• The following statement was released this morning by One Bermuda Alliance Leader Craig Cannonier
Craig Cannonier, OBA Leader

In the 2019 Budget, the Minister of Finance, Curtis Dickinson said: “Mr Speaker, over the years the Government has been incurring millions of dollars in credit card charges due to taxpayers using their credit cards to pay their taxes. Effective April 2019, Government will start to recover these fees by way of a recharge fee for this convenience.”

In his ‘clarification’ to the recent “misleading” press statement issued by the Department of Communication & Information regarding the credit card tax, the Minister is quoted as saying, “payroll tax payments are the issue and my intention and the Government’s policy is to recover these fees by way of a recharge for this convenience”.

It appears that the Government is once again retreating from being able to align their actions with their statements.

The Minister’s outrage expressed at the “egregious” error regarding the release of erroneous information by a civil servant is laudable.

However, why wasn’t that same level of outrage displayed when Bermuda found itself landed on the EU blacklist on March 12, 2019?

In his statement regarding the press error, the Minister stated that he would expect that conditions of employment and the code of conduct for the public services would be “applied as necessary”.

This standard must, by default, then also apply to whoever is responsible for jeopardising our hard earned reputation and the financial security of the businesses and residents of Bermuda.

One would also think that with an extra $2.5m having been allocated for its communication efforts, the Government would be able to implement a fail-safe process to approve a press release.