March 7, 2018

Thank you, Member.
Minister.
Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Mr. Speaker, thank you.
I think I answered the question the first time,
but it just sounds like I get the same question, just put
up a different way. I have not had the opportunity yet
to speak to the American Consul General. But I will
say that anything that we do to help try to save our
young black men is a step in the right direction. Thank
you.

The Honourable Member
did not answer my question. I am quite happy to have
the Premier to answer the question, since he seems
to have had additional conversations with the US au-thorities here.
The question is, you do not require a criminal
conviction here to be put on the stop list. Has there been any discuss ion, any discussion with the US a uthorities which suggests that this change in legislation
will have them take a different perspective?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker,
yes.
So, my question to the Minister is, has the
Minister considered some kind of protection, identity
protection, for minors or young adults who may be identified as having possession of cannabis, and r efraining from publicly stating their name in any way,
shape, or form, in much the same way that we refrain
and protect the identity of children of abuse?

So, this kind of protection of
identity would probably [need to] be something that
would be legislated, because this would be something
that says that, if there was an arrest on a weekend, then any kind of newspaper, any other sort of official
news agency or channel of communication would not
be able t o identify a young person caught with small
amounts, or possession, of cannabis.

Thank you, Member.
Okay. We have got another supplementary to
you. It is from the Leader of the Opposition.

SUPPLEMENTARIES

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: This is t o the Minister.
I am going on my memory, but it would seem
to me that when we made one of the changes, it was
indicating that those young persons, especially if they were caught more than once, would be subject to
some sort of drug education. And what I am trying to
determine is, obviously, when you start to have that,
you have to keep track of them, and make sure that
they go through the process. You still need to make
sure that there is some sort of protection. And I just
wanted to make sure that somethi ng was in train for
that.

Thank you.
Minister.

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
In my Statement, it said that any child, any
minor who is caught with any amount of cannabis is subject to drug education by a police officer, by any
authority figure. So, yes, yes. According to what I said
in my Statement, any young person is subject to drug
education.

Second supplementary, Honourable
Member, the Leader of the Opposition.

1448 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: Just so that I am clear, it
is not so much having the drug education, but the pr otection of their identities. And I think that is what my
colleague was trying to get across, to make sure that,
especia lly at that age, there is some measure of pr otection of their identity.

Member, I recognised you, but the Mi nister or Premier or a Minister will respond. You have to
put your comment in a question.

Hon. Michael J. Scott: I will p ose the question.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Have Members of the Opposition, all who
have put their last few questions, read the Bill? Will
they confirm that the Bill —

[Inaudible interjections ]

Hon. Michael J. Scott: Will they confirm, Mr. Speaker, that t hey recognise that the Bill contains no el ements, as framed and drafted, of secrecy or keeping the names of any person arrested secret, for all of the purposes that they are pointing to?

Member, I did allow some leniency,
because I asked you to put it into a question. But the
question should go to the reader of the Statement.
And that would be to the Minister. So the question has
to go to the Minister.

Hon. Michael J. Scott: Mr. Speaker, thank you. I
know the Minister is able to rise and answ er the question. But it is a rhetorical question. It is meant to assist
the House with all of these questions that are amounting, Mr. Speaker, to redrafting the Bill.

Thank you.
Continue on, Minister.
Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Mr. Speaker, let me be
clear, if I may. One of my colleagues has reminded
me about the regulations that will be accompanying
this Bill. So, like my colleague who just sat down . . .
[there] was a full and hearty debate in December. And
everything was discussed. But I have to remind people that, as in my Statement, regulations will accompany the Bill.

On page 4, the Honourable Member reminds people that a police officer of
any rank has the lawful authority to seize any amount
of cannabis in the possession of any person, including
young persons. Could the Honourable Member share
with us, since the legislation has been brought into
force, the number of both aged people and young
people who have had cannabis seized from them? Has there been any increase or trend in the amount of
stops or seizures? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the very last
sentence on the Statement, and I am very glad to see
it ther e, says, “Government will continue to raise pu blic awareness in relation to health risks associated
with substance abuse in adolescents.” And that is a
new sentence that has been added, and I appreciate
that the Government has been listening. And that is
where my question has risen.

Yes, yes, yes. I love it when the
Premier flirts with me.
Mr. Speaker, my question. My question is this,
because I support the intent of this Bill, and I have
been on record for supporting it. Can the Honourable Minister please, Mr. Speaker, tell us, because we
have talked about supply -side, what he pla ns on d oing, what the Honourable Minister plans on doing to
disrupt demand side? Because in the book (again,
that he has tabled today), Mr. Speaker, it is very clear
that cannabis use is on the rise. And cannabis is the drug of choice for Bermuda. So, please, if the Honourable Minister will let us know what he is going to do
to disrupt the demand for this drug.

Would any Member like to speak to
this?
I recognise the Honourable Premier. Honourable Premier, you have the floor.

Hon. E. David Burt: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask that the
House extend condolences to the family of a past war
veteran, Mr. Herbert James Tatem, who passed away
at the age of 95. I will associate all Members of the
House, who, I am sure, will acknowledge his service.
Mr. Tatem demonstrated at a very early age
his commitment to defending Bermuda, signing on to
fight in the Second World War by adding a year to his age and joining at the tender age of 16. His dedication
to Bermuda was seen throughout his life, and in
March 1946, he was discharged and rejoined HA&E
Smith [and Sons] Ltd, where he had been previously
employed. At 84, Mr. Tatem’s autobiography was published, and in 2013, his memoirs were placed alon gside other historic documents in a time capsule at the
War Memorial on the grounds of the Cabinet Of fice.
On behalf of the Government and the people
of Bermuda, of course, we would like to recognise and
acknowledge Mr. Tatem for his service, and of course,
ask that condolences and the thoughts and prayers of all of us be with his family during this diff icult time.
On a matter of congratulations, Mr. Speaker, it
is always good to celebrate the successes of Berm udians overseas. And I think that the entire House would like to be associated with the remarks to congratulate two- time Olympian, Ms. Arantxa Kin g, who
has been admitted to the New York State Bar, being
sworn in last month. Ms. King is a graduate of the
Georgetown University Law Center, and has repr esented Bermuda in the Long Jump at the 2008 Beijing
Games and the 2012 Beijing Games. We send congratulations, of course, to Ms. King and her family for
her continued academic success.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Premier.
Does any other Member wish to speak to
congratulations or condolences? No other Member? I recognise the H onour able Member from constituency 36. Honourable Member, you have the floor.

Hon. Michael J. Scott: Mr. Speaker, thank you.
Mr. Speaker, on the last session of the House,
Members of the House both made fulsome offers of condolences for the passing of the former Member of
this House; in fact, we observed the passing, in the
usual way, of Margaret Kim Young. I would like to rise
to be associated, Mr. Speaker, with all of those condo-lences, formally.
Ms. Margaret Kim Young’s passing was both
saddening for me and a shock. And I had just seen
Kim not less than a month before on Victoria Street.
And we stopped, and we embraced, and chatted and
spoke about this and that. And we promised that we would see each other the next day at the funeral services for the other former Member of this House, the
Honourable Quinton Edness, CBE. And we saw each
other there.
And so, when on Monday, I heard of her pas sing, I was both shocked and saddened. And I was r eminded all day of some words that I had read in a
Times obituary, produced by a gentleman who, no
doubt, had had a similar kind of experience, of the
loss of a loved one in sudden circumstances. And the
words that he wrote in the Times article were as follows: This bespeaks of much wealth and peace that
breaks within, but does not reveal without why the woman dies. I felt this way about Margaret Kim
Young’s passing. And I offer to Ward Young . . . I believe I am correct in saying that Ward sat in this
House?

No, no, no.

Hon. Michael J. Scott: He certainly ran for, went for
elections and was active in his civic life of the country
that he and his wife, Kim, loved.
Mr. Speaker, both Kim Young and her husband Ward, and Kim Young in particular, partnered, Mr. Speaker, in one of the most significant commerci al
exercises in Bermuda when they transferred old white Bermuda wealth to a black Bermuda wealth in the person of “ Boo” Wendell Brown. And this was so si gnificant and shall remain significant. They did so out of
a will of their humanity, both Ward’s and Ki m’s, and in
order to make this country take a step forward. And
for those kinds of actions , we underscore Kim Young’s
contribution to her country, because she took these brave and courageous acts. They indeed were profiles
in courage and acts of courage by them.
And so, I associate myself with the condolences to her husband and children.

Thank you, Member. Thank you.
Does any other Member wish to speak on
condolences and congratulations?


Bermuda House of Assembly I recognise the Honourable Member Dunkley.
Honourable Member Dunkley, you have the floor.

Hon. Michael H. Dunkley: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I too want to be associated with
the condolences already provided by Members of the
House to former colleague, Kim Young. She was not a
natural politician, but she took to it and certainly made
an outstanding contribution. She was never afraid to
speak, and it was certainly a real surprise to learn of
her passing, having just seen her a couple of weeks prior when she was on the Island. So, to her family,
condolences during this very difficult period.
I would also like this Honourable House to
extend condolences to Pat and Henry Hayward— Mr.
Hayward was a former Member of this House— on the
passing of their son, John Kenneth Henry Hayward, a
couple of weeks ago, at a relatively young age. And I
would like to associate the Honourable Member from
constituency 2, Kim Swan, and Members on our side,
on the passing of John Henry Hayward. As we get older, 52– 53 is a young age, so he was still at a rel atively young age and gone very suddenly at that, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, to continue on with condolences,
I would like this Honourable Chamber to send condo-lences to the family of Phyllis Joyce Gwendolyn Bell Williams, who passed away last week. I had the
pleasure of going to the celebration of life ceremony.
Ms. Bell Williams was from the heart of the country in
Devonshire. And I had known the family for a long
time, a large family, a typical large Bermudian family.
And one of the pleasures of Ms. Bell Williams’
life wa s to make sure she had all of her family around.
She had nine children. I think it was 27 grandchildren
and more than 40 great -grandchildren. And up until
the day of her passing, she still made sure she stayed
in touch. And one of the finer pleasures of her life, Mr.
Speaker, was to cook for her family and to be involved
in family functions. And so, the celebration of her life
was a real celebration, where family talked about the
good times they had together growing up in Bermuda.
And so, condolences to the family, and specifically her
daughter, Cecily Smith, who is a constituent of mine.
I would like to tag on with the Honourable
Premier in sending congratulations to Ms. King on being called to the bar. To see young Bermudians get
called to the bar and con tinuing on in their life to a
higher reward is certainly gratifying. And being called
to the New York Bar is an honour in itself, because my
daughter was called to the New York Bar a couple of
years ago. And I look forward to seeing Ms. King back in Bermuda sometime, to work right here on home
soil. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Honourable Member.
I recognise the Deputy Premier. Deputy Premier, you have the floor.
Hon. Walter H. Roban: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I wish to request the Hous e to record a note of
condolences for the family of Alfred Augustus. Mr.
Augustus ––I think the Augustus family is well known
to this House and to the community in a number of
ways, and a number of Members ––I think I am going
to associate the whole House wi th this.

Yes.

Hon. Walter H. Roban: Mr. Alfred Augustus was one
of their senior members. I had a chance very recently
to see him and speak with him as he was in care in a
home within my district. And, obviously, it is always
humbling to see many of our senior people whom at
one point you saw as somewhat larger than life, then
their years when they are in decline.
But I just want to raise, to pass on condolen ces to the family. Mr. Augustus was a wonderful ge ntleman, whom I often talked with on occasion. And I am sure his family is mourning his passing. So, with
that, I will take my seat, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I would also like to be associated with the condolences to the family of Mr. Tatem.
He was actually a constituent of mine for a number of
years before Paget East moved west. He lived down there at the foot of the lane where Gary Phillips lives
now, a little cottage with his wife. And I think, as the
paper said this morning in a very nice write -up, he
was a real gentleman. His wife is lovely, as well. The
cottage was gorgeous. They were good in terms of
keeping the gardens up, and I think certainly he will be sadly, sadly missed.
Mr. Speaker, while I am on my feet, I would
also l ike to be associated with the condolences to the
family of Henry Hayward, on the passing of their son,
John Henry, and also associated with the congratul ations to Arantxa King. Thank you.

Thank you, Member.
Does any other Member wish to speak?
I recognise the Honourable Member Weeks.
Honourable Member, you have the floor.
Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
1452 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly I would first like to be associated with the
condolences for Mr. Alfred Augustus. I too know the
Augustus family, like most everybody here. We know
the Augustus family well.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask that a note of
congratulatory remarks and a letter be sent to Mr.
Gladwin “Roots” Phillips. He is a sensei in the martial
arts. And this past Sunday, he held a tournament f or
the Sensei Dojo tournament, in which over 60 persons
took part, Mr. Speaker. And most of those persons
were young people. So I always like to let people know when our young people are actually doing well.
Mr. Speaker, this tournament over the years kind of
dwindled. But this is the biggest one that has been
held in a long, long time. So again, I would like to take my hat off, and have this House send a letter to Mr.
Gladwin “Roots” Phillips on a job well done. And I
would like to associate—

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: His brother -in-law!

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: —his brother -in-law, MP
from constituency 29. Thank you.

[Laughter]

Yes, thank you, Mr.
Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned, I would like to
be associated with the condolences offered by the Member from constituency 10, Honourable Member
Dunkley, on t he passing of Mr. Hayward. But also, I
would like to be associated with the condolences that
were offered at another sitting that I may not have
been here, last week, for the passing of Ms. Rose
Edith Burchall, who was for many years my neighbour
down ther e in North Shore, St. George’s. A longstanding St. George’s family —I know her children and
late husband very well. And I just wanted to be ass ociated with the condolences offered to her family on her passing. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We have three Government Bills to be
introduced today. Premier, I believe all three are in
your name.

FIRST READINGS

BERMUDA MONETARY AUTHORITY
AMENDMENT ACT 2018

Hon. E. David Burt: Indeed, Mr. Speaker, they are.
Mr. Speaker, I am introducing the following
Bill for its first reading so that it may be placed on the
Order Paper for the next day of meeting: the Bermuda
Monetary Authority Amendment Act 2018.

Thank you. Continue on.

COST OF LIVING COMMISSION
AMENDMENT ACT 2018

CUSTOMS TARIFF AMENDMENT ACT 2018

Hon. E. David Burt: Mr. Speaker, I have two other
Bills that I will be introducing for their first reading so
that they may also be placed on the Order Paper for
the next day of meeting: the Cost of Living Commi ssion Amendment Act 2018; and the Customs Tariff
Amendment Act 2018.

We are now, Members, at the point of
Orders of the Day. We are going to resume in Committee of Supply for the further consideration of the Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure for the year
2018/19. I recognise the Honourable Premier.

Hon. E. David Burt: Thank you very much, Mr.
Speaker.


Bermuda House of Assembly Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now
resume in Committee of Supply to consider the Est imates of Revenue and Expenditure for 2018/19.

Yes. And for the awareness of the li stening audience, I would just li ke to say that today is
day 5 of the continuing Budget Debate. And we have two ministries up for the debate today, the first being
the Ministry of Finance. There are four hours allotted
for that debate. When we [finish] with it the second
debate will be on Community and Culture. And there
are another four hours allotted for that one.
Mr. Premier, would you like to move us into
Committee? Oh, you did, did you not?
So, Member, would you like to come and take
the Chair? We recognise the Honourable Member
Jackson. She will start off as chairing the first section
this morning for us.

House in Committee at 10:59 am

[Ms. Susan E. Jackson, Chairman]

COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY

ESTIMATES OF REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE
FOR THE YEAR 2018/19
[Continuation thereof]

The Chai rman: Good morning, Honourable Members.
We are now in Committee of Supply for further consideration of the Estimates of Revenue and Expend iture for the year 2018/19.
This morning, we will be debating Finance,
Heads 10, 12, 38, and 58. I call on the Minist er in
charge to proceed. Minister, you have the floor.

Hon. E. David Burt: Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Madam Chairman, I move the following
heads —Head 10, Ministry of Finance Headquarters;
Head 12, Customs Revenue; Head 38, Office of the
Tax Commissioner; and Head 58, Interest on Debt —
be now taken under consideration.

Please proceed.

Hon. E. David Burt: Thank you, Madam Chairman.

MINISTRY OF FINANCE

HEAD 10 —MINISTRY OF FINANCE
HEADQUARTERS

Hon. E. David Burt: Madam Chairman, the 2018/19
Estimates for the Ministry of Finance Headquarters,
Head 10, may be found in section B of the Estimates
Book on pages B -99 through B -102, and in section C on pages C -10, Capital Acquisitions; and C -16, Cap ital Grants, or Grants.
The Finance Ministry c omprises six depar tments, led by the Ministry of Finance Headquarters,
and includes the Accountant General, Cus toms Rev enue, Social Insurance, the Office of the Tax Commi ssioner , and the Registrar of Companies .
Madam Chairman, can you give me a second,
please?

[Pause]
Hon. E. David Burt: My apologies, Madam Chairman.
I am just going to take a seat so that the Honourable
Member can pass.

[Pause]

Thank you.
[Inaudible interjection]

