested in a retirement plan with deferral until age 60.”

-MORE-

More recently, in the reorganization of the New York Tourism Office, departing employees were paid out amounts in access of $200,000 in some cases as a result of the BTOPP programme. This was a non-contributory pension plan wherein the Government paid 10% of each employee’s annual salary. Therefore any insinuation that an employee was paid off to meet some suspicious motive is completely unsubstantiated by the facts. The employee referenced in the report was awarded a severance package inline with a pension programme that had been in place for decades.

It is also important to note that the Bermuda Department of Tourism is working to phase out the BTOPP program because of the enormous and unsustainable cost burden it places on the taxpayer.

The following areas of concern were also presented to the Auditor General in a February letter, but similarly not included in his special report:

• GlobalHue was retained as the Agency of record in 2006 and not 2004 as stated; in 2004 GlobalHue was retained on a project basis to manage a marketing programme in the Miami market for the sole purpose of launching the American Airlines Bermuda flight.

• Following a Department of Tourism Audit several years ago (late ‘90s or early ’00s), matters regarding prepayment for various services inclusive of the production of advertising campaigns and media billing were exempt from any conditions that prohibited prepayment. An agency contract template was prepared by the then Director of Tourism, the then Information Coordinator, Accountant General and Attorney General’s Chambers. This same contract template, with the same payment clause has been utilized in the retention of a minimum of the past three to four agencies of record without issue.

It is not clear why many of the issues raised in the Ministry’s February letter were left out of the final draft of the Auditor General’s special report.

-ENDS-

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download