‘Rejected Amendments Proposed By The Senate’

June 21, 2019

“As a point of principle and under the rules of Parliament, we have today rejected the amendments proposed by the Senate,” Premier David Burt said.

A Government spokesperson said, “In a statement to the House of Assembly on 11th March 2019, Premier the Hon. David Burt, JP, MP advised Honourable members of the Government’s intention to advance amendments to the Premier and Opposition Leaders Personal Staffs Act 1983, to start the process of building capacity within Ministries by developing a private office function.

“This, following recommendations of the SAGE Commission and the 2011 Civil Service Review which recommended the creation of a ministerial private office to “relieve Permanent Secretaries of the day-to-day tasks associated with Ministers’ needs”.

“Premier Burt introduced the amendments to the Act on 17 May, 2019, and reflecting the changes made, the Act was named, the Premier, Ministers and Opposition Leader Personal Staffs Act 2019.

“The Government amended the Premier and Opposition Leader’s Personal Staff Act to ensure that all staff appointed by Ministers, with the consent by the Premier, by requiring the annual publication of all such appointments with details of remuneration to be tabled in this Honourable House.”

Premier Burt said, “This is in line with our belief in openness and transparency and ensures that going forward all political appointments made by the Premier, Government Ministers or the Opposition Leader are open to the sunshine of public scrutiny.”

“The former government had the opportunity to lead on this issue during their tenure and to formally present amendments to the bill during the debate in Parliament. It is unfortunate that they did not.”

“The most recent amendments presented in the Senate by the Opposition Senators and supported by the independent Senators were neither disclosed nor discussed with Government Senators before the debate as would be expected in the spirit of collaboration and cooperation. One cannot claim ‘good governance’ while springing a parliamentary ambush.”

The Premier continued, “As a point of principle and under the rules of Parliament, we have today rejected the amendments proposed by the Senate.”

“Successive PLP Governments have historically led the way on good governance and have helped move Bermuda into the 21st century on openness and transparency. Requiring Premier, Ministerial and Opposition Leader’s staff to be published on an annual basis is part of the progress we seek in building a more open and transparent government and a better, fairer Bermuda.”

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Comments (7)

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  1. Andrew says:

    ‘PLP Governments have historically led the way on good governance and have helped move Bermuda into the 21st century’

    Is this guy serious? How can he even say that with a straight face. This is nuts! And the real scary part is most of Bermuda believes this crap.

    • Sandgrownan says:

      He’s lying, and the masses lap it up.

      These clowns can’t even spell good governance.

    • CHRIS says:

      Bda is doomed.

  2. Stormy daniels says:

    Who else changes the news channel when he starts spewing.

  3. Triangle Drifter says:

    The PLP railroad is up to speed. “We don’t care what you think “.

  4. Kevin says:

    Corruption continues
    we need the British to intervene ….this government makes the Cayman island issue look trivial.
    with Zane involved in the golf at Port Royal watch the amount of money that gets spent to prepare PR and who gets the contracts
    they are so in our face and the 25-11 group can be proud of their accomplishment