Hon. E. David Burt: No problem.
The Ministry of Finance comprises six departments, led by the Ministry of Finance Headquarters, and includes the Accountant General, Cus toms
Revenue, Social Insurance, the Office of the Tax
Commissioner and the Registrar of Companies . Allocations to cover the interest on government debt and
contributions to the Sinking Fund are also included in
the Finance Ministry budget. The Ministry has a total
staffing es tablishment of 158 posts and an aggregate
current account budget of $291.6 million , and is r esponsible for collecting $822.3 million, or 85.9 per
cent, of all government revenue. A snapshot of key
information for the Ministry of Fi nance is shown on
page B -98 of the Estimates Book .
The Department Current Account allocations
are as fol lows:
• Head 10 —Ministry of Finance Headquarters,
$5,050,000, an increase of $753,000, or
18 per cent ;
• Head 11— Accountant General, $86,461,000,
a decrease of $176,000, or 2 per cent ;
• Customs —It is important to note that the Customs budget has been moved to the National
Security Ministry , and the Ministry of Finance
retains responsibility only for customs tariff
and revenue collections ;
• Head 28— Social Insurance, $5,250,000, a
decrease of $759,000, or 13 per cent ;
• Head 38 —Office of the Tax Commissioner,
$3,451,000, no change;
• Head 39—Registrar of Companies,
$3,187,000, or an increase of $600,000, or
23 per cent ;
• Head 58 —Interest on Long- Term Debt,
$124,000, 000, no change ; and
1454 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly • the Sinking Fund contribution, which is est imated this year at $64,223,000, an increase
of $2,138,000, or 3 per cent.
The Minist er in charge of the Finance portfolio
is myself, the Premier and Minister of Finance, supported by the Junior Minister of Finance, the Honourable Wayne L. Furbert, JP, MP. The executive and senior officials of the Ministry of Finance Headquarters are as follows: Financial Secretary, Mr. Anthony
Manders; Assistant Financial Secretary, Economics and Finance, Stephen Gift; Assistant Financial Secr etary, Regulatory Unit, Ms. Pamela Burrows; Assistant Financial Secretary, Treaty Management and Admi nistration, Mr . Wayne Brown; and Director of Budget,
Mrs. Tina Tucker.
Madam Chairman, having delivered my first
National Budget Statement on Friday, February 16
th,
which was the official start of the Budget Debate in the House of Assembly, it gives me great pleasure to present the budget for selected departments in the Mini stry of Finance.
Madam Chairman, the Finance Ministry’s key
goals and objectives are to facilitate balanced ec onomic growth and development ; to provide strategic
direction and an overall framework for financial ma nagement and control of government activities ; and to
safeguard Bermuda’s economic interests in the face
of challenges and threats in a changing global economy.
The detailed core functions are to facilitate
balanced economic growth and development by d evelopment and diversification of the financial services
sector; to increase investor confidence to attract foreign direct investment; to provide support for small
business; to provide strategic direction in an overall
framework for financial management and control of
government activities by optimising the yield from government’s revenue base, assuring the alignment of
resource allocation with policy priorities, instituting and
adhering to the principles of prudent budgeting and
using output measures and performance measures to evaluate programme expenditure.
[And] to safeguard Bermuda’s economic i nterests by meeting international standards of financial
supervision and regulation, establishing and maintai ning economic intelligence networks, and est ablishing
and maintaining strategic economic alliances.
Madam Chairman, the other key department
objectives are as follows: to prepare, implement, and
closely monitor the National Budget; to arrange all government borrowing requirements sufficiently and at
the most competitive rates; to report on the country’s economic performance to the public; to maintain effec-tive relations with credit -rating agencies; to oversee
and manage public pension funds; to ensure and sup-port the fair coherence and predictable development
of financial services regulation; and to be proactive in
treaty negotiations with respect to tax information exchange agreements. The Ministry’s core functions are discharged
through six broad programme areas: Policy, Planning and Management; Fis cal Planning and Control; Regulatory; Economic Finance and Intelligence; Treaty Management and Administration; and the Office of the National Anti -Money Laundering Committee. In di scharging its functions under the overall policy direction
of the Minister of Finance, the Ministry of Finance
Headquarters seeks to achieve the following outcomes: a Bermuda that maintains its position as a
domicile of choice for international business; a Ber-muda where citizens have confidence in the Gover nment’s stewardship of t he public purse; a Bermuda
where funding and resources are available for key programme initiatives; and a Bermuda where citizens
regard government’s policy responses to economic
and financial challenges as appropriate and in the n ational interest.
Madam Chairman, in seeking to fulfil this
mandate, the Ministry of Finance Headquarters has a staff establishment of 18 permanent full -time posts,
and its total budget is $5,050,000. Ministerial restruc-turing resulted in the transfer of the Office of the N ational Anti-Money Laundering Committee to the Mini stry of Finance Headquarters. Following this transfer,
the Ministry of Finance Headquarters budget alloc ation is $753,000, or 18 per cent higher when com-pared with the original estimate for 2017/18. This i ncrease is primarily due to the following: transfer of the
National Anti -Money Laundering Committee to Mini stry Headquarters, $663,000; a 2.5 per cent salary u plift of $56,000; and maintenance of the new exchange
of tax information portal for the Treaty Unit, valued at
$290,000. These amounts were offset by a reduction
in consultant fees due to the partial transfer of the cost
of Government’s EU and UK consultants to the Cab inet Office.
The budget for the Ministry of Finance Hea dquarters includes an operational element for each of the six programme areas within Ministry Headquarters, plus grant funding to the Pension Commission.
I will now go over the cost centres, Madam
Chairman. Cost centre 2000, Policy, Planning, and
Management, a $216,000 decrease to the budget a llocation. Madam Chairman, the Policy, Planning, and Management Unit provides overall direction and management of Ministry Headquarters and supervisory
oversight of the five departments of the Ministry of
Finance, namely, the Accountant General’s Depar tment, HM Customs Revenue, Office of the Tax Co mmissioner, the Registrar of Companies, and the D epartment of Social Insurance. In addition, this unit undertakes strategic planning, manages the Ministry’s
public relations, coordinates initiatives in economic
diplomacy, and organises the review and development of economic and financial policy.
The budget for this unit in 2018/19 is $1.225
million, $216,000 lower than last year. The budget decrease reflects the removal of Professional SerBermuda House of Assembly vices fees to the Relati onship Management in the
United Kingdom in Europe, as a portion of these funds
were moved to the Cabinet Office.
Madam Chairman, Honourable Members are
aware that in 2017 the Ministry was involved in the continuing reform of our tax system, following a review
of Bermuda’s taxes by the Caribbean Technical Assi stance Centre (or CARTAC, for short). The Ministry
continued with its mandate to boost international
transparency and credibility through the Fiscal R esponsibility Panel [FRP]. Honourable Members will
recall that the role of the Fiscal Responsibility Panel is
to provide Bermuda’s Parliament, Minister of Finance,
and Financial Policy Council with an annual published
assessment of the Territory’s fiscal strategy, focusing on progress in meeting the Territ ory’s medium -term
objectives for public spending, taxation, borrowing, and debt reduction.
During the week of December 4
th, 2017, the
Fiscal Responsibility Panel visited the Island and met with myself and a wide cross section of Bermudian
society, and pub lished its third report in December.
This was the first report since the change of gover nment and, importantly, provided an independent assessment of the view of the new Government’s pol icies. Madam Chairman, it is pleasing to note that the
FRP wrote, and I quote, “ The government is right to
be concerned about the degree of inequity in the di stribution of income and wealth on the island, and like
governments elsewhere should pursue fiscal
measures that address the issue. This should involve
the taxation of dividend income where dividends are
being taken as a form of salary payment, some more
general taxation of significant incomes from capital, as
well as the introduction of greater progressivity in the
taxation of labour and possibly also in public pension
fund and social insurance contributions. ”
The FRP also noted the following: “The government is also right to be looking for ways to bring
faster economic growth to the island. We welcome
initiatives to improve training and to diversify the i sland’s econom y by attracting new industries as well as
building on existing areas of business. Faster growth
will ease the fiscal situation as well as improving the
well-being of all Bermudians. As we have stressed in
our previous reports, given demographic trends, it will
be critical to success in these efforts to adopt an i mmigration policy and a welcoming attitude that encourages qualified and skilled people of working age (including returning Bermudians) to come to the i sland, whether as employees or to establish ne w bus inesses, and to stay. This will also help improve the sustainability of the island’s pension and health insurance arrangements.”
Madam Chairman, the Government shares
the F iscal Responsibility Panel’s view in these areas ,
which form the cornerstones of the 2019 National
Budget, along with our commitment to begin reducing
our debt next fiscal year. Madam Chairman, I will now briefly touch on
tax reform. Honourable Members would be aware that
the former Government introduced reform to the pa yroll tax, giving it a degree of progressivity. The intention was to meet the revenue targets for 2018/19,
largely through a second stage of the payroll tax r eform and the introduction of a new general services
tax [GST]. With the assistance of CARTAC, some
work was done to prepare for the implementation of a
broad- based GST on the supply of most services for
the Island. Following this scoping mission, CARTAC
presented their technical assistance report to the Mi nistry, which included various recommendations for
consi deration. CARTAC also noted in their report that
the proposed timeline for the implementation of the
GST, April 1
st, 2018, was ambitious.
Following the general election, and considering that there was very little progress made by the previous administration to advance the implement ation of the GST, it was decided not to introduce a full GST until the new Government considers the report of
the Tax Reform Commission, rather than rushing to implement a GST. The Tax Reform Commission has
been appointed and star ted their work, and the Government looks forward to the receipt of their report in
July 2018 and the recommendations contained within.
Meanwhile, Madam Chairman, the strategy,
reforms, and actions that the Ministry of Finance are contemplating over the nex t year in order to meet the
Government’s revenue target were clearly laid out in
the 2019 Budget Statement, and there is no need for
me to go over that information in this brief. The largest share of the $1.23 million budget for the policy unit is
professi onal services and salaries. The salary prov ision for the policy unit is $480,000 and covers four posts, including the financial secretary, assistant f inancial secretary of policy, and two administrative of-ficers. The assistant financial secretary position is vacant following the retirement of the post -holder. The
Ministry is currently considering whether that post should be filled.
Further, Madam Chairman, as part of its str ategic policy work in support of the National Budget 2018/19, the Policy Unit in the Ministry of Finance
Headquarters assists the Junior Minister of Finance in
the re- introduction of the Pre- Budget Report in advance of fiscal year 2018/19. This report was a tr emendous success and fully met its objective to pr ovide greater transparency and public participation in
the budget process. In total, just over 20 submissions were received from the public, and the Ministry had numerous meetings with key stakeholders, as well as
one public town hall meeting. The report assisted the
Ministry in framin g the 2018/19 Budget, which, by all
accounts, has been positively received by members of
the public.
It is the Ministry’s firm belief that the release
of the Pre- Budget Report and the consultation follo wing that report was one of the primary reasons for this
1456 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly positive feedback on the National Budget Statement,
and we look forward to preparing and releasing the
Pre-Budget Report for 2019/20.
Madam Chairman, changes are ongoing in
order to improve the way that we approach the ha ndling of public money. The Poli cy Unit will continue to
oversee this transformation of the management of
public financial management and will be involved in
the upcoming fiscal year to continue with the development of an open budget structure to provide more
transparency to the budgeting process; provide sup-port to the work of the Tax Reform Commission; work
with key business stakeholders to create incentives
for companies to increase jobs in Bermuda by provi ding payroll tax relief for new positions created, which
is the Job Growth Strat egy Programme; and assist
small and medium -sized business with a payment of
payroll tax by funding the development of a module for
QuickBooks, which would be offered to local taxpa yers to reduce the complexity of tax filing, while i ncreasing compliance.
Madam Chairman, I will conclude this snapshot of some of the work that is carried out by the Po licy Unit within the Ministry of Finance by noting that
this unit is responsible for coordinating all of the legi slative items that support the National Budget. This
process includes providing drafting instructions to the Attorney General’s Chambers for Bills, Orders, and
Regulations; coordinating with other ministries, where
necessary; and preparing legislative briefs to assist
Ministers and Junior Ministers in steering the legisl ative items through the approval process in the Legisl ature. There are estimated a total of 15 items of legisl ation associated with this year’s National Budget.
Madam Chairman, I will now move on to pr ogramme 20010, Fiscal Planning and Cont rol, which
has a $2,000 decrease. Madam Chairman, the Fiscal
Planning and Control Unit, or colloquially known as
the Budget Team, is primarily responsible for the
management, collection, and collation of Consolidated
Fund budget data, the monitoring and control of overall government expenditures on both capital accounts
and current accounts, and the achievement of gov-ernment revenues. This unit is also tasked with the
responsibility of reviewing and developing the Go vernment’s annual capital expenditure pla n. The budget for this unit in 2018/19 is $495,000, which is $2,000
less than last year.
The Budget Team provides advice and gui dance to department heads and controllers on both the
formulation of Ministry budgets and on budget monitoring and control. The team provides two formal trai ning sessions each year, designed for Ministry depar tmental staff who have responsibility for budget preparation and/or budget monitoring control. As part of the
budget monitoring and control exercises, all ministries and depar tments are required to review expenditure
performance and to confirm on a monthly basis their current and capital expenditure performance with the
Budget Office.
Madam Chairman, the Government has a lready demonstrated its ability to prudently manage
expend itures, which can be seen in the Revised Current Expenditure Forecast. The projected 2018/19
operating expenses of the Government are $921.5
million, or $2 million lower than the $923.5 million ori ginally budgeted in 2017/18 by the former Government.
Yes, Madam Chairman, despite the millions of unbudgeted expenditures that we inherited, we have
paid close attention to spending and expect to exceed the original estimate from last year. That, Madam
Chairman, is a sign that this Government will be jud icious wi th the spending of public funds.
Madam Chairman, during the finalisation of
budgeting packages for the 2018/19 budget cycles,
ministries have submitted that their returns had r equested a total current and capital account appropri ation of $1,042,000,000, so me $59 million above the
Finance Ministry’s original limit of $983 million. The Budget Office worked closely with these ministries, and after carefully considering the current level of
spending required to operate the Government in its
current form, and es pecially taking into account the
priorities of this Government in health, education and
training, economic development, and the various obl igations of the Government, we managed to reduce
the total appropriation to $991 million.
Controlling government expenditure has been
and still remains a focus of the Government. Moving forward, the Government will take a revised approach in order to implement further savings, and has already
established an efficiency team. The efficiency team
will be supported by the pr ivate sector, at minimal expense, and will scrutinise spending across all indivi dual departments and will formulate action plans to i ncrease efficiencies, thus reducing future costs. I will speak a little bit more about the work of the Efficiency Team later, Madam Chairman. A salary provision of
$423,000 accounts for 85 per cent of the Budget
Team’s allocation for 2018/19. This provision covers
the post of the Director of Budget, Principal Budget
Officer, Budget Officer, and Budget Assistant.
For the next year fiscal year 2018/19, the department has objectives to provide support for the open budgeting process; enhance budget monitoring
and reporting to Cabinet; provide support to the Eff iciency Team, which will scrutinise spending across all
individual Gove rnment departments; and bring all
supplementary appropriations current.
I will now move on to 20020, Regulatory Unit,
which had a decrease of $3,000. The budget for this
unit in 2018/19 is $316,000, and there is a minor
change to the budget allocation for this period. Madam Chairman, the Regulatory Unit is the lead policy
division within the Ministry of Finance Headquarters in relation to the financial services sector. The Regulat ory Unit is accountable to the Financial Secretary for


Bermuda House of Assembly the effective discharge of the unit’s functions and,
through the Premier and Minister of Finance, to Cabinet and Parliament. The head of the unit, the Assi stant Financial Secretary for Regulation, carries out the
Minister’s financial services policies through the Mini stry of Fin ance, the Bermuda Monetary Authority, the
Attorney General’s Chambers, the National Anti -
Money Laundering Committee, the Bermuda Public
Account ability Board, and specialist global partners.
The Regulatory Unit operates in response to a
broad range of opportunities and risks, which allows
the Ministry to contribute actively to a continuous flow
of information on potential threats and opportunities to
Bermuda and its reputation. The Regulatory Unit is
involved in virtually every policy and management ar-ea—fr om regulatory reform and financial stability to
anti-money laundering and trade and development
issues at home and abroad.
The scope of the Regulatory Unit’s activities is
as follows: to support the Premier and Minister of F inance, and the Financial Secret ary, in coordinating
the financial services regulatory policy initiatives of the
Government; to oversee the Finance Ministry’s component of the financial services legislative programme,
together with the Bermuda Monetary Authority and the
Ministry of Legal Affairs; to provide policy advice to
the Financial Secretary and the Minister of Finance on
anti-money laundering policy initiatives, together with
the National Anti -Money Laundering Committee, pursuant to section 49 of the Proceeds of Crime Act
1997; to provide policy advice to the Minister of F inance and the Financial Secretary on matters related
to the regulatory component of financial services and audit directives issued by the European Union, t ogether with the Cabinet Office, London Office, and EU
specialists; to provide policy advice to the Insurance
Advisory Committee on matters related to the insurance sector; and to provide advice to the External A ffairs Committee on any matter related to financial ser-vices and tax transparency.

[Inaudible interjection s and laughter ]

Hon. E. David Burt: Madam Chairman, the Regulat ory Unit is uniquely positioned at the intersection of the
financial services industry, regulatory and law e nforcement agencies, as well as domestic and global
partners. The unit is able to network the varied perspectives to bring a comprehensive insight in the development and protection of our economic security.
This unique position allows the unit to develop and
support multiple partnerships that have a broad d omestic and international i mpact.
Some of the Regulatory Unit’s material mil estones in 2017/18 included the following: The Regul atory Unit was primarily focused on matters related to beneficial ownership and transparency, tax transparency, together with matters related to Bermuda’s
CFATF [Caribbean Financial Action Task Force] AML/ATF [anti -money laundering/anti -terrorism f inanc ing] assessments. Led by the Treaty Unit, the
Assistant Financial Secretary and the NAMLC [N ational Anti -Money Laundering Committee] Chairman,
travelled to G eneva to attend the OECD [Organisation
for Economic Co- operation and Development] Global
Forum, which resulted in Bermuda securing its “largely compliant ” rating, as evidenced by the Bermuda
2017 peer review report on the exchange of infor-mation on request .
The unit’s primary role, going forward in the
next year, will be to continue work with NAMLC agen-cies to assist with the preparation for Bermuda’s 2018
CFATC assessment, which is scheduled for the third
quarter of 2018.
In order to achieve its priorities and pursuant
to the Finance Ministry’s legislative agenda, the Ber-muda Monetary Authority Business Plan, the Ministry
of Finance EU engagement strategy, and the national
anti-money laundering strategy, the unit will undertake
the following key strategic ownership goals in
2018/19, as follows:
In matters related to the European Union, the
unit will lead efforts to coordinate the Finance Mini stry’s engagement and technical component of the E uropean Union audit -directed work with the Assistant
Financial Secr etary, Treaties, to coordinate the F inance Ministry’s response to the EU Code of Conduct Group’s work on developing a common EU list of noncooperative tax jurisdictions. It will also lead efforts to
coordinate with the Ministry of Finance engagement
compo nent of the Ministry of Finance EU engagement
strategy, together with the Cabinet Office, the Berm uda Monetary Authority, and EU Council. This will i nclude the preparation for an annual visit by the Mini ster of Finance to meet with key EU stakeholders.
Regarding matters related to the Financial A ction Task Force standards, the unit will contribute to and support the implementation of the Bermuda’ anti -
money laundering strategy, together with the National
Anti-Money Laundering Committee. This work i ncludes t he provision of strategic and policy advice, as
well as the completion of various technical effectiv eness and risk assessments. This work also includes
preparation of Bermuda’s AML/ATF assessment, which, as I mentioned, is taking place this year, which
I think most people in the country, hopefully, are
aware of by now, Madam Chairman.
The unit will also lead efforts to coordinate the
Finance Ministry’s component to the enhancements to
the corporate service providers regime, along with the Bermuda Monetary A uthority and the National Anti -
Money Laundering Committee. This will include
amendments to the exchange control legislation and
the partnership legislative framework. It will also work
with NAMLC agencies and the Ministry of Economic
Development on matters related to transparency of
and beneficial ownership of legal persons and legal
arrangements.
1458 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly Regarding matters related to the United Kingdom, the unit will work with the Ministry of Finance
team, the Ministry of Economic Development, the
Bermuda Monetary Authority, NAMLC, and the Lo ndon Office on matters related to the implementation of
the exchange of notes between the Government of
the United Kingdom and the Government of Bermuda
in respect of the sharing of beneficial ownership on an
on-request basis, w hich was dated on the 9th of April
2016. The unit will also work with the same organis ations to implement the exchange of notes which was made between the Bermuda Government and the Chancellor of the Exchequer dated the 9
th of May
2016 on the exchange of beneficial ownership infor-mation on an automatic basis. They will also work with the External Affairs Committee on matters related to
all external risks. This work includes the development
of a risk profile and an action plan, together with an
external enga gement strategy for the Government of
Bermuda.
The list of international commitments may
seem daunting, Madam Chairman, but they are critical if Bermuda is to maintain its strong reputation.
The salary provision of $234,000 accounts for
74 per cent of the Regulatory Unit’s allocation for
2017/18, which covers two posts, including the Assi stant Financial Secretary for the Regulatory Unit and
one administrative officer.
I will now move on to programme 20030,
Economic and Financial Intelligence, which has a decrease of $2,000. Madam Chairman, the Economic
and Financial Intelligence Unit provides research and
analysis of economic and financial conditions to help facilitate sound decisions on public policy and fiscal
management. Responsibilities of the staff in t he unit
include economic forecasts, economic modelling, pr ojections of GDP, and the development of key economic indicators. Analysis and commentary on economic
and financial statistics are provided, and an annual
and mid- year review and outlook are produced. The
budget for this unit in 2018/19 is $469,000, which is
$2,000 less than the budget allocation for 2017/18.
Madam Chairman, the unit also manages the
relationship with credit rating agencies and is responsible for government debt management policy. The
unit constantly reviews our debt management policy in order to take advantage of favourable market conditions. When financing the deficit, the Ministry’s most
important objective is to provide the Government with
stable financing at minimal cost, under t he prevailing
market conditions.
The Economic and Financial Intelligence Unit
therefore maintains a relationship with both domestic
and international banks in order to be kept abreast of
capital market developments that provide an opportunity to refinance current government debt at less -
expensive rates to provide the best opportunity in
which to finance the current fiscal year’s deficit. As
mentioned in the 2018/19 Budget Statement, Gov-ernment will need to incur new borrowing of approx imately $90 million i n order to finance the fiscal deficit.
The unit will work with the Public Debt Advisory Group
and financial institutions to determine the best strat egy that provides cost -efficiency and the most prudent
approach to financing the deficit.
Madam Chairman, t he unit also provides advice to various government boards and is closely i nvolved in the administration of numerous customs du-ty relief regimes, including duty relief provided to hotels, restaurants, and retailers. In addition, this unit oversees the publi c pension funds, along with the
Bermuda Public Funds Investment Committee.
Madam Chairman, the investments in the public sector pension plans continue to perform well. I can
report that, as of December 31
st, 2017, the Contribut ory Pension Fund’s [CPF] assets totalled $1.898 billion,
versus $1.702 billion in 2016. Meanwhile, the Public
Service Superannuation Fund’s [PSSF] assets totalled
$622.1 million in 2017 versus $554 million in 2016.
For 2017, the contributory and superannuation plans
both posted returns of 14.4 per cent, exceeding their policy indices by 0.4 per cent. Three- through ten- year
returns for these funds all outperformed the actuarial
required rate of return.
In the short term, the Contributory Pension
Fund and Public Service Superannuation F und are in
decent financial shape. As at December 31
st, 2017,
the CPF’s total assets represented approximately 11
times the annual value of benefits to be paid in the
fiscal year, while the PSSF’s assets represented a pproximately 7.5 times the annual value of benefits.
Madam Chairman, I highlighted in my Budget
Statement and would now like to further emphasise
here now that, and I quote, “The importance of ec onomic diversification cannot be understated. A divers ified economy opens a field of economic opport unity to
a wider cross -section of Bermudians.” With this in
mind, the Economic and Intelligence Unit will continue to work with various stakeholders on legislation that
will facilitate the expansion and diversification of the
local economy. One of the unit ’s objectives will be to
determine if an amendment to the Banks and Deposit
Companies Act 1999, allowing for different licences in
classes of banks, will help facilitate financial instit utions that can, not only create additional jobs, but also
provide banking services to new industries.
Madam Chairman, this unit will also continue
to assist with the development of regulations and le gislation in the financial technology (or FinTech) indus-try. The unit will continue to work with the Bermuda
Infrastructure Fund Manager, which is Fortress, to
ensure that the infrastructure priorities of this Government are given significance over any other potential infrastructure projects.
Madam Chairman, other notable tasks to be
achieved by the Economic and Financial Intelli gence
Unit in the upcoming fiscal year include:


