Shadow Home Affairs Minister questions Gov’t consultant costs, and if upcoming summit will just tell us what we already know
How much will it cost to reduce the cost of living?
This is a question being asked by the O.B.A’s Michael Fahy as the Ministry he shadows is spending more than a million dollars on consultants.
He also suggests the upcoming cost-of-living summit may just tell us what we already know.
“This is a ministry that’s talking about cost of living… and yet we’re spending $1.4 million on consultants.”
So says the OBA’s Michael Fahy, who questioned if the Ministry of Home Affairs that he shadows is spending dollars to try and save dollars.
Under new Minister Alexa Lightbourne, Home Affairs is a smaller operation, with responsibilities for Land Valuation and Environment reassigned to other Ministries.
Home Affairs still holds Energy and Land Title Registration, and will once more house the Department of Consumer Affairs, with an added focus on reducing the cost of living.
The salary budget for the Ministry has doubled from $860,000 to $1,734,000 – not necessarily surprising with public sector salary increases, and a doubling Ministry staff with the transfer of Consumer Affairs.
However, Shadow Home Affairs Minister Michael Fahy notes that the budget for Professional services in the paired down Home Affairs department has more than doubled to $1.42 million.
Mr Fahy said, “Almost 40% of the HQ budget is for professional services. Now, Professional Services is essentially consultants… So that is an estimate of what the government is likely to spend on consultants to make changes, to legislate, from what we can gather, based partly on this summit that is due to come in June. Based partly on the survey that has now been completed”
“My point is, it is lack of planning through all of this… We know what some of the major issues are – it remains taxes, it remains import duties, it remains freight issues. None of this is actual rocket science”
“So yes, okay, we’ll attend the summit… anything that comes of this summit, it’s unlikely to see any final report and towards the end of the year. So if people are hurting now, it seems to be taking a long time anyway to get anything off the ground”
Mr Fahy also highlighted that the second Bermuda Integrated Resource Plan, laying out future energy sector plans, is late.
He says, “our integrated resource plan… was in 2019 and it’s supposed to be a new one within five years.”
“It’s now more than five years and we don’t have a finalized plan. You can’t make proper policy and make proper decisions if the plans are not being followed and are not up to date and not being published on time.”