Bermuda House of Assembly • reviewing the Government’s debt management policy and making any changes deemed
appropriate;
• working with the Attorney General’s Cha mbers and the Bermuda Pension Commission to amend the National Pension Schem e (Occupational Pensions) Act 1998 in order to i ntroduce new provisions, as well as to enhance
existing provisions;
• continuing to work with CARTAC to develop
econometric models for the forecasting of key
economic indicators and Gov ernment medium-term fisca l data;
• continuing to work with the Government E mployee Health Insurance Com mittee to as sist
in redesigning the health plan;
• conducting a review of our pension arrange-ments to determine whether public and private pensions are set up at appropriate levels , and
also that the fees which are charged to man-agers are set at the appropriate levels, which
have been found to be rather high;
• continuing the review of all Government pension plans to determine the sustainability of
the fund;
• to work with the Ministry of Health to establish
the terms and conditions of the proposed pr ogramme of limited government guarantees to
support the development of senior residential
facilities.
The salary provision of $298,000 covers two
posts, including the Assistant Financial Sec retary,
Economics and Finance; and the Economic Advisor. The other major item of cost in this unit is a provision
for consulting services for special studies, and the
fees for credit rating agencies, which is $109,500.
I will now move on to programme 20040,
Treaty Management and Administration, which has an
increase of $288,000.
Madam Chairman, the budget for the unit in
2018/19 is set at $882,000, an increase of $288,000 from last year’s budget allocation of $594,000. This increase is related entirely to the ongoing cost of the
new exchange of information portal, which went live in
June of 2017. Madam Chairman, the Treaty Unit is
responsible for the following areas: negotiating tax
information exchange agreements, or TIEAs, and ot her agreements relating t o tax information exchange,
and associated agreements with member countries of
the EU, G20, Organisation for Economic Co- operation
and Development (OECD), and other countries; being
responsible for relationship management regarding tax matters with the USA , European Commission, and
members of the European Union. Additionally, the unit manages and administers requests for exchange of
information on the by -request basis and the automatic
exchange of information (EOI).
Madam Chairman, the work of the unit conti nues to diversify from the original core activity that led to its creation, the processing of international tax c ooperation exchange of information requests on the by -
request basis, to the processing of international tax
cooperation requests on the autom atic basis, through
the Ministry’s new tax reporting portal.
Madam Chairman, since its formation in 2007,
global tax cooperation in tax matters has intensified
significantly. The recent EU non- cooperative jurisdi ction threat of December 2017, when Bermuda su ccessfully avoided being included on the list of noncooperative jurisdictions by the EU, is clear evidence of this ongoing intensification. Madam Chairman, the
proactivity of the Treaty Unit has included continued
negotiation of tax information exchange agreements,
both multilateral and bilateral, and other agreements
relating to tax information exchange, and associated
agreements with member countries of the EU, G20, and OECD countries.
This outreach included fostering good rel ations with the OECD that enabled myself, as Premier
and Minister of Finance, to meet in October 2017 with the OECD Secretary General, Mr. Á ngel Gurr ía, to
discuss the then- looming EU listing of any country to
be deemed [non] -cooperative in tax matters. At the
same time, Bermuda, t hrough the Treaty Unit, had
accomplished a number of firsts in signing key tax
agreements and joining important OECD tax commi ttees—accomplishments made possible through rel ationship -building with tax officials in these key countries and proactively signing appropriate tax agreements, whereby these accomplishments have disti nguished us apart from other jurisdictions and have
created what the Ministry refers to, and will continue
to refer to, as the “ Bermuda standard .”
Madam Chairman, the unit recently negot iated
new tax agreements with the United Kingdom and the
United States, arguably Bermuda’s two most i mportant partners (for obvious reasons). The IRS in the
USA, on its website for country -by-country reporting,
now lists Bermuda as the first and only UK Ov erseas
Territory, to date, to sign a bilateral country -by-country
reporting agreement with the United States. This will contribute to managing the United States risks that
are ever present, especially in view of the recent tax
reform enacted by the United States Government. The unit also negotiated for Bermuda to join the OECD’s
BEPS [base erosion and profit shifting] Inclusive
Framework Group, enabling Bermuda to be the first
Overseas Territory to join that group. This proactivity
by the Treaty Unit, in si gning various tax information
exchange agreements and joining the BEPS Inclusive
Framework Group, were key factors in Bermuda managing to avoid the non- cooperative jurisdiction list.
Madam Chairman, the third and original preexisting area of the Treaty Un it’s work is that pr ocessing of exchange of information has grown to i nclude automatic exchange of information and to add to
the Unit’s work of processing TIEA [tax exchange i nformation agreement] requests. This work is carried
1460 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly out by the senior and junior exchange of information
officers.
Madam Chairman, in 2016, Bermuda underwent in- depth monitoring and peer review of our i mplementation of the International Standards of Transparency Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes by
the OECD Global Forum. The last Global Forum r eview on Bermuda was conducted in November 2013,
and we achieved the rating of “ largely compliant, ” the
same as the UK, USA, and many other G8 nations. This OECD assessment was extremely important for Bermuda, and we dedicated the resources required to
increase Bermuda’s chances to maintain our rating of
“largely compliant. ” Madam Chairman, in 2017, as
mentioned earlier, the OECD re- assessed Bermuda,
and we maintained our “ largely compliant ” rating. Had
we not maintained that rating, it cou ld have negatively
impacted the EU Code of Conduct [Group’s] view on
Bermuda when publishing their non- cooperative juri sdictions list.
Madam Chairman, fiscal year 2018/19 will be
an important and busy time for the Treaty Unit, as the country starts further negotiations with the EU Code of
Conduct Group. The salary provision for the Treaty
Unit in 2018/19 is $334,000. The other major recurring
item of cost in this unit is for travel and attendance at
OECD Global Forums, meetings with the European Commission officials in Brussels, OECD officials relationship -building with tax officials in key countries, and
being proactive in identifying when there is a need to
negotiate and sign new treaties to protect Bermuda’s
interests.
I will now move on to programme 20100, the
Office of the National Anti -Money Laundering Commi ttee, which has seen a decrease of $2,000. Madam
Chairman, the purpose of the Office of the National
Anti-Money Laundering Committee, or as I will refer to
it as the Office of NAMLC, is to work with the National
Anti-Money Laundering Committee and its agencies to
ensure that Bermuda has strong and effective regimes that combat money -laundering, terrorism financing
and the financing of proliferation, and collaborates
with international counterparts to help address these issues on a global scale.
The NAMLC Office’s budget for the year
2018/19 is $663,000, representing a minimal change from the 2017 allocation. In addition, funds allocated
to the office from the Confiscated Assets Fund are
being carried o ver from 2017/18 into the next fiscal
year in order to continue programme initiatives for which those funds were earmarked. During the last
financial year, or the current financial year which we are in, which will end at the end of this month, a key
focus of the Office of NAMLC has been to continue
working with the NAMLC agencies and other relevant
parties so that Bermuda’s anti -money laundering
framework will be deemed to achieve a high level of
compliance with the international standards in the upcoming e valuations of this regime. Bermuda’s evaluation against the international
standards will be carried out by a team of assessors under the leadership of the Caribbean Financial A ction Task Force and will commence this month. As part of these efforts, the off ice continues to work
closely with the NAMLC Legislative Working Group
and parliamentary counsel to address further legisl ative gaps in the framework.
Madam Chairman, another significant initiative
in 2017 involved the office coordinating and working
collaboratively with NAMLC agencies and stakehol ders in industry to conduct a national risk assessment
on money -laundering as an update to the previous
assessment that was done in 2013. The 2017 exercise took place over seven months, the findings have
been synt hesized and a report will be available for
publication shortly. As part of Bermuda’s preparations
for the upcoming review of its AML/ATF regime, the
office continued to provide technical support to
NAMLC agencies through facilitating, training, and
other t echnical guidance to such agencies by intern ational experts in AML/ATF matters. These experts are
also assisting the NAMLC teams in preparing the wri tten submissions to be presented to the assessment
teams.
Key initiatives that the Office of NAMLC will
be working on in the new financial year are to finalise
preparations and facilitate the mutual evaluation pr ocess, [as follows]:
(1) Coordinating the input from all NAMLC
agencies for the submissions to the CFATF asses sment team to demonstrate the effectiveness of Be rmuda’s AML/ATF regime. This will involve finalising
the writing and collating of the evidence to support
Bermuda’s written submissions on effectiveness,
which is due to be presented to the assessment team
on May 23, 2018. The submissions on Bermuda’s compliance with technical criteria will be finalised by
the office and submitted before the end of fiscal year 2017/18, in accordance with the timeline stipulated in
CFATF’s assessment procedures.
(2) Finalising any remaining legislative
amendments required to fully align the legislative framework with the requirements of FATF’s standards;
(3) Coordinating the training of NAMLC agencies and other relevant government personnel and private sector stakeholders in preparation for the onsite visit of the ass essment team.
(4) Coordinating Bermuda’s responses to any
queries from the assessment team prior to or after the
onsite visit.
(5) Coordinating the review by NAMLC agencies of all draft reports presented by the assessment
team, and coordinating and prepari ng Bermuda’s position on matters identified within draft reports for
submission to the CFATF secretary.
In order to progress on all of these initiatives,
not only will the office work closely with the relevant
government ministries and agencies, but will a lso co nBermuda House of Assembly tinue to liaise with the private sector, as necessary
and appropriate.
The salary provision for the Office of the N ational Anti -Money Laundering Committee in 2018/19 is
$454,000. The other major recurring item of cost in
this unit is for travel and attendance at CFATF plenary
training in preparation for the upcoming CFATF assessment.
Madam Chairman, I will now move on to the
line item analysis of the items in Head 10. Operational
Budget. Madam Chairman, the estimated cost of op-erating the Ministry of Finance in 2018/19, as stated
before, is $5.05 million; 44 per cent is accounted for
by salaries, $2.23 million. The salary allocation is apportioned between the functional units in the Ministry Headquarters that I mentioned before. The staffing
complements are 18, which represents 17 Bermudians and 1 non- Bermudian.
Training is $40,000, an increase of $25,000.
This funding is used for training and continuous pr ofessional development of the Ministry Headquarters staff. The increase is mainly due to the transfer of the
Office of NAMLC to the Ministry Headquarters. This
training is required for the preparation of the upcoming
CFATF assessment. In 2018/19, there will also be
training needs for the new staff of the Treaty Unit in
relation to the exchange of information portal.
Travel, $136,000, no change. This allocation
makes provision for travel costs in connection with the relationship maintenance of the United States, the
United Kingdom, and Europe. Travel involved for
overseas treaty negotiations, OECD meeti ngs, EU
Code of Conduct meetings, and NAMLC travel to
CFATF plenary events are also covered in this alloc ation.
Communications, $36,000, an increase of
$3,000. This vote is to provide for the cost of tel ephone accounts, which are now devolved into departments previously having been paid for centrally by
the Ministry of Works and Engineering. This increase
is due to the Office of NAMLC moving to Ministry
Headquarters.
Advertising and Promotion, $8,000, no
change.
Professional Services, $980,000, a decrease
of $90,000. The professional services vote is allocated
across the following programmes in the Ministry of Finance Headquarters: Policy Planning and Management, $425,000; Regulatory Unit, $40,000; Economic
and Financial Intelligence, $119,500; Treaty Unit,
$165,000; and Fiscal Planning and Control, $25,000.
A core sum of $230,000 is earmarked for maintaining effective relationships with Europe. With the ever -
increasing external threats to economic survival, it is
crucial that we aggressively engage with the relevant
entities. These consultants help the government to
actively engage in the appropriate places, in the appropriate forums, and in the appropriate manner to get
the Bermuda story out there. This allocation also i n-cludes funding for the work of the Ef ficiency Commi ttee, which has already been established and which will start and will continue its work into the next fiscal
year.
Also, the Ministry has to provide the Bermuda
Public Accountability Board with funding to cover co nsulting expenditures associ ated with the cost of the
Canadian Public Accountability Board to undertake
[examinations] of Bermuda- based public accountants.
Also, there has been an increase in legal fees for law-yers who represent the Treaty Unit.
Rentals, $12,000, no change.
Materials and Supplies, $105,000, an i ncrease of $4,000. This provision funds general office supplies, as well as the printing costs, the free budget
documents, namely, the Budget Statement, Economic
Review, and the Approved Estimates of Revenues and Expenditure, all of which are competitively te ndered each year. This change of $4,000 is due to a
reclassification of expenses.
Other Expenses, $153,000, a decrease of
$4,000. The amount of $153,000 includes annual
membership fees to the Caribbean Regional Tec hnical Ass istance Centre, or CARTAC. This membership, of course, allows the Government to participate in various workshops and conferences at no additional
cost. The annual contribution to the OECD Global F orum for Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Pu rposes is also included in this allocation. The
amount also represents miscellaneous items, including subscriptions for journals, periodicals and other
online news, and information- monitoring sites and
board fees. The change is due to a reclassification of
expenses.
Madam Chairman, I will now move on to
Grants and Contributions. Grants and Contributions
for the Ministry of Finance Headquarters are $1 mi llion, an increase of $25,000. The budget for Grants
and Contributions is made up entirely of a $1 million grant to the National Pensions Commission. This
$25,000 increase is to cover additional resources r equired for the administration of the Pension Trust
Funds Act 1966, and pension trusts established and
administered under this Act, and the policy work r equired for the Government’s proposal to consider the
provisions of national pensions to make the National
Pension Scheme mandatory for all employees. R egarding revenue for this department, Madam Chai rman, the department generates revenue of $180,000, which r epresents a guarantee fee for the $165 million
Morgan’s Point guarantee.
Madam Chairman, I will now move on to Capital Acquisitions, which can be found in the Estimates
Book on page C -10. Cost centre 76152, National
Trust Furnishing Fund, $25,000, unchange d. This
provision is to fund new furnishings for public rooms at
Government House.
Cost centre 76153, National Trust Maint enance Fund, $5,000, unchanged. This provision funds
1462 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly the refurbishment of furnishings for the public rooms
at Government House.
Cost c entre 76867, OECD Common Repor ting System, $95,000, a decrease of $1.2 million. This
represents the ongoing capital cost associated with the specialised web portal for the USA FATCA and
OECD country -by-country reporting, and the common
reporting standard portal.
Madam Chairman, I will now move on to di scuss the activities of the Pension Commission, whose
grant is listed on page C -16.
Madam Chairman, the Pension Commission
is a corporate body established under the National
Pension Scheme (Occupational Pensions) Act 1998
and has the following functions: to administer the Act and the Regulations; to consider and determine appl ications for the registration of pension plans; to con-sider and determine financial hardship withdrawal applications; to promote and ensure compliance by pe nsion plans with the provisions of the Act and Regul ations; to monitor the administration and funding of
pension plans, and to enforce provisions of the Act
and Regulations in respect to such administration of
funding; to verify the paym ent of benefits under pa yment plans; to promote public education on pension
plans and their benefits; to advise the Minister on any
matter relating to pensions, including the development of laws relating to pension plans; to provide such i nformation relati ng to its functions as the Minister may
require; to investigate complaints relating to a pension
plan and a pension fund; and to perform any other
functions provided for or in, under this Act.
The commission also has the responsibility for
the administrati on of the Pension Trust Funds Act
1966 and pension trusts established and administered
under this Act.
The proposed grant for the commission in
2018/19 is $1 million, which represents the $25,000 increase. For the upcoming year, the commission has
a number of goals: (1) the introduction of Amendments to the National Pension Scheme (Occupational
Pensions) Act 1998; to provide the commission with
enhanced regulatory powers; the introduction of reg ulatory fees and improvements to pension access;
(2) review of the existing retirement age under the
National Pension Scheme legislation; (3) amendments
to the existing financial hardship regulations to include
funeral expenses, as well as to remove certain r estrictions relating to educational, housing expenses,
and p ersons receiving a pension and their ability to
apply; (4) continuing compliance and enforcement through the civil courts against delinquent employers, and directors and officers of such companies; and
(5) increase staffing as part of its plans to introduc e
risk-based supervision.
Honourable Members will recall that the N ational Pension Scheme (Financial Hardship) Regul ations 2010 were introduced to help Bermudians with a
real financial need to get access to a portion of their private sector pension funds, based on prescribed
criteria for hardship. The Regulations were further amended in 2011 to permit rental arrears as an additional category for financial hardship. In 2012, the
Commission also became responsible for the admi nistration of financial hardship applications for civil
servants, under the Public Service Superannuation
Act 1981. For information, Madam Chairman, the following four circumstances of financial hardship are
permitted refunds under the respective Acts: eligible
uncovered medical expenses; threats of loss of princ ipal residence due to debt default; threat of eviction
from home due to arrears of rent; eligible fees payable
for tertiary education.
Madam Chairman, for those listening to my
riveting and long presentation today, I will now provi de
a summary of the financial hardship statistics provided
by the Commission from its inception of this initiative
up until the 31
st of December 2017. The total applic ations received since the start date have been 2,718. The approved applications have been 2,217. The declined applications have been 374. And applications
which are currently pending and/or withdrawn are 70.
The total of amount of money which has been approved to be withdrawn to assist is $24.6 million . The
applications which have been approve d, by type, are
broken down as follows: eligible education expenses,
837; imminent threat of loss of principal residence,
365; imminent eviction from home for rental arrears,
925; and eligible medical expenses, 149.
Madam Chairman, in relationship to other areas of activities and responsibilities of the Commi ssion, I would like to provide the following pension plan statistics as of the 31
st of December 2017: The N ational Pension Scheme itself contains an estimated 21,457 plan members. There are a total of 3,073 employer plans, which consist of 3,056 defined contributions and 17 defined benefit plans. The total assets
under the National Pension Scheme is approximately
$3.2 billion, consisting, approximately, of $2.6 billion in employer plans and $600 million in individual a pproved plans. There are 583 self -employed plans.
As at the 31
st of December [2017], the Commission initiated 11 civil actions against delinquent
employers, their directors and officers in 2017, compared to only 6 in 2016; conducted 106 compliance meetings with employers and plan members in 2017,
compared to just 78 in 2016; and held 13 compliance
meetings with plan administrators in 2017, which was
a decrease from the 17 which were held in 2016.
Madam Chairman, that completes the brief for
Head 10 of the Ministry of Finance Headquarters. B efore I move to the next head, I would like to thank the
management and staff of the Ministry of Finance
Headquarters for their dedication and continued hard
work in meeting the objectives of the Ministry of Finance.


Bermuda House of Assembly Now, Madam Chairman, I will move on to the
next head, which is Head 12, that of Customs Rev enue.

HEAD 12 —CUSTOMS REVENUE

Hon. E. David Burt: Madam Chairman, Head 12,
Customs Revenue, can be found on page B -109. T otal customs revenue for 2017/18 is projected at
$235,160,000, and the projection for 2018/19 is
$239,240,000. The analysis of the major revenues are as follows: Customs duty, $235 million, an increase of
$4 million, or 2 per cent compared with the revised,
and an increase of $11 million, or 5 per cent, when
compared to the 2017/18 original. The revised for ecast of duty collections for 2017/18 have increased by
$7.2 million when compared to the original estimate
for 2017/18. The expected duty collection for 2018/19
will increase by $4 mil lion, or 2 per cent, from the r evised forecast. The increase reflects adjustments in
the duty rate for increases on certain key items. It is further anticipated that we will see a continuation of an
economic improvement during 2018, which will translate to increased imports of goods, and therefore an
increase in the duty collected.
Madam Chairman, this year’s amendments
include the following: a reduction to 0.0 per cent duty
on eggs and certain fresh fruits and vegetables, which
will result in a duty decrease of approximately
$215,000; increased duty on certain wine and tobacco
products, which could yield an additional $2 million;
reduced duty on certain linen products and on clocks,
which is estimated to reduce collection by $800,000; and pending the final isation of consultation the pr oposed sugar tax, when implemented, will yield an additional $3 million. Madam Chairman, similar to other
years, it is projected that approximately 50 per cent of
customs duty will be raised from the importation of
alcohol, fuel, tobacco, and vehicles. It is interesting to
note that 50 per cent —50 per cent comes from the
importation of alcohol, fuel, tobacco, and vehicles.
Other Revenue Sources. Forecast of revenue
sources other than customs duty [shows that these sources] are expected to contribute a total of $5.1 mi llion during 2018/19, which, based on our forecast, would equate to 2.1 per cent of the revenue collected by Customs. There is little indication that receipts in
these areas will change significantly from the reven ue
levels achieved during the 2017/18 fiscal year, to
date. The forecast of revenue sources other than customs duty is as follows: customs duty at the General
Post Office, $842,000; yacht arrivals, $104,000; ser-vices to ships in Customs, $340,000; wharfage,
$840,000; container fees, $1,019,000; customs service charges, $800,000, an increase of $89,000, or
13 per cent; courier package fees, $719,000; light
dues, $200,000; licence, general, $59,000; penalty,
$151,000; and sundry receipts, $68,000. Madam Chai rman, before I conclude on Head
12, Customs Revenue, of course the kind folks, the
Collector of Customs and her staff, do stellar work in
continuing to collect this revenue. And I look forward
to working with them in the upcoming year to meet our budget targets as have been stated.

HEAD 38 —OFFICE OF THE TAX COMMISSIONER

Hon. E. David Burt: I will now move on to Head 38,
which is the Office of the Tax Commissioner.
Madam Chairman, Head 38 can be found on
pages B -113 to B -116. The primary responsibility of
the Office of the Tax Commissioner [OTC] is to effectively administer the timely and accurate collection of
all taxes and stamp duties in accordance with appl icable legislation. I will just take the time to list all of
the taxes which are collected by the Office of the Tax
Commissioner, if I may, Madam Chairman: payroll tax,
corporate services tax, betting duty for turf, betting
duty for pools, stamp duties, land tax, foreign currency
purchasing tax, hotel occupancy tax, cruise ship d eparture tax, passenger cabin tax, time- sharing services tax, time -share occupancy tax, financial services
tax.
Madam Chairman, the following are some key
statements regarding the Office of the Tax Commi ssioner. As is seen at the beginning of the Budget Book, pages A -2 and A -3, the Office of the Tax Co mmissioner is responsible for collecting the largest portion of the government’s revenue and is estimated to
collect $624 million, or 57 per cent of government’s total revenue in 2018/19— $624 million. The Office of
the Tax Commissioner generated $164 of revenue for every current account dollar spent in 2016/17. It is
estimated to generate approximately $180 of revenue
for every current account dollar spent in 2018/19. As
can be seen on page A -4, payroll tax is the single
largest reve nue-earner for government, generating
$401 million in fiscal year 2016/17. It is estimated to generate $454 million in this upcoming year.
Financial Services tax, introduced in the
2017/18 fiscal year, yielded an additional $8.4 million in tax revenues, and it is estimated in 2018/19 that
$8.9 million would be collected in the Financial Ser-vices tax. The overall expected revenue increase in
2018/19 is $29 million, or a 5 per cent increase in total
projected revenues from taxes and stamp duties, so
the total amount of $624 million.
Madam Chairman, the OTC’s vision is to be a
significant contributor to Bermuda’s prosperity and stability by being a progressive, modern tax admi nistration committed to customer service, continuous
improvement, and collaboration. T he OTC’s mission is
to provide superior quality and efficient service, with
responsible enforcement of tax legislation, thus contributing to the economic and social stability of Ber-muda.
1464 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly The four core objectives of the OTC are as
follows: to administer the collection of taxes in accordance with tax legislation and to provide professional advice to the Ministry of Finance; to conduct
responsible and effective enforcement activities, cr eating an environment which promotes compliance and
ensures that all taxes are collected in accordance with
respective Acts; to educate and advise taxpayers on matters relating to their statutory obligations under the
Acts and maintain community confidence; and to ensure that revenue is available to fund Government programmes through the collection of taxes.
Madam Chairman, the Office of the Tax
Commissioner is strategically divided into four cost centres, which can be found on page B -113. Those
are as follows:
1. The Administration team provides the overall direction and managem ent of the office, which i ncludes strategic planning, staff development, training,
and general office support.
2. The Stamp Duties team is responsible for
the administration and collection of stamp duties under the Stamp Duties Act 1976. This includes the adjudication and processing of a variety of legal instr uments including, but not limited to, conveyances, transfers, leases and mortgages, as well as admini stering the Primary Family Homestead Exemption Pr ogramme.
3. The Audit and Compliance team is responsible for ensuring that taxpayers are compliant with
the taxes Acts throughout the life of the taxpayer,
starting with their initial registration. The team conducts audits and inspections of taxpayer books and records, and is responsible for knowledge manag ement and taxpayer education.
4. The Operations team oversees the majority
of activities of collecting and reporting on all taxes un-der the remit of the Office of the Tax Commissioner.
This team maintains taxpayer accounts receivable
balances, levies pena lties for late and insufficient
payments, and is responsible for debt collection and
enforcement.
Madam Chairman, the overall direction of the
Office of the Tax Commissioner is defined by its str ategic priorities, which are as follows: top- quality taxpayer service; modernisation of the OTC through
technology, people, and processes; and enforcement and debt collection.
As can be seen on page B -113, Madam
Chairman, the total expenditure is $3.972 million; this
is made up of $3.451 million in current and $521,000
in capital. There is no increase to the OTC’s current expenditure budget for 2018/19. As can be seen on
page C -10, there has been a decrease of 4.2 per cent
in capital accounts spending for the next fiscal year
2018/19.
Most of this funding is for the taxes information management system, referred to as TIMS, and is currently focused on improvements to the existing land tax module. The payroll tax module for this sy stem is currently on hold. Originally projected timelines have been adjusted, resulting i n funding adjustments
for this project. Some of the delays have resulted pr imarily from data cleanup issues, a lack of internal r esources, and a minimal capacity to work on specific
project tasks, which, of course, can be seen from the
lack of internal res ources at the Office of the Tax
Commissioner. Of course, Madam Chairman, all of
those posts have been unfrozen by the new Gover nment; so they can be filled.
Madam Chairman, as mentioned before, the
OTC’s departmental operating expenditure budget
has remained the same in 2018/19. The significant
differences in the various cost centres are as follows:
Salaries increased by $64,000. The budget for sal aries has been increased by $64,000 to reflect the
2.5 per cent increase in staff salaries and to fund the
full complement of the staff of the Office of the Tax
Commissioner. Professional Services decreased by
$29,000. The Professional Services decrease reflects
the budget allocated for consultants to the depar tment. This has been decreased for 2018/19 in order
to cover the costs of the hiring of the full complement
of staff at the OTC.
Madam Chairman, revenues are projected to
increase by approximately $29 million, or 5 per cent,
compared to the original estimate, and the Revenues can be seen on page B -115. As stat ed earlier, payroll
tax revenue is anticipated to increase by $10 million,
or 2 per cent, when compared to the revised estimate.
Madam Chairman, as explained in the Budget Stat ement, employer rates remain unchanged, but the
Government will adjust the payro ll tax employee rate
bands, providing tax reductions to those earning less than $96,000. It is also estimated that payroll tax r eforms to notional salaries will result in additional rev enues for 2018/19.
Land tax revenue is anticipated to increase by
$15 million, or 24 per cent, due to the 5 per cent i ncrease on land tax rates on commercial properties.
Cruise ship departure taxes are projected to increase
by $2.3 million, based on the 2018 cruise ship sche dule, published by the Bermuda Tourism Authority. Most of the tax sites have been conservatively pr ojected at 2017/18 levels.
Staff complement and changes. Madam
Chairman, there are 29 full -time positions at the Office
of the Tax Commissioner, including five vacant posts,
four of which are now under current active recruiting.
Funding for all posts has been included in the est imates for 2018/19. The office is currently staffed with
21 Bermudians and three non- Bermudians. There is
no change to the currently rented space, and the OTC
is planning on moving into government premises in
the near future.
The new TIMS project, as mentioned earlier,
is currently focused on improvements to the existing
Land Tax module. The Stamp Duty module, the Land


Bermuda House of Assembly Tax Workflow System, and Improvements to E -Tax
have all already gone live. The remaining phases of
the project are being re- examined due to the esta blishment of the Tax Reform Commission. Quite simply,
Madam Chairman, it would not make sense to make changes to an IT system if the tax system may be
changing in the future. That is the reason why items
have been put on hold.
Key achievements, Madam Chairman. The
Office of the Tax Commissioner continues to exper ience challenges due to the insufficient staffing and
resources, and an inadequate system. Recent external reviews by C ARTAC and the Fiscal Responsibility
Panel also commented on OTC’s limited resources
and how this will impact the ability to successfully i mplement the recommended tax reforms. The new
Government has authorised the filling of these longvacant posts in the Office of the Tax Commissioner to
assist in revenue collection, and the OTC are expec ting that the vacant posts will be filled in this current fiscal year.
Debt collection and tax enforcement continue
to be a priority for OTC. Steps to improve the overall
tax culture have improved current collections; however, the excessive arrears from years of decreased
economic activity have proven to be much harder to
collect and remain a serious concern. The OTC is both actively pursuing the collection of debts to the
courts and working closely with the Debt Enforcement Unit of the Attorney General’s Chambers in these efforts. In 2017/18, the Department of Public Prosec utions has also started working with OTC on the next
steps to prosecute tax offences in criminal matt ers in
an effort to change taxpayer behaviour and to improve
voluntary compliance. The OTC will continue in its
efforts to escalate matters of collection to the courts in
order to reduce outstanding government tax receiv ables.
Madam Chairman, the Stamp Dut y Section of
the OTC is under significant resource constraints. The
section is staffed with one lawyer, an officer, and three
administrative staff members. The Primary Family
Homestead Programme, which was introduced in 2005, has had a negative impact on t he productivity of
this section, and the impact has been compounded every year since. The Stamp Duty Section’s ability to meet its core function, being the adjudication of i nstruments subject to stamp duties, has been negativ ely impacted by the volume of P rimary Family Hom estead applications for living applicants. The Primary
Family Homestead exemption need only be applied
for on the death of the property owner, by the estate, during the probate process. Opening up the applic ation process to living applicants has created an unnecessary administrative burden on the Stamp Duty
Section and has impacted its ability to meet its core mandate.
In order to address these concerns, amendments to the Stamp Duties Act 1976 will be proposed, to alter the administration of the Primary Family
Homestead Programme. Madam Chairman, these
amendments will not result in any loss of exemption to
existing or future applications. The amendments are
necessary to ensure that administrative resources are not used on unnecessary functio ns. In addition, legi slative amendments to the Office of the Tax Commi ssioner will engage the Management Consulting Ser-vices Department to conduct a review of the Stamp
Duties Section. The objective of the review will be to
determine the appropriate level of resources neces-sary to address work volumes and internal and external service levels.
Madam Chairman, as recommended in the
CARTAC Tax Reform Report, in order to improve ef-fective efficiency, the OTC will have no choice but to
restructure its organisati on, apply risk -management
principles, and to automate its processes. This will
involve, amongst other items, shifting from a tax -
based to a function- based structure. This reform will
happen this year, and the OTC will be the first department that will be r eviewed by the newly formed
efficiency team. The department has seen an increase
in usage of the E -Tax system from 25 per cent to 36
per cent over the last two years. The OTC will conti nue to roll out mandatory e- filing in order to reduce the
number of manually filed paper tax returns, thus enabling OTC staff to focus on more value- added functions such as enforcement and compliance.
In 2017/18, the OTC continued to support key
government initiatives that provided a relief to taxpa yers and economic sectors. The payroll tax reform has
been rolled out, separating the payroll tax structure
into the employer and employee portions, effective
1 April 2017, although there was a delay in the employee portions to the second quarter of last fiscal
year. OTC personnel have been heavily involved with
the tax reform, reviewing legislative changes and liai sing with Government consultants and stakeholders.
They have conducted a number of workshops and
information seminars that cater to the various emplo yers on the Island to demonstrate and explain the
changes to the payroll tax structure.
Financial Services tax was also introduced
and came into effect at the beginning of this current
fiscal year. OTC has been responsible in administering and collecting this tax for the Government. The
office has continued to successfully administer all of
the other taxes under the OTC’s remit and supported
a number of concessions and rebate programmes
across a variety of sectors, including the economic empowerment zone, the construction sector relief
programmes, and approved projects.
Madam Chairman, the major priorities for the
OTC in 2018/19 include moderni sation of processes
and technology; funding the development of a module
for QuickBooks, which will be offered to local taxpa yers to reduce the complexity of tax filing, while i ncreasing compliance; strengthening compliance and
1466 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly enforcement efforts through taxpayer education and
audits; and recommending amendments to existing
tax legisla tion to improve registration, collection, and
enforcement .
Madam Chairman, the Ministry of Finance is
committed to providing the financial and professional
resources to improve the OTC’s effectiveness and
efficiency. Along with local professional service pr oviders, the Ministry of Finance will also reach out to
CARTAC and deliver technical assistance to the O ffice of the Tax Commissioner.
Madam Chairman, before I conclude on Head
38, the Office of the Tax Commissioner, I would like to
extend my appreciation for the work undertaken by
the entire management and staff of the department, who have worked for many years under very difficult
conditions. As I have said, this new Government has
recognised that this department needs more assi stance and is not only providing that assistance to that
department, but is also pr oviding that assistance to
taxpayers to make compliance easier.

HEAD 58 —INTEREST ON DEBT

Hon. E. David Burt: I will now move on to Head 58,
my final head for this morning (or this afternoon, now),
which is Interest on Debt.

[Pause]

Hon. E. David Burt: Madam Chairman, Head 58, I nterest on Debt, can be found on page B -121. The
budget allocation in 2018/19 for interest on debt is
$124 million. The 2017/18 estimate of $124 million
represents the ongoing debt service cost for the following debt instruments:
• $140 million of Bermuda Government uns ecured senior notes due in 2022 at an interest
rate of 5.73 per cent, annual interest $8 mi llion;
• $1 million of unsecured notes, maturing on
May 21, 2019, an interest rate of 7.38 per cent
and an annual interest of $7.4 million ;
• $80 million of unsecured senior notes matur-ing on 10 November 2019, with an interest
rate of 5.9 per cent and an annual interest of
$4.7 million ;
• $223,935,000 of unsecured notes, maturing
on 20 July 2020, with an interest rate of 5.603 per cent and annual interest of $12.55
million ;
• $475 million of unsecured notes maturing on 3 January 2023, with an interest rate of 4.13 per
cent and an annual interest bill of $19.6 mi llion;
• $715 million of unsecured notes, maturing on
6 February 2024, an inter est rate of 4.854 per
cent and an annual interest bill of $36.4 mi llion; • BD$50 million of unsecured senior notes, i ssued on 16 December 2013, maturing on 16 December 2023, interest rate of 4.75 per cent,
annual interest bill $2.4 million;
• $665 million of unsecured senior notes, m aturing on 25 January 2027, with an interest
rate of 3.717 [per cent] and an annual interest bill of $24.7 million; and
• $75 million US 18- month loan facility issued
on 13 December 2017 and maturing on 13
June 2019, with an interest rate of 4 per cent
and an annual interest bill, when fully drawn,
at $3 million.
The remaining expenses for 2018/19 relate to
the estimated interest costs that will be incurred on
Government’s long- term borrowing requirements for
this budget year, which is estimated at an additional
$5 [million] to $6 million in ongoing expenses inc idental to the various securities, such as trustee and exchange fees. The weighted average cost of borro wing currently stands at 4.64 per cent.
Honourable Members are advised that the
revised estimated annual interest expense of
$119.5 million for fiscal year 2017/18 is anticipated to
be about 11.4 per cent of government revenues. And,
of course, this means that for every dollar collected,
approximately 12 cents is paid on interest expense.
The interest expense- to-revenue ratio for countries
rated similar to Bermuda is 5.1 per cent, and the same
ratio for advanced industrial countries is about 4.1 per
cent. It is noted that Bermuda’s ratio is far worse than
those countries and has grown from 2,019, when this
ratio was just 1.9 per cent.
Madam Chairman, the Government has a target debt service- to-revenue ratio set at 10 per cent. It
is important to note that debt service includes the annual Sinking Fund contribution. Therefore, w hen i ncluding the annual Sinking Fund contribution, the debt service -to-revenue ratio will stand at 17.3 per cent for
the upcoming fiscal year. This is a decline from 18 per cent in the last fiscal year. We will work towards r educing this ratio to the 10 per cent target level over
the medium term. This will be accomplished by gro wing the economy, coupled with continuous deficit r eduction and via prudent fiscal management on the
part of the Government.
Thank you, Madam Chairman. This concludes
my remarks on Heads 10, 12, 38, and 58 for the Mi nistry of Finance.

Thank you, Minister.
Would anyone like to speak to the heads?
Just for the listening audience, we are deba ting Finance, and the Heads are 10, 12, 38, and 58.
The Chair now recognises the Leader of the
Opposition, of constituency 19, Jeanne Atherden.
Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: Thank you, Madam
Chairman.


Bermuda House of Assembly First of all, I want to say thank you very much
for the Premier/Minister of Finance for giving me quite
an extensive brief. I must admi t he was able to go
through that at record speed. But I was able to keep up with what he was talking about. So I will start off right now by going to Head 10, which is on page B -98.
And I must say that, Premier, I am going to
say this because I think this is something that my colleagues have found over time. When we started to
have discussions about the salaries, especially when
we started to talk about the salaries, there is this (what I call) discrepancy between what the Budget
Book says in terms of the number of heads, the actual
financial expenditure, and the difference in terms of
what is seen as a variance. So, if we start to go to page B -98 . . .

[Pause]

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: If you go to page B -98,
which is where you are going to look at Salar ies, okay,
and I am now looking at the Ministry of Finance, Sal aries, page B -101, the employee numbers. This is the
Policy Planning and Management. There is an indic ation here that there was an original four persons. The
revised indication for 2017/18 is t hat there were three
people who were actually hired. But when you go and
look at the actual estimate for 2018/19, there is an
indication that there was one more person who was
not on staff. And I find it sort of ironic because when
you look at the actual s alary cost items, there is an
indication here that the salaries for the year were actually the same as what was there.
Maybe I can restate that to make it clear. The
salaries on page B -100 are indicating that the original
salaries are $1,787,000. This has been revised for
2017/18 as $1,787,000, which is indicating that there
was no variance, that all of the money was spent. But
when you go and you look at the headcount on page
B-101, there is an indication that the department was
one short. And I just wondered if the Minister could
just explain, because this is something that comes up
often, where the salaries, the dollar amount, is indicat-ing something that says that all of the monies have
been spent. And when you look at the headcount, the
headcount is indicating a vacancy.
And the reason I am asking that is because
there has been a lot of talk about the fact that there
was a freeze, that the headcounts were not able to be
spent and services were not actually carried out. But
the numbers do not reflect that . The numbers reflect
money having been spent, but headcount being v acant. So I just wondered whether some of these salary
costs might have been utilised elsewhere, because if
the positions are vacant, but the salary expenditure is
indicating that it has been totally spent, then it just leads one to wonder whether they were used els ewhere. And could the Minister explain what the funds might have been spent on? (And I do know that the Minister did give me some additional information in
terms of salaries.)
If you then go to page B -101, where there is
an indication that, for NAMLC, there are going to be
three new salaried posts, three new employees who are going to come on. And I just wondered if the Mi nister could indicate where those salaries were actually
captured for the previous year. Because my understanding was that the NAMLC persons were already
around and they were contributing, because I know
that when we were the Government, they would come and report to us on their activities. So I just wondered
if the Minister could indicate where were the NAMLC
staff for 2017/18, although we are showing there will
be three new people for 2018/19?
I know that the Minister did answer one of my
questions, which is relating to the travel budget. I was curious because, w hen you go from page B -99, which
is showing that NAMLC, for 2018/19, had 663 for expenditure, and NAMLC had three staff members, I
was curious as to what might have been the actual
additional expenditure. I had made some assumptions that it might have been 443, but I think the Minister
actually told us what the NAMLC cost would be. And it
was interesting because I was pleased that the Mini ster indicated that the difference in the NAMLC was not
just the salaries, but also the travel that was required.
So that was a useful piece of information that the Mi nister supplied, which you could not get just from the
Budget Book. But it was good that he actually supplied that information. Okay.

While you are taking a break there,
may I just put out there whether you would like to
have these questions answered before lunch? Or do
you want to continue speaking and then carry over?

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: No, I will continue. And
then they can be all answered. So, no, I am sorry. I
am ready to break for lunch if that is what you are as king.

No. We will have five minutes. I just
did not know if you wanted answers before lunch.
Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: No, no. I do not want them
answered right at this minute. I will just continue.
On page B -100, and although the Minister did
go down a lot of items, the Minister skipped over the
Repairs and Maintenance budget, which this year is a
new expenditure, which is $290,000. So I just won-dered if the Minister could indicate to us what this is
going to be allocated for.
With respect to training, I understand—and let
me just say I am glad that the Minister spelled out some of this —that it is actually very important for the
staffing to have the training, because we have a lot of
reviews that are coming up.
1468 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly On page B -100, looking at Grants and Contr ibutions, this is something that I found was a little un usual. And I do not know why it occurs. But page B -99,
under Grants, which is the grants to the National Pension Commission, it shows the estimate for 2018/1 9
as $1 million. But if you go to page C -16, page C -16
shows that it is actually $1,057,000 that was going to
be spent. And the difference is $57,000 which is going
for the CFATF contribution. And I just wondered if the
Minister could indicate where that $57,000 has been
allocated; to which business unit have those funds been allocated?
With respect to Revenues, which is on page
B-100, the Minister indicated that the $188,000 is for
the BNTB [ Bank of N. T. Butterfield & Son Limited]
guarantee, and I just wondered if the Minister could
indicate how long that guarantee will last, whether it
has any sort of life cycle attached to it?
Okay. I was intrigued by some of the performance measures. And if you go to page B -102, with
respect to the GDP [gross domestic product], I notice that the Ministry and the Minister had indicated that it
was going to be lowering its GDP down from 1.5 . . .
actually, it was going to be down to 0.75. And I just
wondered whether this lowering was reflected after
the Budget Book was act ually produced.
I did go through and try to do the calculation in
terms of the government’s net debt -to-revenue ratio,
and I could clearly calculate the original forecast for
2017/18 and the revised forecast for 2017/18. But I
was not able to do the calcul ation for 2018/19. So, I
just wondered if the Minister could clarify the calcul ation. Because basing it on the net debt that was outstanding and the revenues, I definitely did not come
up with the 215 per cent.
With respect to the interest as a percentage of
revenue, I found that it was easy to turn and come up
with the calculation for the actual outcome (I am still
on page B -102) for the original forecast and the r evised forecast. But similarly, with respect to the tar-geted outcome for 2018/19, there just seemed to be a
discrepancy. So I just wondered if the Minister could
clarify how he came up with that calculation.
If I now go back to the notes that the Minister
produced . . .

Good afternoon, Members. We are
back in Committee of Supply, and we will continue
with the debate on Finance. We are debating Heads
10, 12, 38, and 58.
I now yield to and recognise the Le ader of the
Opposition from constituency 19, Jeanne Atherden.

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: Thank you, Madam
Chairman.
I just want to go back and circle back for a
moment, just for those people who are in the listening
audience, just to give them a framework to indicate
that we chose certain heads in this Ministry for some
particular reasons. And perhaps I should have indicated at the very beginning that we had chosen Head 10, which is the Ministry Headquarters, because it
carried out some very significant and important functions. It has NAMLC; it has the Treaty Management; it
has the Economic and Financial Intelligence, and the
Business Regulations. And sometimes people do not realise . . . they are so focused on the services that
they get from the Government that they do not always
realise that the Government also has to do some things just to make sure that Bermuda is functioning
and make sure that Bermuda keeps the position that it
has globally.
So it was important for us to understand that
looking at Head 10 gave us the opportunity for the
Minister of Finance to give us some more information
about some of these areas where the Government works and performs. And the reason I say that is because when I went and I Iooked back at what the Mi nister reminded us of what this head did, I think that
there are two things that resonated to me.
One, because most people will get the fact
that, Finance has to assure the alignment of source
allocation with policy priorities . So that is what most
people get. They make sure that we get the resources
in to enable us to deliver the priorities that are out
there.


Bermuda House of Assembly What most people do not get, though, is the
fact that another function was using output and performance measures to evaluate programme expenditure. And that, to me, is something . . . and you will
hear me harping all the time, as we go through this
Budget debate, that it is not just about how well . . . it
is not just about whether the money was spent on
budget and on time. But it really is important to make
sure that t he programme outcomes that the money
was supposed to be spent on actually were produced. Because that is where the people know that they get the bang for the buck, and that is where they know
that the priorities have been achieved.
So I just wanted to rem ind the listening aud ience and the Members in the House that this was
very important as we go forward.
The Minister of Finance also indicated that . . .
and this is talking about Ministry Headquarters. The
Minister of Finance indicated that part of the Hea dquarters increase was due to a NAMLC transfer. So I
obviously understood that, and that was explained.
But he also said that there was a 2.5 [per
cent] salary uplift and that accounted for a $56,000 increase. Now, to most people that might not seem
like a lot. But for me it raised a concern about whether
the 2.5 [per cent] salary uplift has been taken into
consideration across all of the ministries. Because
earlier, during a debate, there was a question raised
about whether the salary uplift had been inc luded.
And the response was that the department head had
been advised by the Budget Office to not include the
impact of a 2.5 [per cent] salary uplift.
Now, that is significant because I know that
the Finance Minister has told us that it is going to be around $6.8 million. And I would like to hope that the
other departments have taken this into consideration
just the same way he has. But a department head did
indicate that it had not been taken into consideration.
And that would be worrying, because that w ould mean
that the budget that we have here might not have i ncluded all of the expenditure that the Government will
have to pay for this current fiscal year.
That said, I then want to go around to . . . the
Minister did explain the question that I had wit h respect to Repairs and Maintenance, because I went
back and I re- looked at his Budget brief, and the R epairs and Maintenance item is something that is r eferred to as the maintenance of the new techs exchange portal . And I guess I was just curious as to . . .
under normal circumstances if one has . . . I would
view a portal as a capital asset. So I just was curious
as to whether this maintenance . . . is this something
that is going to be an ongoing maintenance for the
portal, or whether it was something t hat had more to
do with what I call almost like a depreciation? So if
that could be explained.
There was an explanation with respect to the
EU consultants, the fact that there was a decrease of $216,000. And that was relating to consulting fees that were transferred to Cabinet Office. But what I was
curious about . . . the Professional Services only went
down by $90,000. So I just wondered what other fees
had been included with respect to bumping the
amount up, because $216,000 was going down for the trans fer to Cabinet Office, but that line item only went
down by $9,000 [sic].

[Inaudible interjection]
Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: Line item, Professional
Services. That went down by $90,000. But in his brief
the Finance Minister indicated that $216,000 of consultant fees had been transferred to Cabinet Office. I
presume that they came out of Professional [Services], so they did not go down by 216 they only went
down by 90. So I am presuming that there are some additional professional fees that have been added
back in there. And if the Minister is able to indicate
what they were . . .
In going through and looking at heads (I am
going back now to Head 10) it was very significant for
me that the Minister quoted the fact the Fiscal R esponsibility Panel was talking about Government going and getting the degree of inequity right and also talking about growing revenues. But I also was r eminded of the fact that that Fiscal Responsibility Panel also reminded us in Government (and this is on page 17 of the Fiscal Responsi bility Panel [report]) . . . and
if I can quote it for just a moment because it ties into
the notation that the Minister said that there was one
headcount, an assistant financial secretary, a post that is not filled in that Ministry, and that consideration
is being given as to whether it will actually be filled.
And the only point I would like to make is the
fact that the Fiscal Responsibility Panel had indicated
that it was important that Government look at the way
in which it did business, to look at mak ing sure that it
can be as efficient as it could be. And I would like . . . I
would hope that before that [post] is filled, and in any [posts] that are being filled, that the whole question of
making sure that the departments are as efficient as
they could be is very fully examined. Because what
was also said was the fact that the Fiscal Responsibi lity Panel were raising some concerns about having to find taxes to cover all of these expenditures, and people feeling like why are they having to cover this burden if maybe the size of Government could be smaller
and more efficient . So I just raise that point.
With respect to . . . on page 11 of the—

[Inaudible interjections]

[Gavel]

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: Sorry.

Please continue.

1470 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly Hon. Jeann e J. Atherden: Okay, on page 11 of the
Minister’s brief he also indicated that the Government
was going to come in, that the projected operating
expenses were going to be $921 million, which was
lower than the $923 million originally budgeted, and he indic ated that this was because the Government
had paid close attention to spending and expected to
. . . he said “exceed.” So I am not sure whether in the
context of that word, and if I just read it, it did not
come across, Finance Minister. It said: “We have paid
close attention to spending and expect to exceed the
original est imate from last year. ”
So, if I read that in line with spending, “exceed” might not be . . . this is on page 11.

Hon. E. David Burt: I am happy to clarify, if she will
allow.
The Chai rman: Yes, Minister.

POINT OF CLARIFICATION

Hon. E. David Burt: As was stated in the Budget, we
are expecting to exceed the expenditure targets. That
means we are going to come in under budget. My
apologies for the non- clarity there. It is the exact same
thing that is in the National Budget Statement. The
original estimates for current account spending a pproved by the former Government were $923.5 million and our revised estimates for current account spen ding show $921.5 million.

Thank you for the clarification.
Member, you may proceed.

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: Yes, but I mean most
times when one is talking about expenditures and exceeding, one is thinking of them going upwards rather
than going down. But that is fine. But I think this is —

[Inaudible interjection]
Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: Pardon?
[Inaudible interjection]
Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: No, no, I appreciate that. I
am not, I am not . . . I have given you full marks for
giving it to me. I appreciate that. I give it to you.
[Inau dible interjection]
Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: I am sure the Finance
Minister does not feel like he is being flogged. I think
he is feeling like I am just gently raising some concerns. And in the spirit of not flogging, I guess I should just say that —

[Inaudible interjection] Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: —I should just say that —

Sorry one voice. There is one Member on her feet speaking—one voice —that is all we
should hear.
Member, you may proceed.

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: In terms of trying to get
clarity . . . because it is not just clarity in this House. It
is also clarity for the public that is out there. The mere
fact that the Finance Minister . . . and he has confirmed that his expenditures will be below the budget
that had been set by the One Bermuda Alliance, the
former Government, it just raises the question as to
why there was a need for a supplementary.
So I need to ask the Finance Minister about
the $991 million that he is saying will be the appropri ation for the year. Can he advise w hether that includes
the supplementary?
Okay. Now then, I will move on to some other
information that was recorded. It was quite interesting that the Minister gave us some information with r espect to some of the other work that is being done.
And I think that the understanding is that we will have
to have $90 million of new borrowing. I found that i nteresting because we were going to have $19 million of new borrowing, but the Minister had indicated that
we had come in under budget with respect to debt interest and, therefore, I was just curious as to whet her there had been any sort of repayment during the
year. Because, obviously, now we are going back up,
borrowing $90 million, and we are going to go and have the same budgeted amount that we had—$124
million.
With respect to the pensions, it was interes ting that the Finance Minister made reference to the
Pensions and what we were doing about them be-cause I do think that lots of people are quite interested
in pensions. They are interested in their own pen-sions; they are interested in the government pension.
And I was quite intrigued by the statistics that had
been given with respect to the pensions that are out
there, and not so much as to why people borrow or
want to borrow their money, because I was quite
aware of that. And I was quite aware of the fact that right now the private pensions allow you to come and,
if it meets the criteria, then you are able to go through
and borrow a certain amount of money on your pension.
And I guess I will have to ask the Minister b ecause it has been asked of me, and it is something that the general public wants to understand . . . they
look at the fact that they can see in the private sector
that people can go out and borrow money, if they
might lose their house or if they had a medical expense, et cetera. So for them it is, Well, why can’t I
come and borrow money off of my government pe nsion? And I might know the answer, but I do think it is
important that the public understands that part of this


Bermuda House of Assembly relates to the whole issue of the funding, and it relates
to some of the things that you said that you were going to look at during this coming year, which is relating
to conducting a review of our pension arrangements
to determine whether public and private pensions are set at appr opriate levels, and also continuing the r eview of all government pension plans to determine
sustainability of the funds.
I think that this is something that the people of
Bermuda want to know and need to know because, as
I say, they know that in the private sector they can borrow. And for those people who have no pension
other than what is in the government one, they are
wondering why their mate can down the street, and if
he is going to lose his [home] or if he has got a medi-cal emergency, that mate can get it, but the person
that is in the government plan cannot.
I think what I was very concerned about, and I
think that many people outside of government feel the
same as I do, is the fact that when you were talking
about the Economic and Financial Intelligence Unit, and some things that were going to be worked on during the coming year, continuing to work with the Go vernment Employee Health Insurance Committee to
assist in redesigning the health plan, I believe that,
and I think that most people will believ e that that is
overdue. This is overdue and, therefore, the need to
get that to some conclusion is essential, partially b ecause not only does it affect the whole question of the bargaining unit, it also impacts on some issues with
respect to comparability when negotiations are taking
place between the various unions. So I believe it is
very important that this be resolved so that people can feel that, regardless of which union you are in, that
there is a degree of fairness.

[Mr. Hubert (Kim) E. Swan, Chair man]

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: Mr. Chairman, I am going
to ask you if I can ask, through you to the Minister . . .
he did talk about that the Unit will continue in the d evelopment of regulations and legislation in the Financial Technology industry. And then he talked about continuing to work with the Bermuda Infrastructure
Fund Manager. And I just wondered if he is able to
provide any information as to . . . which is the Fortress
Fund? If he can provide any information as to where
we are with respect to get ting that fund, in terms of
having it populated, in terms of monies coming in, also
in terms of decisions as to how it could be utilised as
well as information . . . because I know that it is . . .
At a previous time there was a question about
which fees were going to be charged. But the bottom
line is, regardless of the fees, the most important thing that the public out there would be interested in would
be how these funds are going to be used. Because infrastructure . . . there are infrastructure needs t hat
are out there. And if they are going to be taken care of, then it is time to get that moving. And if there is some movement, I think the people would like to know
that this has taken place.
Thank you, Minister, for giving us an indic ation of the various treaties . . . not the treaties so
much, because many times you come and you give
information about where you have been and what has
been signed. But I think we do not realise that in the
background of that is a lot of travel that has to take
place for attendance at the OECD Global Forums and
a lot of other things where our representatives are out there making sure that we establish the relationships and build those relationships.
So I think that this is all that I wanted to raise
with respect to Head 1 0, Headquarters.
I will now move to—

Cont inue on.
Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: Thank you.
Just before I leave the pensions, in terms of
reviewing the existing retirement age under the N ational Pension Scheme legislation, I think that is another one which, especially right now where we are
having is sues with respect to whether we have
enough Bermudians in the workforce, are people, are
seniors, able to manage on their existing salaries?
Would they be able to continue working if they have
the ability, and would that help them? I think exami ning that w ould be something that lots of people are
very much interested in. I know that there are some
issues, but there is also the saying that where there’s
a will there’s a way . So, I would like to think that we
will be able to hear something shortly.
So, Mr. C hairman, I will finish Head 10 now
for myself. I will now go to the next one which is Head
12—my favourite— which is Customs. And that is on
page B -98.
The reason I say that this is my favourite is
because this is where the revenue engine is. And, as
you r ightly indicated, the Customs Department is the
one that . . . the money, et cetera, that is collected in
this area is very important. I should not say that this is the “engine” because the engine is actually down in
the Office of the Tax Commissioner.

Honourable Member , not to interrupt,
but B -109 is Head 12 and B -98 refers to the Summary
of all Ministry Heads.
Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: Sorry, I was actually star ting there so that I could actually just remind all of us
that if you go to B -98—
1472 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly The Chairman: Yes?

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: —it is just indicating that
the original budget for Customs was $593 million. The
revised budget was $594 million. And the new est imate is $623,840,000. (I am rounding off.) And the
only reason I say that is because when we start to
discuss some of the changes I think it is important to
be able to know what the original was, what the r evised was, and what the next estimate is for the com-ing year. That was just to put everything in perspec-tive so that we could be clear that between the revised
and the estimate there was going to be $29 million of
additional revenue which is being projected.
If you then go to Head 12, page B -109, you
start to look at some of the changes there. And I did
not start off initially wi th the biggest item, which was
the Customs Duty. I actually started off with some of the smaller items because it was . . . I find it intriguing
that in terms of the Customs Duty from the General
Post Office [GPO], which is cost centre 8009, that there was an indication that the original budget was
$775,000, the revised budget was $842,000, which was a modest increase, and the estimate for next year
was going to be the same. And I was just intrigued
because I know that the GPO . . . there had been a lot
of opportunities to try and make people use the GPO
as a place to bring goods in and to try and sort of compete with some of the courier services, et cetera.
But it just seemed to me that if we have an increase in
revenues . . . I just was not sure as to why there would
not be any expectation to have another increase into
the next year.
But if you then turn around and you turn . . .
and it is interesting, Mr. Chairman, because the litt le
chirp that came up just actually put me right onto my
next item, which i s to talk about Customs Duty.
If you look at Customs Duty and you realise
that the original budget for 2017/18 was $222,941,000, the revised budget is for $230,169,000
and the estimate for 2018/19 is $34 million, now,
sometimes you actually start to think , Okay, if we had
that nice increase of $8 million between . . . if you a ctually go and say for 2016 (because I think sometimes
we have to go back to that) . . . in 2016 we only had
$210 million. Actually , the revised between 2017/18
was $230 million, so w e actually got $20 million of
extra revenue in that last year.

And I think everybody is honest, will accept
the fact that a lot of that was the America’s Cup. A lot of that was people bringing in goods, whether they were being used for the America’s Cup, whether they
were being used for construction or whatever else.
But these were things that resulted in an extra $20
million of revenue, which was why I was curious as to why the Minister was only forecasting an additional $4
million of revenue for 2018/19. And I say curious, because on the one hand
he needs to be conservative. I do not think that we
could turn around and say that the demand that was
driven by the America’s Cup . . . we do not have an
America’s Cup; so you cannot say that those types of
revenues would be coming through. But I also know
that some of the demand also related to construction
projects. So it is possible that maybe the construction
projects that are starting might also drive the revenue.
So, on the one hand I am not criticising him
for just putting in another $4 million up; but I am also recognising that the bottom line is that revenues are
going to be what we have to achieve. And if we do not
achieve it, then we are not going to be able to deal
with the expenditures that we have.
I am looking at the line item, and the Minister
did indicate that he was anticipating that there would be duty increases in terms of the continuation of the
economic improvements, which is good. I do know
that I read in one or two of the economic review s that
have been done on Bermuda indicating that it had
started to stabilise and, therefore, there is an apprec iation that maybe we are starting to have consumer
confidence grow. But it just made me curious as to
whether the adjustments in the duty rates o n certain
key items, which is also something that the Minister
put into place, so I know that is a positive . . . I just
was not certain whether that was going to offset suff iciently, what I call the $20 million bump that we got from America’s Cup.
So I j ust wondered if the . . . I am just raising it
from the perspective of saying to the Minister that it
was a bump, and whether the construction equipment
that came in—

[Inaudible interjections ]

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: Anyway . . . so there was
also an indication, and I must admit the—
[Inaudible interjections ]

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: I am pleased. I am
pleased that for the first time I have seen an indication
of how much the Sugar Tax is proposed to bring— the
$3 million. And I did not see anything anyw here which
talked about how much of that would go towards education and to help people understand what they nee ded to do to change their lifestyles, et cetera.
Perhaps, perhaps, that is already something
that is in the Health Minister’s budget. But I do t hink
that it would go a long way if people could see a dollar
sum out there to help them understand that it is not
just about chocolates, and it is not just about sweets.
It is actually about all the food that you eat. Barbeque
sauce has just as much sugar as some other items.
So it was quite interesting.
Now, I must admit, and maybe this was just a
typo in your brief. You said container fees are


Bermuda House of Assembly $1,019,000. But the Book actually had $959,000. So
did something change in between? I am just asking
because I am just looking at the Book, and I am looking at your brief. I did not know whether it was som ething else that had come up after that. I do realise that
I saw something earlier, and I think the Minister can
confirm . . . I know that the Minister was working on
the Unified Customs Reform. But I think I read som ewhere that this was deferred until such time as the Tax Reform Committee could do its deliberation. So if
that is . . . I am pretty sure that this is what occurred.
With respect to 8053, which is the Y acht Arr ivals, I just wondered . . . although it is not a big item,
the Yacht Arrivals went up from $76,000 to $103,000 in 2017/18. And we are anticipating another $103[,000] to $104,000 in 2018/19. And I just wondered whether Government has any sort of pr ogramme which is designed to try and get these yachts to come back to Bermuda. I know a lot came for
America’s Cup and I know that a lot of people understand now that Bermuda is a good place to come on
their way going back and forth. So I just wondered
whether anything was planned to make sure that this
would happen.
Okay, with respect to Container Fees, orig inally in 2016/17 the actual was $976,000; the original
for 2017/18 was revised downward to $705,000; but actually it has been revised upwards again to
$957,000. So I was just curious as to whether there was any sort of delay or anything. And I say that because I know that there is a company that actually
produces reports showing the container arrivals which
lets people know how many containers are coming because it gives an indicator of economic activity.
So I just wanted to find out whether the
$957,000 . . . I presume it might have something to do
with stuff that was brought in. And, even if it was duty -
free, the container arrival would not be . . . so I just
wondered if there was anything additional that the Minister had contemplated in terms of indicating that it
would stay at that same level.
With respect to Custom Service Charges, I
just wondered if the Minister could just clarify what
that is. And the reason I say clarify what that is is because the actual for 2016/17 is $589,000. The original was $1,223,000, and the revised is $711,000. So it just made me wonder as to what we were actually
getting.
I really wanted to go on to the Office of the
Tax Commissioner and that —

We are moving to B -113, we are d ebating Head 38, we are under Finance. This debate goes until 4:29 pm.
Opposition Leader, you have the floor.
Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: Right, okay. So, this . . . I
am going back to B-98, just because that is where the Ministry is, and that is where you get to see what I call the overview.
You actually see the Office of the Tax Commissioner. It indicates that there is no change all the
way across . . . 2016/17, $3,403,000; the origi nal
2017/18, $3,451,000; the revised 2017/18,
$3,451,000; and then in the next year $3,451,000.
And the reason I say that is because when you read
and you go back and look at the rest of the information that is in there about the Office of the Tax
Commissi oner, there is a lot of indication there that
the Tax Commissioner’s Office was not fully staffed,
that there were things that happened, and—

[Inaudible interjections ]

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: Mr. Chairman, the Budget
numbers —

[Inaudible interjection]

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: The Budget numbers ind icate that the expenditure has gone at the same level,
that it has not changed. And what I am looking at is
saying that if it had not changed, and if right now we
are turning around . . . and you can go to pag e B-114.
If you turn to page B -114 (which is where the Office of
the Tax Commissioner is) you will see that it says the headcount was supposed to be 29, 29, and 29. So
there is no change . . . there is no change in the
heads. And what I am concerned about is that if you
have no change in the heads and if you have the dollar amount still unchanged, how are we then going to
turn around —

[Inaudible interjections ]

Hon. E. David Burt: Mr. Chairman, point of clarific ation, if the Honourable Opposition Leader wi ll yield.

POINT OF CLARIFICATION

Hon. E. David Burt: Mr. Chairman, I hate to interrupt
the Opposition Leader, but I do not want members of
the public to be misinformed. And I would like for this debate to be fruitful.
The fact is that for as long as we know there
are posts which are budgeted, which are funded, and those that are actually filled. And under the policy of
the former Government, even though the posts were
funded, as a budget control measure the former Mini ster of Finance just did not approve any posts. So the
money is there and the funds were not approved.
Now maybe that money was used for som ething else. I cannot tell you what they used the money
for as it was underneath their watch —

[Inaudible interjections ]

1474 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly Hon. E. David Burt: But what I can say is because
the post numbers are there, those represent established posts, and those will also represent funded
posts. And the funded posts which existed were not
filled by the former administration. We have author-ised those posts to be filled. They were previously
funded. We have authorised those posts to be filled
and, therefore, they are going to be filled.
[Inaudible interjection]

Continue on, Opposition Leader.

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: Mr. Chairman, I am glad
that the Finance Minister said that because, irrespective of what might have happened before in terms of
2016/17, 2017/18, which is where the current Government is in place, they had the budget available to
them and the opportunity to spend that money if they
chose.
Now, according to this the money has been
spent because the budgets are indicating that all that
money that was there was spent —

[Inaudible interjection]

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: —and the headcount,
which is there, is indicating that the [posts] are filled.
So all I am saying is that . . . as the Minister sugges ted, maybe that money was spent on other items, because I know that some departments might have chosen to, if they were not able to get the headcount, to
use consultants. Consultants would have enabled them —

[Inaudible interjection]

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: Consultants would have
enabled them to get . . . So anyway, my question to
the Finance Minister is the fact that the numbers have
not changed. Therefore, I just wondered whether the
Finance Minister is able to indicate whether the funds
that were reserved for those positions which were not
filled, whether they were then filled by other means so
that the service to the country was actually mai ntained. Because according to this there is not a budget surplus left in this particular department.
Now, the Minister actually turned and in the
discussion he said some things about this department which are a concern that I have had for a long time.
This is about the fact that the Office of the Tax Commissione r is the department that generates the large
percentage of the revenue. It is in that department
where the largest amount of revenue is collected. And
there are some concerns about whether these rev enues are being collected, whether there is the ability
for the department to be able to maintain just the re venues that are currently collected, and if we are going to turn and introduce new revenues or additional rev-enue sources. There is a real concern as to whether
they will be able to manage it. And I would just . . . if
you will just . . . if I can just read something for a m inute, Mr. Chairman?

Which page are you on?

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: This is page 20. It says:
“Last year’s Panel Report emphasised the
continuing importance of efforts to prioritize more effectively government budgetary allocations to ‘address
inefficiencies and to demonstrate the Government’s
commitment to improve efficiency and reduce w aste.’
The then Opposition in its reply to the 2017 Budget
Speech echoed this view.”
It was important that the Opposition echoed
the view and, therefore, I am very pleased. But they go on to say that: “We also emphasised that an i ncrease in spending in some areas (such as in tax administration or tourism marketing) might yield greater revenue or higher economic growth.”
So that was the Fiscal Responsibility Panel
suggesting that maybe in the area of tax administr ation there might be a benefit of putting some more
resources in there. And I believe that this is something
that really needs to be looked at. But I also believe
that this should be looked at in the context of, if you are able to save money somewhere else, then try and
do that too because just addi ng bodies so that the
expenses go up is counterproductive.
And I do think that there is one other thing that
is here, and I am sure that Minister Burch will know
what I am saying. It is the fact that this is talking about . . . there is a concern that is i ndicating about how
long it takes for the Human Resource Department to
be able to bring these positions to market. And I think
that this is something that is very important, because it
does not make sense having positions available to be
filled if there is a long lead time to get those people in
position.
And sometimes it is not just about saying
whether you are allowing it to be unfilled, it is actually sometimes because you have been given permission
to fill them but you just cannot get them filled. And by
the time you get the people there they have moved on
and, therefore, you have what is left where a depar tment is unfilled, under -resourced, with the result that


Bermuda House of Assembly you have revenues which are not collected and you
have these growing accounts receivable. So I think it
is very important that we understand that.
So I will then go on to—

We are on Finance, debating Head
38 on pa ge B-113. This debate concludes at 4:29 pm.
The Opposition Leader, the Shadow Finance
Minister, has the floor.

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: Now the Finance Minister
did clarify the fact that the cruise ship departures were
going up. And that was because of, obviously, the
tourism marketing.
I think that the point that I want to make . . .
and this goes . . . if you go to page B -115, and then
you look at 8075, Voluntary Land Conveyances, I am
just raising the question because there was $275,000
actual. The or iginal budget was $500,000. It has been
revised up to $750,000. And then it has been revised
back down to $500,000. Now I know that there has
been some concern about this department in terms of revenues collected and the ability to make sure that
the values, with respect, because the voluntary conveyances . . . there is a need to have the value of the
land agreed upon with the Tax Department. And I do
know that there were some issues with respect to ge tting it done and [concerning the] backlog.
So I just w ondered if the Minister is able to
turn around and indicate what actual revenues were
collected to December 2017 for Voluntary Land Conveyances. And the reason I am asking to December
2017 is because we are now three months gone by
and the department shoul d be able to say what that
figure is. I am not asking for the end of the year be-cause we have not gotten there yet. But for December
2017, if there was an indication as to how much volu ntary land conveyance revenue had been actually co llected.
And this is going back to B -115, 8222, the
Betting Tax Tariffs. Is the Minister able just to indicate
. . . it was originally $869,000. It was actually up to . . .
it was said it was going to be $1,575,000. It actually
came down to 159, and we are anticipating 875. I just
wondered if the Minister is able to indicate whether this was a delay or whether there was some issue
with respect to being able to implement this tax, be-cause that is a real wide swing if you go on the basis
that the actual was $869[,000]. So it is not like you
were talking about implementing something, you actually had an actual $869[,000]; you thought it was going to almost double, and then it actually almost
went down by 400 per cent, and now it is due to go
back up again. The Chairman: Is that 80 23 you are referring to?

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: Yes, I am referring to
8023.

The Betting Tax Tariffs.

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: Yes, yes, the Betting Tax.
Now I do want to leave some time because I
know that one of my other colleagues wa nt to be able
to ask some questions.
This is 8051. Could the Minister just clarify,
the Airport Departure? Now, I know why it was there
in 2016/17, but nothing was in there for 2017/18. But
there is money in the revised for 2017/18, and nothing
back out f or 2018/19. So if he could just clarify why we
thought we were going to —

Thank you.

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: Okay, then 8033, the H otel Occupancy Tax. And this gets back to . . . we were
talking about America’s Cup, and we were talking
about whether there were other things that are com-ing. Hotel Occupancy Tax, 8033. The actual for
2016/17 was $7,951,000. The original w as
$11,500,000. And we almost made it with $10,450,000. And I just wondered if there was an ything else, recognising that Occupancy Tax, especially with hotels, is driven by people coming and there is
not . . . I know there is the Triathlon, but I just wondered whether we anticipating that we are going to
have that same level of air arrivals, because occupa ncy is actually driven by air arrivals.
Okay, this is getting back to . . . I am looking
now at Performance Measures on page B -116. And
as I said before, for me, performance measures are
the way the public can tell how well a department is
functioning. And the bottom line is . . . it is important
as to how it is functioning. So there was an indication,
it says respond to taxpayers’ correspondence within
10 days of receipt . Last year they only managed to do
that 30 per cent of the time, and they are talking about doing that 50 per cent of the time for this next year.
Talking about processing schemes for approval within
30 days of application, they were only able to do that
60 per cent of the time and now anticipate 70 [per
cent]. And I say this because if you cannot meet your
performance measure standards, then it means there is something wrong.
1476 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report
Ber muda House of Assembly I would like to think that as the Ministry and
the department look at how they are going to review
this department, recognising that it is an important department, that it ends up being properly staffed. And maybe it is not just staffing. Maybe it is technolo-gy. Maybe there are some other things. All I am just saying is the fact that I think the public wants to be
able to see that this is going to work because the re venues that are going to be generated are what the Government is going to need to offset the priority pr ogrammes that the Government is going to produce.
So that is why it is important, Mr. Chairman,
that we strive to get the revenues up, because if the
revenue is not there you cannot slow down the expenditures that we are already talking about dealing with.
With respect to the Stamp Duty Adjudication, I
am not going to . . . it is the same item. I am not going
to belabour the fact that you know you have not . . .
you are not meeting the standard and, therefore, there is a concern.
And we finish at what time, Mr. Chairman?
Th
e Chairman: Four twenty -nine. It is now 2:55 and
this debate concludes at 4:29 pm.
Ho
n. Jeanne J. Atherden: Okay.
Anyway, I just want to say that I will just then
go to my last item, which I think relates to the Interest on the Debt. I think that was it.
Th
e Chairman: That is page B -121, Head 58 —
Interest on Debt.
Ho
n. Jeanne J. Atherden: Okay, right.
Okay, so if I then look at Head 58, B- 121 . . .
Th
e Chairman: We are debating Finance, this debate
concludes at 4:29 pm; it is 2:55 pm.
The Opposition Leader and Shadow Finance
Minis ter has the floor.
Ho
n. Jeanne J. Atherden: I think the two observ ations that I wanted to make with respect to this . . .
and the reason I wanted us to just discuss this was the fact that at the time we were looking . . . there was
an indication that when we were the Government,
when we were trying to be on the glide path to actually getting the deficit down to a level whereby there was an opportunity to reduce of the debt during this next fiscal year . . . and I know that the Government has
increased the debt, but I just wondered if they can . . .
they did something here which is quite interesting.
And if you look at the fact that we had anticipated that
Interest on the Debt was going to be $119.5 million . . . sorry, it was originally going to be $124 mil lion—
Th
e Chairman: Yes. Ho
n. Jeanne J. Atherden: —but actually it has come
in at $119.5 million, which —
[Inaudible interjection]
Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: Mr. Chairman—

Continue on. I am listening to you.
Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: One can forecast debt
very easily. You do not have to wait until the bell closes. You know exactly what it is going to be. So, from
that perspective, what I wanted the Minister to just
clarify was . . . part of this opportunity for the reduction
of the debt, or the debt ceiling, was the fact that the
Government did not actually spend the capital expenditure. It was originally forecast at $67 million, and
it only spent $60 million. So there was an actual saving of $7 million by not spending this capital expenditure.
But also, at the original . . . and if you go back
to the Schedule that the Finance Minister produced,
you can actually see that he listed all of the debt schedule, and there is some debt out there that is ex-pensive debt. And we have to understand that, wherever possible, you would like to reduce expensive
debt.
We have to understand that wherever poss ible you would like to reduce expensive debt. If there is
something out there that all those others are like 5.7, 5.6, 5.93, 4.3, so most governments, if t hey had the
opportunity, would try and either reduce the debt, be-cause it brings it down, or else you do some of the expensive debt.
And I know that in the previous budget brief,
when Minister Bob [Richards] had it, he had indicated that the intention was to reduce some of the debt during this year coming up, 2018/19. So it was clear; there was going to be debt reduction. So I do not know whether . . . I would just like to ask the Finance
Minister as to whether he is still anticipating some debt reduction.
And the reason I have to ask him is because
the debt level that he is forecasting is going up from
the $119.5 million up to the $124 [million], he is ind icating that he is going to borrow and another extra
$90 million, so I do not know whether with that extra $90 million [being] borrowed, whether that has resulted in the increase in interest and whether anything
was factored in there to reduce . . . to pay down
some —
Ho
n. Zane J. S. De Silva: Point of order, Mr. Chai rman.
Th
e Chairman: What is your point of order?
POINT OF ORDER


Bermuda House of Assembly Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: The Honourable Member is
asking a question, and if she looks on the very next
page it is answered right there in the Budget Book. I
mean, if she is going to talk the head, then she should
talk about the entire picture. It is right on the very next page, the same question she is asking. Geez!

Continue on.

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: So, Mr. Chairman, if there
is the opportunity to talk about whether there is going
to be any paying down of some of what we call the
“expensive debt,” and, as I say, I know the Minister
has indicated that he is going to be borrowing an extra
$90 million.
Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I will sit so there is
an opportunity for some more comments [and] more questions a nd—

I guess for the avoi dance of doubt, I should declare interest as a taxpayer.
Hopefully all of us are in this particular place. I was sitting there thinking of . . . [being] reminded of the
famous quote from [Russell] Long, one of the governors of Louisia na, who said, “Don’t tax you, don’t tax
me. Tax the [fellow] behind the tree.” We have had a fair amount of discussion this morning and also this
afternoon about issues in the Tax Commissioner’s
office and headcount.
I have some memory on this because one of
the many reviews of our tax system that was done was back in the mid- to late- 1990s. There was a law
firm called King and Spalding. We also had at that
point, when I the Minis ter of Finance, Inland Revenue.
And I think there was some interest expressed, not a
lot I hasten to add, in looking at value- added tax [VAT]
and things like that. Because I think this issue of eff iciency in terms of, or effectiveness in terms of tax col-lection is important.
And one of the things that stuck in my mind at
the time was, there was a lady from Inland Revenue who was saying that with customs duty, which was the primary form of tax revenue in those days, it was actually greater than payroll tax, which was growing over
the years. She said that the thing about customs was that it was a highly efficient form of taxation because,
to put it simply, you do not get the goods until you pay
the tax. So there were not a lot of compliance issues.
It was simple. She said that when they looked in their
own Inland Revenue department there were three or four times the number of people in the VAT area, than
there were in the customs area, and that was because
of this issue of compliance and effectiveness and eff iciency of collection.
She also happened to note that with VAT the
issue was that about 20 per cent of the UK taxpayers
were paying 80 per cent of the VAT just because of
compliance reasons. The tax commissioner there tended to go after the larger payers, which made
sense.
I was particularly interested in the issue, and it
sort of came up last year as well, we talked about
throwing people at collecting tax. But there is also this
issue that I referred to of efficiency or effectiveness. It
is interesting. I did a little bit of digging on it and the
OECD, the Organisation for Economi c Co -operation
and Development, in addition to being sort of a bit of a
thorn in our side in respect to tax issues, also collects
a lot of information. They have about 35 members,
most of these are developed countries, and they have
done a fair amount of w ork over the last few years on
this issue of improving the effectiveness of tax collec-tion. The reason that is important is because if we could do more with less that means we do not necessarily need to hire a lot more people. We could be
more efficient an d effective in terms of how we collect
our tax.
Now, obviously things have evolved a little bit
since the mid- 1990s. Land tax has become more
complicated with different bands. Payroll tax, partic ularly in the last couple of years with the former Government and this current one, is much more complex
as a consequence of the bands and the offsets that
have occurred. I will just say here a plea as an em-ployer. If there is a way for the Ministry of Finance to
try and simplify some of these issues of tax reporti ng
and tax collection on payroll tax, I think that would
help both larger and smaller employers as well because it is very complex. I think one of the challenges
is when a tax becomes complex you do not get the same efficiency or yield that you would if it is simple
for people to understand and simple for people to
comply with and to check on. So, just a plug there that
if there is a way over the next few years that we can
simplify this banding procedure in payroll tax, I think
that would be very useful. I mentioned the OECD. I did that for a reason,
because, interestingly enough, they have looked at
their membership over the last, I will say, 10 or 15
years. What has obviously happened is there is an
increasing automation of tax collection. The data that
they are getting back suggests that actual tax evasion in 34 out of their 35 members has gone down appr eciably over the last 10 or 15 years. Actually, the cost
1478 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly of tax administration has also gone down in some
50 per cent of them as well. And I will get on to this
issue of the return you get on staffing and also i ncreasing efficiency.
But what really struck me, and I will bring it
home to Bermuda right now, is that last year the Mi nister of Finance, Mr. Richards, commented that . . .
and this is essentially on C -10. There is a line item for
the E -Tax platform. And in 2017/18 the revised figure
is $800,000. In 2018/19, the year we are talking about
going forward, it is another $500,000. What struck me was the fact . . . and I have no problem with autom ation b ecause, generally, you get increased efficiency
with automation. But what struck me last year was the Finance Minister’s comment. He said they have seen an increase from 25 per cent to 35 per cent, in terms
of the number they are actually doing filing onli ne.
Now, 25 per cent to 35 per cent is an i ncrease. But these are very, very low numbers when
you look at what other countries are doing in terms of
getting online filing.
The reason online filing is so efficient, and you
see it in other areas, and I can speak from personal experience in terms of things like paying claims for
insurance and other things is it cuts down on the
amount of handling that has to be done, the amount of
paper and the rest of it. It is a much more efficient way to collect tax.
Now, I say that because one of the examples
that the OECD gave, which was sort of an interesting
one, was Turkey. Now Turkey is not exactly a fully
developed country, so they would not exactly be perhaps what we would consider on the same level that we are in terms of automation and things of that sort.
What they found was that, for citizens, their e- filing
went in five years from 30 per cent to 99 per cent. On
the corporate side, it went from 72 per cent to 99 per
cent. So when you compare even 70 per cent, or let’s
say, the 99 per cent they reached, with our 25 per
cent to 35 per cent we have got a long way to go in
order to be more efficient and effective, in other
words, to reduce the cost of the collection of tax.
I think there is a huge amount of value added
here. I would be interested to know what the current
Minister feels. He did mention technology. The former
Minister said the Office of the Tax Commissioner will maximise efficiency through technology. I am not sure
we are there yet. I do not know whether the e- filing
system is working as well as it should for us, but clearly, rather than throwing people at something, or I
should say, using people to do this wherein they could
be more diverted to compliance and following up r ecalcitrant payers, I think t his is an area that needs
quite a bit of attention.
I think the whole issue here is . . . and what
the OECD also found was there is a huge return in terms of the amount of money that is actually invested
in the tax office, particularly in the tax compliance area. They found that the return is often . . . can be as high as for every one dollar invested, you get $100
back. I think the average was for every dollar invested
in tax collection, you get $30- some back. Clearly, an ything we can do in this area . . . as I said, it is not just
a question of hiring and filling positions. That would be helpful. Anything we can do to increase the effectiv eness and the efficiency of the collection I think will go
a long way, and may also help to reduce the cost of
governm ent going forward in this area as well.
While I am on the general issue of tax, the
Honourable Member Minister of Finance did comment on this stamp duties issue. Again, this is not a new
problem. The Minister of Finance last year commented very clearly that a lot of the effort of the tax commissioner, particularly the stamp duty section, has
been occupied by the issue of the primary family
homestead exemption, which was put in place in 2005. The Minister mentioned that this morning. Now,
apparently, that has resulted in a huge number of applications to the stamp duty section. So they are
spending, I will not say 100 per cent of their time, but
a significant amount of their time dealing with these
exemptions.
The Minister last year said that there was going to be an amendment to the Stamp Duties Act 1976
to address this issue. I cannot say that I understand it
completely, but my sense is that what is happening is
that the application was opened up to living applicants who have flooded that office. So the adjudication
which was done on other things like conveyances and
things of that sort cannot be done to the degree that it
needs to. The process, as I understand it, really only needs to be applied for upon the death of the primary
owner. So I hope the Minister can comment a little bit
more on this, but my understanding is, and I know this is not an exciting area, but my understanding is that
some very simple amendments are required to the Stamp Duties Act in order to be able to reduce this
flood of people coming in and making these applic ations when it is not really necessary anyway, and they
could be spending their time moving through some of
the other stamp duty adjudications, which probably
will get them more money . . . will certainly get them
more money and would be more effective. So, I do not
know why it is still sitting out there as an issue.
The former Minister said it was going to be
done with a simple amendment. I think the Minister
this morning said that this amendment will come. I do
not know whether he has a time frame on it or not, but
I think that this would certainly help in terms of this
broader issue of collection.
I am going to switch gears a little bit now, Mr.
Chairman, and I would also like to talk about sort of
another “e” administration t hing briefly. That is the eportal that was required in terms of the common r eporting standard and the country -by-country reporting.
I think the Minister said that this was actually up and
running as of June of 2017. I think, from what I recall
last year, the country -by-country reporting had to be


Bermuda House of Assembly started by December of 2017, and the common r eporting standard, which is, I guess, the multilateral
one as opposed to FATCA, which was simply the US
reporting for US taxpayers where there are institutions
in Bermuda that provide service to them. That was September of 2017.
It seemed to cost a little bit more than I think
was originally anticipated. I think D eloitte was involved
with that. But the question I have is, I am very curious
. . . could the Minister give us some indication of how
many filings are actually going through the common
reporting standard now? Because I think it is up and
going.
And the second question is, With country -bycountry reporting . . . and my memory is a little hazy
on this, but I thin k that this really refers to corporations
which are of a certain size which have to provide tax
information on a reported basis to other countries
where they may have some business. So, for exa mple, a large reinsurer here would have to indicate how
much re venue, how much profit they are making, not
only Bermuda but maybe in the US, in France, in the
UK, wherever . . . you get the point, Mr. Chairman. So
I am curious as to how many companies actually fall
above that threshold and, therefore, would be caught
and would need to report in Bermuda. Because I think
it is sort of interesting to know that we are not only playing our part in terms of this country -by-country
reporting, but I am curious to know how much is act ually involved there.
I am going to move bac k to the issue of pensions now. I guess that is probably best dealt with u nder the Ministry of Finance Head 10, because that is where the million dollars has been provided in respect
of the grant for this year, and I think that is —

[Inaudible interjection]

Under Pensions. It is the
grant underneath that.
Let me just start on a broader note here. The
issue of pension reform has been talked about at least for a couple of years now. Some of the work of the
Pension Commission goes back probably two or three
years on a number of different levels. In fact, I think
the former Government . . . well, I know the former
Government had approved amendments to the Pen-sion Act to essentially do a couple of things. One was to include non- Bermudians under the mandatory
payment of a pension contribution. The legislation has not been done. The Minister this morning said that
that was going to be done. It was in, I think, both parties’ platforms. But I think that is something which would certainly help. It would help on a number of le vels. Again, I will declare interest here as I am involved
with a pension provider in Colonial.

[Inaudible interjection]

Yes.
So the issue here is other countries that would
be comparable. The Caymans have done this for a
number of years.
The interesting thing is the fact that nonBermudians did not have to contribute to a pension
plan has often been cited as one reason that (I will say) certain employers preferred them because there
was less cost of the matching employee/employer
portion as well.
I would suspect that certainly most of the employers in international business do provide a matc hing grant to their [employees]. It is part of the broader
compensation package. In this day and age if you are
a fairly sophisticated employer you provide a pension
contribution no matter whether the person is Bermudian or non- Bermudian, otherwise you are not compet itive, t o be perfectly honest. But I think it would help,
and certainly I agreed with it, I think many others did as well, to put everybody on the same level playing
field, because not only will it provide more business
here (and I declared interest), where some of that
money will actually stay in Bermuda, more business
for local pension providers and the services that come with that. But also I think it will just be seen as an i ssue of fairness by most people.
One of the things I will say, and I am sure the
Minister of Finance is thinking about this, is the issue
of how you cash out is particularly important. Because
in the Caymans the old system used to be that if you were a non- Caymanian, in other words, on a work
permit there, basically, you could cash out when you
left. And a lot of people who had been there for quite a
few years . . . Cayman has a huge expat population,
Mr. Chairman, as you probably know. A lot of people would cash out immediately and, as a consequence, I guess the point behind pensions, whic h is saving
money for your retirement, was a little bit lost in those
perspectives . But those were expats, you know, the
Caymanian Government did not really care.
They have changed that now. And as a consequence what has happened is the law changed back i n I think December or January of this . . . December of 2017, or January 2018. But there was a
1480 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly huge flood of money going out as expats wanted to
cash out and actually left their jobs so they could cash
out before they actually had to essentially retain that
money in some sort of a pension scheme going forward.
I say that, not to get into the nitty -gritty of it,
but just to say that it is important to think through how
you deal with some of these issues of termination for
employees who are not Bermudian. Here you cannot
cash out once you are vested. You are in it; and that
is the way it should be. Because, after all, what a pe nsion is really for is to save money for your retirement.
One of the other issues that was certainly
looked at in terms of the pensio n legislation, as I r ecall, was the issue of a per capita fee. I cannot r emember whether it was $25 or $35, or what it was, but
in essence it would be adding an additional fee on to
each of the members. And I think there were quite a
few of them, if I reme mber correctly. I think the Honourable Member said this morning . . . oh, yes. There
were 21,457 members.
So the question I have for the Minister of F inance is, If this fee will proceed under the current
Government, which would be paid directly to the Pe nsion Commission, will it eliminate the need for Government to subsidise the Pension Commission by the
$1 million which is currently being paid now? It seems to me that this fee is going to add up pretty quickly
and could well exceed the $1 million. I have not done
the math on the back of an envelope, but it would be a
fair amount of money.
The other question that was raised, at least
peripherally this morning by the Honourable Minister
of Finance, was the issue of retirement age. I think
that is something, Mr. Chairman, as you know, that
has been kicked around in this House for many, many
years. My sense is that employers deal with it in a
number of different ways. A lot of people have pretty
strict, You retire at 65. The Government certainly
does. My former Permanent Secretary had to leave,
literally, on the day that his birthday came up. So it is
cut and dried.
It seems to me that this is something which
we are all grappling with now. With an ageing popul ation, with a reduced number of younger people coming on board, particularly Bermudians, unless we can
find them elsewhere, employers are going to have
more and more difficulty finding younger people to fill
these jobs.
Now I know that this has not been a problem
for the last few years. But I think going forward this
issue of an ageing workforce is a very key one. So I think it is high time that this issue of retirement age,
particularly in the civil service, gets looked at again
because in my experience Government lost quite a
few very experienced people at the more senior end.
Now, obviously, they are more expensive, so from the
perspective of the Ministry of Finance maybe it is not
a bad thing to have them retire when you bring in younger people at the bottom, who are less expensive
and therefore the whole salary package goes down.
But this issue of being able to find people,
particularly with an ageing population and fewer pe ople coming in, it makes an awful lot of sense, as other
Governments have done, to look at this issue of r etirement age, particularly in Government.
I will just say from a private sector perspective
we had . . . I think at one point we had a 90- year old
who was working on our switchboard a number of years ago. We have got a lot of people who are over 65 who are working. And part of t he reason for that is
because they are really effective. They have got, I will
say, in some cases, a lifetime of experience and they
bring a lot to it in terms of maturity and the rest of it.
That is not to say that you do not want to continue to
bring in younger people at the bottom, but I think the
private sector is probably quite a ways ahead of Government in terms of how they deal with this particular
issue.
Obviously it has spin- off effects in terms of
medical insurance and things of that sort. Nevert heless, I would simply say this is an issue that needs to
be looked at. I think Government needs to look very
carefully at raising the retirement age and being able
to retain some of those people that obviously do a
very good job.
The last issue under pens ions that I wanted to
ask some questions about and perhaps comment on as well is the Minister’s statistics this morning in terms
of the number of people who are actually members,
and as I said, he mentioned 21,450- something. There
are about 3,000 employer plans. It has been almost
. . . well, a couple of months to go still, but it has been
almost 20 years since the [National Pension Scheme] (Occupational Pension) Act was brought in. It was in
the fall of 1998. Mr. Chairman, you will remember that I was the Minister of Finance, and I brought it in at that
particular time. It is not to take credit for it, because a lot of people had worked in the Ministry of Finance on
that for a number of years. David Saul was quite a
driving force in terms of essentially rec ognising that
the old social insurance, the contributory pension
plan, was simply not providing enough to retirees
when they actually retired. It was pretty clear.
I think interesting at the time, one of the really
good examples was Chile had put in quite an advanced programme and that was looked at, and some others were looked at as well. But the whole point was
that for the broader population there needed to be a
way for them to save for themselves and not just rely on social insurance, which did provide a pension but
certainly not anywhere near a majority of the amount
that one would need to retire and live on properly. So
that occupational pension scheme was brought in
1998. It is now 20 years.
At the time, and I cannot remember precisely,
but at the t ime . . . maybe the Junior Minister will r emember, Mr. Furbert. But at the time the idea was that


Bermuda House of Assembly the occupational pension scheme, after it had been in
place for a while, was going to be able to provide
something on the order of 60 per cent to 70 per cent
of what the salary was for somebody when they act ually retired. But they would have to be in the plan for a while for that money to build up because the occupational plan means you have got a self -retirement plan.
You are putting money in yourself. You are earning a
return on that because, hopefully, it is invested proper ly and there are a lot of plans out there that obviously allow you different types of investment
schemes depending on your age and how long.
So the point that I am making here is, we are
20 years on. I think it is really a good time now to r eview how successful that occupational pension scheme has been, particularly [for] people who have
been there since the beginning of that, to see how
much they are likely to have.
We have had a couple of downturns in the
market, as the Honourable Member was chirping a few minutes ago. How effective has that been? What is that likely to do?
The Minister this morning commented on
looking at contribution rates. Mr. Chairman, you and I
both know that the rat es for the Members’ plan for the
House has been raised to, I think, 12.5 per cent by
both the employer (which is Government) and the Members themselves. It is now five and five with the
occupational pension scheme. Is that enough? Is that
appropriate in th is day and age? What do we need to
do to make sure that people have sufficient provision
in their own retirement schemes so they do not have
to rely on the government contributory pension scheme or social insurance, as it is commonly said.

[Inaudible interjection]

The Harry Viera scheme.
Yes.
You know, I do not want to detract from it. It
does what it was intended to do, which is a suppl ement to somebody’s retirement plan. But if you do not
have another retirement plan, if you are really an employee that was there a long time ago, have been r etired for 15 or 20 years, and you really did not have a
chance to contribute toward the occupational, then . . .
I was about t o use another word, but I would say you
are toast because you have to depend on the contri butory pension plan which is obviously not going to deliver what it needs to deliver.
So, according to the Minister this morning,
there are some $3.8 billion in assets in those occupational schemes spread across those 3,000 employee
plans, the 21,000- plus members. I think it would be
very interesting now, particularly with the Pension Commission, to have a look. Get an actuary involved
if they have not already, and tr y and understand
where we stand, particularly those who have been in
this plan for some time. These days you do not have
any choice, you have got to be in it. And, Mr. Chai rman, that is a good thing. That was certainly one of
the issues that I wanted to as k. It is not a new co ncept, but I think it is one that needs to be considered.
There is another programme which the new
Government has basically signed on to. That is on
[page] C -4 in the Capital section. That is the Bermuda
Infrastructure Fund. My honour able colleague, Jeanne
Atherden, raised a number of questions about it. You
will see there, Mr. Chairman, there was a $500,000
grant in the current year, which is 2017/18. And then
there is another $500,000 projected for 2018/19. So
we are talking about, i n very round numbers, $1 mi llion. And that is Government’s part of the carrying
charges, or the administration fees that the fund r equired in order to be able to proceed.
Now, I am not going to belabour this point. My
former honourable colleague, Mr. Richards, did not
feel that he wanted to pay that amount of money, that
the thing ought to be able to essentially proceed on its
own basis. But the Bermuda Infrastructure Fund felt
that they were not prepared to do it on that basis. So
the current Government has decided to proceed. I am not saying that is either a good thing or a bad thing. I think we looked at it very carefully.
The question I have, and this was an issue
raised by the Minister when he read his brief this morning. Government has certain priori ties which the
fund will be directed to look at. The Minister did not
elaborate on what those priorities were, and I would
be very interested to know, when the Minister gets a
chance to answer questions, what he sees as those
priorities that the Bermuda Infrastructure Fund should
be prepared to invest in.
One of the issues of any fund that has a r eturn strategy is that they need to be able to get out at a certain time. So it is one thing to put, I will just say,
$20 million in at the front end on this or that infrastructure project, the question is, how do they get their
money out on the tail end, unless Government buys
them out or somebody else does? That has always been the issue with private equity or venture capital
funds. You need to have a liquidity ex it, a liquidity
strategy, an exit strategy at some point. So that is one
of the issues.
But I am more interested (not to get into the
nitty-gritty) to get a sense of where the Government
sees its priorities. And I hope one of those priorities
will be senio r living, because this is an area which I
think Bermuda is way behind the curve on. There are
a number of facilities out there. They struggle and
seniors and families struggle with cost with these faci lities. Some of the churches do a very nice job, like t he
AME church. But there is this whole issue with an ageing population (which is a bit of a cliché now, but
1482 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly certainly very true) of how do we deal with seniors and
how do we deal with them in a way that is appropr iate? And where are we now, today?
Most of the countries, I think particularly in the
United States, deal with it on a number of different
levels. They have residential living, they have assisted
living, and they have a number of other structures. If
you have had an elderly parent, and a number of us
have had in- laws or whatever who are in the United
States, you will know that they handle it in a much
more effective way. Bermuda needs to do a much bet-ter job in terms of how we deal with senior residential
living. It needs to be cost -effective, and it needs to be
able to make sense. So a question on priority is there.
A couple of other questions and then I will —

[Inaudible interjection]

Okay. I wish to assure
you that I will not take the 55 minutes.
A couple of other questions, if I may. The Mi nister said this morning that the consultants for the EU
in the UK have now been moved to the Cabinet O ffice. I could n ot pick it out of Head 10, but I was cur ious if the Minister could tell us how much money was actually shifted from Ministry of Finance down to the
Cabinet Office for that? Maybe there is a simple a nswer to that.
Let’s see . . . I think . . . let me just check
here. Yes, the other question I have was on page B -
100. The Minister can sort of mop these up at the end.
But under Professional Services, there is $980,000 which is budgeted for the 2018/19 year. Could the
Honourable Member tell us exactly which consultants
are in that $980,000? That would be useful to know.
Mr. Chairman, those were really the issues
that I wanted to raise. I appreciate the opportunity to
contribute. Thank you.

And this debate will go until 4:29, on
Heads 10, 12, 38, and 58, under the Ministry of F inance.

Hon. E. David Burt: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I think it is interesting that the
Opposition spoke for longer than the Government did on this particular matter. I have pages and pages and pages and pages of questions and answers which I
will attempt to give. I thought I would have addressed
those questions by giving the Honourable Opposition
Leader her copy of my brief, of which she proceeded to then quiz me on the text inside of there. So that is
lesson learned. Lesson learned none the less. I will try
to read through the questions as best that I can. I
would encourage the Opposition Leader to please feel
free to ask for clarification during this, just so that we
do not have to wait and go back and write and go back and write and go back on it. That is not necessary.
Regarding the questions, I think the first question was regarding the assistant financial secretary of policy. He retired. I believe that is the honourable former Attorney General’s brother. He retired at the end
of the year. The revised employee count was
changed, but not the dollar amount. And some of this
funding was used to fund the salary uplift.
This post was funded, again. It is going to be
examined whether or not we are going to use that
post, whether or not we are going to convert it to a
post that may be used by the Treaty Unit as they are
having additional demands and having trouble keeping up with the numerous treaty requests which come
in on a daily basis.
Just for the knowledge of Honourable Members in the House and also those who may be listen-ing, we have a policy inside this Government where
we do not create positions unless we destroy one
somewhere else. So that is where we are continuing to go and that is the process of which we will go f orth
with.
Regarding the National Anti -Money Laundering Committee, I think there were three posts. They
are not new posts. They were just transferred from
Legal Affairs. Regarding the travel budget, the travel
budget, the National Anti -Money Laundering C ommi ttee recorded their travel in the training vote as it was
travel related to training.
I think there was a question on B -100 about
repairs and maintenance and a question about the $290,000 that was used for the portal and then versus
capital amount. Our repairs and maintenance, the $290,000, this is for the ongoing maintenance of the
new portal system. There is money in capital acquis itions for this. So there is the ending of capital acquis itions and then there is the ongoing cost for the sup-port of the portal system. So it is with the assumption
that this amount will be repeated year and year and
year. [It is] part of the expenses of complying with
these global obligations.
There was a question as to the extra $57,000,
I think, on B -100 on Grants and Contributions. That is
for NAMLC and that is the FATF and CFATF annual
contribution which is now in the Ministry of Finance, whereas it was somewhere else before.



Bermuda House of Assembly Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: It just did not show up in
the Book, that was why . . .

Hon. E. Da vid Burt: No problem. No problem. Just
happy to answer the questions.
So that was what the increase in that Grant
and Contribution number was there, part of it. And, of course, the other $25,000 of it was to the increase of
the Pension Commission.
Regard ing page B -100, the question regar ding the BNTB guarantee fee. That is without question an error. The BNTB guarantee has been fulfilled. The
$188,000 in there, it should list for the Morgan’s Point
guarantee as I had stated inside of my Statement. So
the approved estimates will reflect a new line item so that the BNTB guarantee fee will be carried out and a
then a new item will be there for the Morgan’s Point guarantee. So that is without question an error.
There was a question on B -102 regarding
Performa nce Measures. The question as to the GDP
lowering, et cetera. These pages were prepared prior to the National Economic Report being printed and
their vision of the GDP figures. However, these will be
reflected correctly in the updated, on the approved
estimates as opposed to what is here in the estimates
themselves.
I think there was a question about the debt to
revenue ratios and the note I have here is that all rat ios are finalised when the final numbers are given. So
they do change, as you would know, t hat final revised
number is one thing and then the final numbers
comes out and are a different thing, after supplementaries and accounts are reconciled. But there is a ti ming difference between the performing page and the
final budget numbers.

Hon. Jeann e J. Atherden: I just did not —

Hon. E. David Burt: You can clarify. Okay.
I think I answered the question about the tree
portal already and the amount for current versus the
amount for capital. A reminder that there is an add itional capital allocation of 95 to capitalise the asset,
but the $290,000 is for ongoing work and also additional training associated with that.
Regarding professional services, the breakdown was provided inside of the brief, of which you
were given, for all the professional services that were
there; however, I am happy to make that known for all
Members listening as the Honourable Member for
constituency 22, if, as rumour would have it, this is his
last Budget Debate, so I want to make sure that I give
him as much time as possible.

In your dreams.
Hon. E. David Burt: Oh, in your dreams! Oh, you just
crushed someone’s poor heart there.
[Laughter]

Hon. E. David Burt: From constituency 22. I am quite
sure that the former Chairman of the Bermuda Ec onomic Development Corporation was looking forward
to sitting inside of your chair.
That much being said, the details for the
$980,000 regarding consultants are under Economic
and Financial Intelligence: $10,000 for consultant
economic project work; $109,500 for ratings agencies;
under treaty management legal consultancies for tre aty management, $140,000; OECD initiatives, $25,000;
under the Regulatory Unit, $40,000 assigned for Sp ecial Project Work; under Policy Planning Administr ation EU Strategy, Mr. Alastair Sutton, $230,000 are
budgeted; special projects and BPAB (that is Berm uda Professional Accountants Board, I believe) as
mentioned in my brief, $194,000; Fisc al Responsibility
Panel is $80,000; under Fiscal Planning and Control,
other projects are listed as $25,000; and under N ational Anti -Money Laundering Committee, $125,000.
That is the full breakdown of the $980,000 for
professional services, which you have copy in the
brief which was provided to you, Madam Opposition
Leader.
I think there was a question about whether
supplementaries were included in the revised numbers. The answer is, yes, supplementaries were i ncluded in the revised numbers and the revis ed est imates were input by departments. It was a question
that I had as well, because I saw that, you know,
these supplementary estimates of which we approved
were about $13 million. And, of course, the expended
expenditure was less. And that was due to as I mentioned inside of my brief, the fact that there are certain
comments in the Ministry of Finance that the current
Minister of Finance may at some point in time be even
more frugal than the former. So in that particular case
we are very judicious.
In the exact same way there are things that
have to come across our desks. I examine every si ngle virement that comes. And, of course, as Members
would know, people who served previously in this p osition, like the Honourable Member from constitue ncy 22, around January, February, and March vir ements are flying inside of your office left, right, and
centre, because people are looking to spend money.
Well, unless it is considered urgent, we do not do it
and we redirect that money toward priorities.
So there is di fferent money that is going to be
directed toward priorities for getting some people to
get some work done. There are going to be some things that are going to be diverted to training, so the
Minister for Education and Workforce Development
1484 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly can start and i mplement training programmes that did
not exist before. And those are the type of things
which we are looking at, training and apprentice pr ogrammes. Those are the types of things of which we do. So, of course, everyone’s needs are urgent but the Government makes sure that the money that we
spend reflects our priorities.
There was a question in regard to, I would say
it was Head 56 on Interest, from the Honourable O pposition Leader. As was stated in the brief, 2017/18
came below budget on interest, coming in at 119.5
and the . . . even though the original budget for last
year was 124, we are back at 124 again this year because of the additional monies of course which will
have to be uplifted when we fully draw down the But-terfield loan facility, in additio n to additional borrowing
which may be needed to meet our obligations next year.
But of course we can play a little fancy and
decide when you are going to pay certain things to reduce the amount of interest of which you have. That is the type of financial management which is done, of
course, by Treasury and the Accountant General in conjunction with Economic and Financial Intelligence
and the Financial Secretary who has been at this for
about eight years now. Right?
Regarding pensions, I think there was a question of whether or not public officers can draw down on their pensions. We did amend the Public Service
Superannuation Fund so they can draw down on their
pensions as well. So it is not just people with private
pensions but also public officers who have the same
hardships under the Public Service Superannuation Fund. You cannot of course withdraw from the Contributory Pension Fund because that is a different type
of arrangement, but you can under the Public Service
Superannuation Fund. So public offic ers can do that.

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: Sorry, Mr. Chairman. Just
a point of clarification at this time.

Point of clarification?

POINT OF CLARIFICATION

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: Yes. I think what . . . I did
know that from the Superannu ation you could draw
down, but it was the question about the, what I call,
the . . . the social insurance. And the reason I say that
is because most of the ordinary people out there, the only thing they have is social insurance. And when
they are struggling, that is where they go and look. And because they are aware that other people can
draw down in their private capacities they just are rai sing the question as to, Why can’t they do it?

Continue on. We are on Finance.
This debate concludes a t 4:29. We also have a new Page in the House. (Just
looking to see if I see him.) His name is Yassine
Chentouf from . . . yes, welcome. Glad to have you
here from BHS.
[Desk thumping]

Hon. E. David Burt: Okay. Thank you for the clarific ation from the O pposition Leader. There is no drawdown from Contributory Pension Fund because it is
not that type of fund. There are not individual ac-counts or things like that or amounts that are pledged,
and so from that particular arrangement the only r ecourse, unfortunately, for those persons is the D epartment of Financial Assistance. And that is unfort unate.
However, as you would note, that the value of
private pensions in the total community and it should because it is a larger pie. But, I mean, we are up to
about $3.2 billion now, so I think that going forward in
the future years we will see less pressure on Financial
Assistance from seniors as more and more persons will have access to their private pensions upon retir ement.
There is a question about the Bermuda I nfrastructure Fund. I will get to that a little bit later when I
address the questions because I think that the Member from constituency 22, the Honourable Member
Gibbons, had asked the question as well. Also, there
were questions about raising the retirem ent age,
which was mentioned there. I have nothing further
outside of what was said inside the brief and then what was stated inside of our platform. It is an issue
that we are examining but, unlike others, we will not
kick the can down the road and we wil l deal with the
issue because the issue has to be dealt with.
Moving on to Head 12 regarding custom duty.
There were questions regarding the post office duty. We can just take a concerted estimate of the Financial Secretary who has been through this process a few
times. He is very conservative when he comes to estimating revenue. As a former Chairman of the Public
Accounts Committee, Madam Opposition Leader, I
remember the Public Accounts Committee . . . one of
our reports that we put out in the last Parli ament stated the challenge was with issuing budget figures which are not realistic. So we are going to make sure
that the budget figures are realistic and the Financial
Secretary keeps us in very close line in saying that
these are numbers which we can use to make sure
that we get our numbers correct. Just so we are aware, I mean, there is this
whole conversation about the America’s Cup, of
course, and that the America’s Cup is responsible for
this great duty uplift and everything else. There are
two thin gs. The first thing of course is that we have to
remember, . . . well, there are two things. The first
thing is that a lot of the things that came in from the America’s Cup were duty free. So those things would


Bermuda House of Assembly not be reflected there. But the additional th ing is that
we also have to remember that rates were increased.
So it is not just that rates were increased last year, so
there were a lot of custom duty rates that went up
which can also reflect part of the increase.
The Government is comfortable, or the Financial Secretary is comfortable with the budget projections. We do regular monitoring and reporting of those
items. We do quarterly reporting and we will report
those figures and make any type of adjustments if
necessary. But we are confident in the it ems of which
we did put forward.
With the office of the Tax Commissioner . . .
oh boy. I think there was a question [as to] why the betting tax figures were reduced, or the take from the betting tax was reduced. I think the answer to that is
that one of t he big shops closed in 2017/18. They
closed for renovation and they will be reopening again. So that is the reason for the difference.
There is a question, Madam Opposition Leader, would like to clarify your question regarding voluntary land conveyancing? Was that you? Could you
clarify, please?

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: Sorry. What I was . . . if I
can just find it for a moment.
[Pause]

While we are waiting, I just want to
acknowledge former Senator Llewellyn Peniston in the
Gallery. And current Senator, [Justin] Mathias in the Chamber.

[Desk thumping]
[Continuation of Committee of Supply ]
Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: This is . . . I am on page
B-115, and there were two elements. One was the
voluntary land conveyance, which is 8075, where we
had . . . the actual was 275. The original was 500,000
and th en the revised is now going to be 750. And then
we are talking about, for next year, dropping back
down to 500,000. And what I asked was, because I
know that there is an issue from the conveyancing attorneys in terms of getting it out, getting the values
sorted out and being able to process, I was just wondering whether the Finance Department knew what
the actual results were through to December. B ecause if you have them to December then you get a pretty good assurance that 750 which was being r evised upwar d is actually going to result . . . what I did
not want us to find out is that it is going to move again,
because what is in the pipeline does not actually
come out because the department does not get a chance to process all the—

[Inaudible interjection]

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: Well, I am assuming that it
is estimated to go down, because there is a lot in the
pipeline that they will push through and then afterward
you will be back to the norm. But if the Minister answers, then we will not have to assume.

Hon. E. David Burt: Thank you, Madam Opposition
Leader. I was just saying that. I will happy to answer
the question.
This is just based on the fact that these numbers are hard to predict. So we get the revised numbers in, but we do not like to be over excited with our
estimates.
So we are going to do work to clear some
type of backlog, certainly, and to try to make this pr ocess more efficient. But the reason why it is back to
500 is because it is hard to predict, and so that is just a number that is s et. So that is what the Financial
Secretary is using in that particular instance. That is the answer; it is hard to predict. So that is the reason
why.
We do not . . . I would assume that the reason
why the revised estimate is up to 750 is because they
have taken into account the rate that has happened
thus far when they submitted the revised figures in
January. So that would be part of the reason why that figure is 750 as opposed to the original budget of 500.

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: That is why —

Let the Honourable [Minister] yield
first.

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: Sorry, Member. Will you —
Hon. E. David Burt: Are you clarifying?

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: Yes, I am clarifying.

Hon. E. David Burt: I will yield.

POINT OF CLARIFICATION
Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: That was why my question
was, do we know the actual results to December because if we know by December that we are up to 600 or whatever else, then we know that 750 is reasonable. And I just wonder whether if the Financial Secr etary k new that answer.

1486 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly The Chairman: Continue on, Honourable Finance
Minister. Premier.

Hon. E. David Burt: To answer the Honourable O pposition Leader’s question, up until December 31st,
2017, the number is $553,053 collected, thus far.
All right. Moving forw ard. We addressed betting tax. Line item 8051, there was a question about
airport departure tax. What I have is that these were
receipts received after the year end that clearly have to be recorded in 2017/18. We cannot record them in
another year if they are received. So that is the reason
why they are there. It is likely because departure tax is
collected by airlines and then has to be remitted back
to the country, so that is probably the reason why that
line item is showing there. Kind of strange, but th at is
why it is there. You know, you are an accountant. Right? Honourable Opposition Leader? Yes. You
have all these accounting rules and laws, gaps, and
otherwise. That is the reason why it is there.
Regarding 8033, hotel occupancy tax. It is a
conservative estimate, keeping in mind that there are
hotels that still have concessions. So we are being
conservative. We are being conservative all throughout the budget.
Regarding B . . . I have nothing for performance measures there. Interest on debt . . . I am not
entirely certain of the full question that was asked on
B-121, but the response that I have is that . . . I think I
answered it before. Part of reason why the interest
expense was lower was that we did not have to bor-row the full $135 million. So w e saved on interest
there. And of course we borrowed it at the absolute last minute due to treaty management and trying to . . . that is the reason why we were able to beat the
estimates because we were very judicious in making
sure we managed these things in the best way poss ible.
Now I will move on to the comments from the
former Minister of Finance. A few Ministers of F inance’s ago. His picture is on the wall in the Ministry of Finance. The Honourable Member for constitue ncy 22. Yes, that is you.
[Inau dible interjections]

Honourable Premier, we do have 30
minutes remaining for this debate.
Hon. E. David Burt: Would you like me to talk for the
next 30?
[Laughter]
Hon. E. David Burt: Are you just reminding me?
[Inaudible interjections]
Hon. E. David Burt: Pardon me? The Chairman: It is your prerogative.
Hon. E. David Burt: Okay. Thank you very much. I
hear the Honourable Edmund Graham Grant Gibbons
telling me I did a good job before so . . . E.G.G.G. So I
will do that.
I am very sorry that he is now confirmed that
the rumours are not true. Because the wildfire was that this was his last Budget Debate. He would be
stepping down to make way for new blood inside the
One Bermuda Alliance.

[Laughter and inaudible interjections ]

Hon. E. David Burt: Well, the new blood is here.
[Laughter]

Premier, what line item are you on?

Hon. E. David Burt: We are on line item . . . I said we
are on page B -113, according to the honourable former Attorney General, I think that we ar e on the line
item that is discussing mandatory retirement ages. That is a possibility.
[Laughter]

Hon. E. David Burt: However, there were questions
in regard to the Office of the Tax Commissioner on
page B -113. I think there was a question about e- filing
and the amount of persons that are doing e- filing and
those figures are slowly but certainly, slowly improving. As can be seen in the performance measures, we
are up to payroll at 50 per cent and land up to 45 per
cent. Clearly we want to make that high er and it is our
intent to do that.
There are a number of IT initiatives that are
going on inside the Government and it would be noted
that this is a priority for this administration. And we are
making sure however that these items are not done in
isolation, that they are done with a collective vision
going forward, so we are not building multiple systems around the place which do not talk to each other.
There was a question regarding the Pension
Commission. There was a question about the fee. We will sa y that we will . . . yes, so we will produce the
grant when the fee is introduced for the Pension Commission itself.

Honourable Member.

POINT OF CLARIFICATION



Bermuda House of Assembly Hon. Dr. E. Grant Gibbons: Thank you.
I guess the question was, will the fee that is
going to be charged on a per capita basis for me mbers in the schemes . . . will that essentially eliminate
the need to subsidise t he Pension Commission? That
was really the question. Thanks.

Hon. E. David Burt: I guess I was not clear enough in
my answer. Yes, that is the intent.
The intent . . . I do not know if it will be elim inated. It will certainly reduce. And depending on
where it is set, it may eliminate. But of course we will
deal with that when that measure comes to Parli ament.
There may be some more questions, and I will
certainly yield, time or leave time after, but let me go to general comments, if I may, Mr. Chairman, because
I will leave it on the scene here in the Office of the Tax Commissioner, on page B -113, because Honourable
Member for constituency 2 [sic], the Honourable
Member Gibbons, spoke about the need to simplify.

Constituency 22.

Hon. E. D avid Burt: Constituency 22, sorry. Honourable Member from constituency 22, who talked about
the need to simplify taxes.
I just thought it was funny because it is almost
as though if they break it and then tell us that we need
to fix it. Now, I recognise t hat the former Government
wanted to make the tax system more progressive, and
they certainly did make it more progressive, and it b ecame progressively more difficult to file. So what happened [was] that this Government said, You know
what we are going to d o? We are going to make it
easier for people to file these taxes. And that is the
reason why we are funding a module for the most
commonly used accounting software for small and
medium sized businesses, QuickBooks, which we will
fund ourselves which will e nable small business ow ners to go ahead and automatically file their taxes in a
more efficient manner and that will increase compl iance. Now that , of course, is something that they
could have done, Mr. Chairman, but they did not. That
is something that we are doing.
I do find it interesting that they say that we
need to simplify the tax system when it was them who
made it infinitely times more complex. But, no pro blem. We are fixing it.
In addition to that, as the Honourable Oppos ition Leader knows, she i s on the Tax Reform Co mmission. One of things that we want to do is to make
things more simple so that we can increase the level
of compliance. So the Honourable Member for constituency 22 is right. If a tax system is simpler, more
people will pay. We are going to make it simpler so more people will pay and we are also going to make it
easier for people to pay. Again, it is this whole thing about kicking the
can down the road. There was another statement
which was made by the Honourable Member Grant
Gibbons . He talked about the primary family hom estead, and said that it has been outstanding for a long
time. And it was something that was discussed by the
former Minister. Well, yes, Mr. Chairman, it was di scussed by the former Minister —but it was not fixed.
So we are going to fix the issue to make sure that the
process of which we put in place is executed.
We do not want to hold back this issue. We
recognise that that office, that particular unit, stamp duties, is under a lot of stress inside the Office of Tax
Commissioner, but unlike the former Government i nstead of just talking about the problems, just like they did on a lot of issues, we are actually going to fix the
problems of which we found.
But again, Mr. Chairman, we hear these
whole issues about . . . These things have been
around for a long time. So we heard that when it
comes to simplifying taxes. We heard that when it
came to the issue with the primary family homestead and then we heard that about the issue when it came
to the retirement age, as wel l. Well if there is an ana logy I can put, Mr. Chairman, I would say that that side
seems to be very good at kicking the can down the
road. And we are going to do a very good job of kic king the ball into the net. They will kick, and we will score.

[Inaudible interjections]

Hon. E. David Burt: Oh, boy! Mr. Chairman, the
Members behind me are getting very personal right
now. Especially the Honourable Member from consti tuency 29.

[Laughter]
Hon. E. David Burt: That much being said, Mr.
Chairman . . . I ha ve a guilty conscience, like some
Members over there.
[Inaudible interjections and laughter ]

Hon. E. David Burt: That much being said, Mr.
Chairman, there are a couple of things that the Hon-ourable Member mentioned.
He spoke about the increase in the retirement
age. This is something that was inside of our platform.
This is something that we said we will look at. This is something that we will address. I can assure Honourable Members that it is something that we will address
in the next Throne Speech.
We are coming up with a plan, a strategy, f inalising the ageing strategy, and we are going to deal
with those particular matters. So as I said, instead of talking we will act! The people of this country are tired
of hearing talking; they want to see more action. So
1488 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly you do not hear a lot from me, Mr. Chairman, but what
you do see are things that are moving and progres sing inside of the Government.
But that is a perfect example which takes us
to another thing that was not done by the former Government, but was done by this one, and that is the
Bermuda Infrastructure Fund and the excuses they
make for the reasons why it was not done.
Well, it is very simple, Mr. Chairman, you
have to have skin in the game. And it would not surprise the people who are international investment ad-visors, Fortress, that, having interacted with the former Government, where at points in time the former
Government would make a commitment and then
change its mind, or something else . . . they wanted to
make sure that the Government of Bermuda had skin
in the game. And that was the reason why they r equired us to fund a minimum fee for the management fee. And once the funds are invested, that means that
that fee would no longer need to be paid. So that is
what we are doing. We are moving forward with it be-cause we want to ensure that there are additional a venues for economic investment inside of the Island.
Now the Honourable Member asked, What
are our priorities? Well, I can tell you that one of the
main priorities is infrastructure. That is the reason why, even after there is all this noise being made I think in the Budget Reply and a question of the status,
well, guess what? The investment managers are
meeting with the Minister of Public Works today! T oday!
So these items are progress ing. Infrastructure
is the priority. And if we talk about infrastructure I would say it is infrastructure in our city areas, specif ically dealing with water and sewage and otherwise.
So those are things which are priorities. Because one
of the things of which we have realised for a while is
that we do not treat our sewage very well. We do put it
out into the water, whether it be at the East End of the
Island, or here, and we are going to look and to make
sure that we can address those particular issues because those are issues that we think are very i mportant to be met.
And, of course, with any type of investment it
has to have a return. But there are already customers
for sewage and there are customers for water and there can be customers for more things as we look to
develop the city. So at the same point in time that we
look at relaxing height restrictions in the Economic
Empowerment Zone, we are going to need to make
sure that if we are going to have additional residence
in higher buildings, that we have the infrastructure to
suit that. And part of that infrastructure will certainly
need to make sure that we have adequate sewage
facilities, adequate water facilities, and making sure
that we treat that sewage and make sure that the w ater can be supplied. S o those are the types of things
of which we will be looking at. But I am not going to speak too much on the infrastructure fund, as infr a-structure falls under the responsibility for the Minister
of Public Works.
But when it comes to a question of prioriti es,
those are where are priorities are and I think they are
very clear for all to see. So, yes, Mr. Chairman, we are not going to kick the can down the road. We are going
to get on with the job and that is what the people who
voted us in asked for, and that is what we will do.
I am happy to answer any further questions
that Members of the Opposition may have.

Thank you very much, Premier.
The Chair recognises the Member from constituency 9.

Hon. Trevor G. Moniz: Yes, Mr. Chairman. Thank
you.
I would like to speak with particular reference
to the Office of the Tax Commissioner, which is
Head 38 (it is on B -98) with respect to the revenue.
The Premier spoke in his brief about contin uing to make attempts to collect the arrears of taxes
there. The Office of the Tax Commissioner I think is
approaching $300 million now. Obviously, there are
also large arrears in the Social Insurance Office. The
Social Insurance Office, of course, is particularly i mportant because those hurt individuals. If their pension
is not paid up when they retire, they do not get their pension, or they do not get the pension that they paid
into. Maybe it is a case of the employers making the
deductions and then using that money for operations,
effectively stealing it and not putting it in, or not ma king the employers’ contributions. In any case, the employee still gets short -changed.
So these are serious problems. When the
OBA came in, we found that there were serious pro blems. There were attempts to sort of stop the decay. There were, I think, more staff appointed in the Office
of the Director of Social Insurance, with respect to collections, which is the other side of the Tax Co mmissioner who does the payroll tax. My own view is
from my experience in the Attorney General’s office
being in charge of the Debt Enforcement Unit is that
greater efforts need to be made. And, quite rightly in
his brief, the Minister of Finance has pointed out that some of these debts are challenging to collect as they
get older and older.
One of t he complaints was that by the time
debts are referred by the Office of the Tax Commi ssioner to the Debt Enforcement Unit they are very old.
And the older a debt gets the harder it is to collect. If it is from a company, the company winds up, et cetera,
et cetera, the employer disappears, et cetera.
So I think my own view is that greater chan ges need to be made. I must say I made efforts myself to try and introduce some new techniques of debt collections as well as strengthening the ones that were there. The ones that were there I think were strengt hBermuda House of Assembly ened, but I think we need to be more imaginative in
terms of collecting debts.
I think the Office . . . I found myself some . . .
and I am not criticising the operation, I think people
there were doing what they could under difficult ci rcumstances. And I know they are facing staffing
changes. However, having said that, there was some
resistance to some new methods such as outsourcing
some debt collection. The Enforcement Unit in Chambers is not big enough to deal with the $300 million
that is owed. And it needs to have more put toward it.
The Minister’s brief seems to indicate that
there is not going to be any additional effort put into it.
When the OBA came into power in 2012 there huge
collectables, and from this brief today I do not see an-ywhere for it to go but up.
I note what the Minister has just said with r espect to using QuickBooks to make it easier for in particular small businesses to pay online, et cetera. I
would support that. I think it is a wonderful thing. But I
think still greater efforts need to be made to attack the mountain of arrears that are sitting out there. In his
brief he has just indicating more of the same and I
think the efforts need to be redoubled. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
The Chair man: Thank you, Honourable Member.
Any other Member care to speak to Finance?
We have a few more minutes remaining.
If not, Premier. Would you care to wrap up?
Hon. E. David Burt: Thank you very much. I thank
the honourable former Attorney General for his co mments. I will note that in a previous debate that I think
he was involved in, the issues related to the Debt E nforcement Unit were discussed and spoken about, but
his comments are taken under note. I am hearing
someone who is a Liverpool supporter asking to
speak, so I will yield the floor.

The Chair recognises the Honourable
Member from constituency 29. Am I correct?
Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Thank you. Yes, that is
correct. Good memory. Good memory, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I j ust want to make a couple of
quick points. I know that we have a few minutes left.
The Honourable Member who just took his
seat, the former Attorney General, had me scratching
my head because he talked about the Debt Enforc ement Unit and how he was trying, or he was attempt-ing to try some new things and did not get it done. Maybe that is because he was too busy shredding
papers. You know, it leads one to wonder why —
Hon. Trevor G. Moniz: Point of order, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you.

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Now, you know what? If
the hat fits, wea r it, Mr. Chairman. I did not mention
any improper motives; I said he might have been busy
shredding papers.

Hon. Trevor G. Moniz: Mr. Chairman, point of order,
point of order.
We have been done this road. That Member
gets on his feet on every occasion w hen he has, he
seems to have some sort of obsession with me from his business partner, but he should really leave that to
the appropriate debate. I am happy to take him on in
the motion to adjourn tonight if he wants to let it go for once. We can have a go at it this evening.

All right. It is 4:15. We are on F inance, Heads 10, 12, 38, and 58. We have had a very
productive debate on Finance.

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Yes, yes, it has been very
productive, indeed!
In fact, the Honourable Member, the former
Attorney General, talks about my former boss, or my
current boss, well, it seems to me the way that he carries on, he is taking orders from his boss, David Duke,
for all I know, Mr. Chairman. But, Mr. Chairman, let
me just go to where I was.
You see, Mr. Chairman, that seems to be the
problem with the OBA. I have heard throughout the
week, especially in particular today, when we are tal king about finances and debt and things of this nature
is that they are full of suggestions, mentioning thi ngs
like, You should get this done . . . the tax department
this . . . We heard the Opposition Leader talk about
the lack of resources in the tax department. And of
course, you will know, Mr. Chairman, that their MO was not to increase staff levels, or to reduce them, or
a little bit of both. And they did that.

[Inaudible interjections]
Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Yes! Exactly that. Privatis ation everywhere they could do it.
But the fact of the matter is . . . and then, it is
funny because the Opposition Leader and the Ho nourable Member from constituency 22 seem to forget
that their former Finance Minister fuzzied up the numbers every chance he got.

1490 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: Mr. Chairman, I believe
that the speaker is losing his way. If he wants to talk
about some concerns about numbers —

—wrap it up.
Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: And just to put the fuzzy in
the numbers to bed, it was the former Finance Mini ster that said that he fuzzied up the numbers. He made
statement in this House. He said he fuzzied the num-bers. It is accounting term, if you remember. So let me
just finish on this note.

B-99.

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: No, I am actually on B -98,
Head 10, Ministry Headquarters. That is what I am
talking about.
But the Honourable Opposition Leader when
she got up to speak . . . one of things that really threw
me was when she talked about the headcount, and where the money has gone. And you will know, as the
Premier and Finance Minister tried to explain to the
Opposition Leader and those on the other side who do
not seem to get it, is that they had positions that were
vacant but funded.
See, the difference is that what they did was
even though they were getting people to retire through this great retirement package or through attrition and what have you . . . what they did no t tell Bermuda was
that they were hiring consultants out of the ying- yang.
Every time you turned around there was another con-sultant hired. That is exactly what they did.

[Inaudible interjection]

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: And the Honourable Member from constituency 22 says, Nonsense.
Well, I know when I was in the Ministry of
Sport for just a couple of months I found that there
were several there. We also know that in the Ministry
of Health former PS, Mr. Monkman, is a consultant. So he took a retirement package . . . maybe I will take
a seat and yield because you have I think you have two—

The H onourable Member
is misleading the House.
When he was in Government, the professional
services line was well over $100 million. The former
OBA Government had to reduce that over a number of years. So talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

Hon. Zan e J. S. De Silva: Thank you. It is funny. That
$100 million cannot leave the lips of the Member who
just took his seat can it? Every time he raises to his feet it is $100 million. If it not consultants, it is the
America’s Cup.
But let me just finish off that point, Mr. Chai rman. What they do not tell you is the money that they spent on consultants. Let me finish on this note.
Whilst they were freezing positions and hiring consul tants—mostly friends and family, right? . . . While they
were doing that —

Hon. Trevor G. Moniz: Careful, careful, Mr. Chai rman. We may have to talk about Port Royal.
Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: That’s right. See, the Ho nourable Member —

Continue on. You have a few more
minutes left.
Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: David Duke’s protégée.

[Inaudible interjections]
Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: That is right.
So . . . but let me say this. What they did not
do, and what they did not . . . well, we knew that they
knew. But they burnt a lot of civil servants at both
ends. That is what they did.
When they said, Oh, we are going to cut the
. . . we won’t lay any civil servants off. We won’t do
this . . . we won’t privatise. But what they were actua lly doing was doing that with these deals that they offered some of the civil servant s that they hired back a
couple of months later. Probably for . . . I do not know,
50 per cent more than what they were making prior.
The fact of the matter is that burnout occurred. Burnout occurred in some very serious areas.
And one of them I will speak to . . . and I am sure the


Bermuda House of Assembly Minister will speak to it in a minute when he gets to
talk about his Ministry, is that we had many of our civil servants that need the assistance that this Gover nment is going to give them in terms of getting the r esources and help that they need in their [respective]
Ministries. Thank you.

Members, we are now in Committee
of Supply for further consideration of the Estimates of
Revenue and Expenditure for fiscal year 2018 /19.
Heads 23, 52, 55, and 88 are now to be d ebated. I call on the Minister in charge to proceed. Mi nister, you have the floor.

MINISTRY OF COMMUNITY,
CULTURE AND SPORT

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Thank you, Madam Chai rman. Before we proceed, what time will debate be
ende d?

[It will end] at 8:23.

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Thank you, Madam Chai rman.
Madam Chairman, I move the following
heads. Head 23, Child and Family Services; Head 52, Community and Cultural Affairs; Head 55, Financial Assistance; and Head 88, National Drug Control be now taken under consideration.

HEAD 23 —CHILD AND FAMILY SERVICES
Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Madam Chairman, I now
wish to present the fiscal year 2018/19 Estimates of Expenditure for Head 23, the Department of Child and
Family Se rvices, which are found on pages B -249 to
B-254 of the Estimates Book.
Madam Chairman, the mission statement for
the Department of Child and Family Services is to promote and protect the best interest and social well -
being of children, adults and families in order to enhance their social functioning and their quality of life.
The objectives of the department are:
• To minimise and eliminate those social, ps ychological, or other conditions known to cause or contribute to physical and emotional illness
and sometimes socioeconomic problems.
• To promote growth and directional change in
people, and their social situation.
• To assist in facilitating or improving social
support for those in our population who are at
risk.
• To provide treatment or curative services to
address dysfunction and thereby assist people to function better in society.
• To restore individuals to a healthy condition or
useful capacity.
The department achieves these objectives by
providing day care services; care and protection ser-vices for children; residential and home- based services for families; assessment; intervention; and
counselling services for children, adolescents and
families.
Madam Chairman, the Department of Child
and Family Services budget estimate for fiscal year
2018/19 is $15,715, 000. This represents an increase
of $81,000, or 1 per cent of the original budget for fiscal year 2017/18.
The Children Act 1998 governs the Depar tment of Child and Family Services, which is charged with the responsibility of promoting and protecting the
best interest and social well -being of children, adolescents, adults and families.
The Department of Child and Family Services
continues to focus on providing integrated programming that allows children, adolescents and families to
receive services that ar e appropriate and coordinated,
thus meeting the needs of families and assisting them with the diverse challenges they face. These chal-lenges include but are not limited to: lack of parenting,
social and life skills; the ability to maintain housing,
secure employment, and effectively budget; the abuse
of substances; involvement in anti -social behaviour;
cognitive deficits; educational challenges; mental health issues; and anger management issues. For
1492 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly many persons, these diverse challenges are exacerbated by difficult economic times.
Madam Chairman, in order to meet these r esponsibilities, the department operates four pr ogrammes:
• Programme 2301, Services to Children/Young Persons;
• Programme 2302, Services to Individuals and Families;
• Programme 2303, Residentia l Treatment Services; and
• Programme 2304, Administration.
Madam Chairman, the Department of Child
and Family Services business units are discussed in
turn by p rogramme.

Programme 2301— Services to Children and
Young Persons

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Madam Chairman, the fiscal
year 2018/19 budget allocation for business unit
33010, the Happy Valley Child Care Centre (HVCCC),
is $918,000 (see page B -250). This is a decrease of
$27,000, or 3 per cent, compared to the revised fiscal
year 2017/18 estimate of $945, 000. The modest decrease in funding will be achieved by prioritising the
resources associated with the feeding, clothing and
enrichment programmes at the centre.
The output measures for the Happy Valley
Child Care Centre programme are found on page B -
253 of the Estimates Book.
Madam Chairman, Happy Valley Child Care
Centre [HVCCC] is the only Government operated
child care centre for children between the ages of
three months to four years old. The registered facility
provides high quality child care for a m aximum of 40
children.
Madam Chairman, Happy Valley Child Care
Centre’s monthly fee is $400 per child. If a child is in
the care of the Director of Child and Family Services,
they do not qualify for child day care allowance pr ovided by the Department of Financial Assistance and
as such their costs are absorbed by the Department of
Child and Family Services (DCFS). The revenue for
Happy Valley Child Care Centre during fiscal year
2018/19 is projected to amount to $192,000, which
remains consistent with fis cal year 2017/18. (S ee
page B -251.)
Madam Chairman, Happy Valley Child Care
Centre— and I will refer to it from now on as HVCCC —
is not profit driven and revenue collected does not offset operational expenses. This is because HVCCC
is specifically designed t o meet the comprehensive
needs of young children. It provides an extensive cur-riculum of high academic standards with trained
teachers who are continuously involved in professional growth and development. It also offers enrichment
programmes that encourage parental involvement and growth development to strengthen family functioning
and improve child development.
Madam Chairman, in 2018/19, the HVCCC
will continue to offer a comprehensive range of services including: an intervention programme; a full nu-tritional programme that provides morning snack ,
lunch and afternoon snack that is monitored and approved by the Health Department’s Public Health n utritionist; mandatory parenting classes and involv ement; parent CPR classes; yoga; gymnastics; music
and movem ent; computer activities; reading and wri ting; science; math; community service; field trips; ri ding; gardening; and swimming classes. These curric ulum activities assist in the overall development of the children at the c entre.
Madam Chairman, on the 7
th of July 2017, 16
children graduated from Happy Valley Child Care Centre. They were well prepared to attend preschool,
with four of the graduates reading at the emergent
level. The Happy Valley Child Care Centre consistently utili ses child assessment outcom es for classroom
planning and individual intervention lesson activities.
Madam Chairman, child care placement at the
Happy Valley Child Care Centre continues to be in
demand. [There were] 130 applications received for
the 17 spaces that were available in S eptember 2017.
The inability to accommodate increasing demands ,
coupled with the need of care for special needs chi ldren, remain ongoing challenges facing the Happy
Valley Child Care Centre.
Madam Chairman, the staff at the Happy Va lley Child Care Centre s trive to maintain a first -class
facility while educating children in a safe, healthy and
caring environment. As the Minister of Social Deve lopment and Sport, I would like to express my apprec iation to the staff at the Happy Valley Child Care Ce ntre, their active Parent Teacher Association [PTA] ,
their volunteers and community partners for their con-tinued dedication to the success of Bermuda’s future through our children.

Programme 2302— Services to Individuals
and Families

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Madam Chairman ,
$5,897,000 has been allocated to Programme 2302,
which addresses activities concerning family services,
foster care and counselling and life skill services. This
represents an increase of $394,000, or 7 per cent
compared to the revised budget estimate of
$5,503,000 in fiscal year 2017/18 (see page B -250).
The increased funding will assist the d epartment to
respond to a rising demand for services, as will be
explained shortly.
Madam Chairman, the Intake and Asses sment team provides care and protective services to
the children of Bermuda. This is achieved through
three speciali sed units: Screening, Investigation and
Assessment team with a total of 15 staff. The output


Bermuda House of Assembly measures for Intake and Assessments can be found
on page B -259 of the Estimates Book.
Madam Chairman, to date the Investigation
Team has received 1,222 new referrals in fiscal year
2017/18, an increase of 211 new referrals screened
by the Department of Child and Family Services over
the same period in fiscal year 2016/17. Out of the
1,222 new referrals reported for various forms of
abuse, 430 were substantiated, 395 unsubstantiated,
111 suspected, 221 screened out, and 65 are pending
completion of the investigations. Referrals were r eceived in fiscal year 2017/18 for the following types of
abuse:
• neglect —515;
• sexual abuse— 279;
• physical abuse —187;
• behaviour problems —111;
• emotional abuse—78 ;
• other services —20 .
Of the 1,222 referrals, 628 were female and
594 were male. The age group between five and nine
years old received the highest number ref errals ,
[which was] 397.
Madam Chairman, the Intake Section conti nues to make significant strides while working with fam-ilies during investigation and assessment. The primary
objective is for the d epartment and families to work
together without DCFS having to resort to applying for
a court order. As a result, to date the social workers have completed 1, 013 safety assessments, which is
an increase of 581 safety assessments during the
same period last year. During the investigation , parents demonstrated that they were more willing to sign
a safety plan and they were committed to providing a
safe environment for their children.
Madam Chairman, the Assessment team is
required to complete comprehensive assessments on
children who are experiencing issues ranging from
substance abuse to cognitive challenges. The team
completed 188 assessment tools along with 46 r eports that provided parents, social workers and other
professionals with clear recommendations for inter-vention and support services for each child and their family.
Madam Chairman, the following is an overview of the statistical outputs and outcomes for the Family Preservation Team for the calendar year 2017.
The Family Preservation Team served a combined
total of 195 families and 214 children. This is a 23 per
cent increase in families over the prior year.
• 21 per cent of caseloads were twoparent households ;
• 54 per cent of caseloads were female,
single parent households ;
• 4 per cent of caseloads were male,
single parent households ; and
• 5 per cent of the caseload s were legal
guardian households . During 2017, 89 new cases were referred to
Family Preservation. Throughout the year a total of 56 cases were closed. All closed cases were void of child
safety or child protection issues at closure.
During the year there were 105 new referrals
to Intake of abuse/neglect on open cases in Family Preservation. Of these cases:
• physical abuse —6;
• sexual abuse— 5;
• emotional abuse—9 ;
• neglect —77 ;
• children beyond parental control —8;
I note that n eglect was the highest cat egory of
referrals on open cases at 77 of the total referrals.
Data indicated that exposure to domestic violence was the largest contributor to this high number. There
has been an increase in domestic violence referrals to
intake and this has a direct corr elation to the increase
on the Family Preservation caseload. One of the goals
for 2018 is to explore further intervention in this area.
Madam Chairman, as the Minister of Social
Development and Sports, I would like to commend the
Family Preservation Team and its coordinators for
their commitment to families throughout 2017.
Madam Chairman, the fiscal year 2018/19
budget allocation for business unit 33030, Foster
Care, is $2,135,000, an increase of $37,000, or 2 per
cent, c ompared to the original estimate for fiscal year
2017/18. The Foster Care Section is responsible for
providing alternative living arrangements for children
under the age of 18 years who require “out of home
placement .” During fiscal year 2017/18, the foster care
team was responsible for 73 children. This represents
an increase of three foster children compared to the
previous fiscal year.
Madam Chairman, as of December 31
st, 2017,
Foster Care had several sibling sets of children in care: sibling set of two —10 sets; sibling set of three—
3 set s; sibling set of five —1 set .
Madam Chairman, in fiscal year 2017/18, the
Department of Child and Family Services partnered with internal and external stakeholders to ensure foster children had the necessary psychological and educational services to addres s their needs.
Madam Chairman, 25 children were in kinship
placements, which provides for children to be placed with family members such as grandparents, other ex-tended family members , or godparents. This is the
preferred placement of the Department of Chi ld and
Family Services , as children benefit by keeping them
with their biological family. At the end of 2017, three
children were reunified with their biological parents.
Five youth reached the age of 18 years and aged out
of the foster care system. Three children were in ki nship placements and remained with family. Two continued to reside with their foster families.
Madam Chairman, seven new foster parents
were recruited by the Foster Care coordinator in fiscal
year 2017/18. Although, recruitment of foster parents
1494 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly has been challenging over the years , an increase in
advertisement through Facebook and Twitter in fiscal
year 2017/18 has proven to be a success. To bring
further awareness to foster care and being a foster
parent the President of the Foster Parent Association [FPA] was featured in two articles during fiscal year
2017/18, highlighting the importance of fostering in
Bermuda.
Madam Chairman, during fiscal year 2017/18,
the Foster Care Section hosted six seminars for foster
parents with the goal of increasing their knowledge, understanding and skills caring for foster children.
Madam Chairman, I would like to
acknowledge the foster parents of Bermuda, our un-sung heroes who provide love and stability to children who have experienced significant trauma due to
abuse and/or neglect. In addition, I would like to
acknowledge the Foster Parent Association, in particular the executive, who work in partnership with the
foster care team and provide funds to enable foster
children to participate in educational tr ips, attend specialis ed recreational programmes and to resource la ptops for school.
Finally, Madam Chairman, I also wish to extend appreciation to the St. Paul’s AME Missionary
Committee, Amlin Company, Renaissance Re, the
Delta Sorority and numerous indiv idual donors for
their continuous generosity and support throughout fiscal year 2017/18.

Programme 2303—Residential Treatment Services

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Madam Chairman, the services covered in p rogram me 2303 is Residential
Treatment Services (RTS). These services are offered
at several facilities including Brangman Home, Oleander Cottage, the Youth Development Centre (YDC)
and Administration. For this programme, there is a
budget allocation of $7,343,000 for fiscal year
2018/19. T his represents a decrease of $268,000, or
4 per cent, compared to the revised estimate in fiscal
year 2017/18 (see page B -250). Although there is a
small decrease in funding, the allocated budget for
fiscal year 2018/19 is sufficient to ensure provision of
a quality service to children and families based on best practice standards.
Madam Chairman, Residential Treatment
Services provides a continuum of intervention services to children between the ages of 12 and 18 years
who are deemed by Family Court to be at risk in the
comm unity. By way of a Care Order made by the
courts, the Director of Child and Family Services is
responsible for all children placed in Residential
Treatment Services. This ensures that the children
receive care and protection in a safe and structured
environment.
Madam Chairman, the RTS programme pr ovides 24- hour services for young ladies residing at
Brangman Home and young men residing at Oleander Cottage. The Youth Development Centre is utili sed to
provide one- to-one and special management of res idents bas ed on their needs as indicated by ongoing
evaluations. In March 2017, the Youth Development
Centre building was closed to allow Public Lands and
Buildings to carry out the required repairs and renov ations as outlined in a health and safety assessment
and t he findings of the accreditation site inspection.
The boys housed there were relocated as the Oleander Cottage building is not ideal for long- term group
living, but it is anticipated that these renovations will
be completed within a timely manner.
Madam Chairman, the inclusion of family is a
key component of the service provision at RTS, and when this is not possible, alternative community -
based partnerships and resources are used to devel-op an appropriate community -based plan. The ult imate goal of RTS is to have children transition within
12 months of placement or to implement an individual
plan that may include independent living, depending
on age and family circumstances.
During fiscal year 2017/18, Residential
Treatment Services provided community -based services to five children transitioning back into the co mmunity, as well as those eligible for discharge.
RTS provides group living; individual and
group counselling; family assessments and interve ntions; parent groups (as needed); vocational and ed ucational planning; and life skills development. Aftercare and interagency interaction services are based
on the individual needs of the adolescent.
Madam Chairman, the allocated budget for
fiscal year 2018/19, continues to reflect the Depar tment of Child and Family Services’ commitment to
ongoing quality improvement based on sound statist ical data and empirical research. In fiscal year
2017/18, client data again indicated that the majority
of children requiring this service had family relationship issues and c hildhood trauma. Due to trauma -
induced behaviours with residents, RTS continues to
utilise therapeutic and family components of the programme, maintaining its partnership with Cornell Un iversity as they continue to provide RTS staff with Therapeutic Crisis Intervention (TCI) and Children and
Residential Environments (C.A.R.E.) [ training ].
Madam Chairman, RTS provided in- house
services for 24 adolescents in 2017, comprising of 11
males and 13 females. Client’s services included case
management of children as indicated by individual
assessments and service plans. Interventions inclu ded cottage program mes, transition, respite, family r eunification and aftercare. There has been a decrease in male referrals as many proposed male referrals
require services not av ailable at RTS. Those male
youth with greater needs are usually maintained in the
community to the best of our abilities. When more
speciali sed services are indicated they are referred to
the Psycho- Educational programme .


Bermuda House of Assembly Client profiles for 2017 indicated that 100 per
cent of adolescents involved in the services had family
relationship issues . The majority of children, both
male and female had experienced childhood trauma,
including abandonment, abuse, grief and domestic violence. One of the goals for RTS in 2018 is to ident ify additional trauma awareness and skills training to
further equip the RTS staff in responding more effectively to meet the complex needs of the children and
their families.
Madam Chairman, in 2017 RTS client base
consisted of childre n who have undergone the follo wing circumstances: 75 per cent of clients experienced
abandonment ; 50 per cent experienced/witnessed
domestic violence; 34 per cent experienced sexual
abuse; 67 per cent have developmental trauma sym ptoms ; 58 per cent have mood disturbances/depressive
symptoms ; 58 per cent have learning challenges ; and
58 per cent have experienced parents separating/divorcing.
Over the previous year Residential Treatment
Services has successfully met the majority of the planned outputs/outcomes, as seen on pages B-253
and B -254. Statistical data and the performance qual ity improvement process have been used to monitor
quality and to determine improvements required for
the delivery of services.

Programme 2304— Administration

Hon. Michael A. W eeks: Madam Chairman,
$1,557,000 has been allocated to p rogramme 2304 ,
Administration for fiscal year 2018/19. This is a decrease of $18,000, or 1 per cent, compared to the r evised budget allocation in fiscal year 2017/18.
Madam Chairman, the Administration Section
of the Department of Child and Family Services is r esponsible for the general supervision of the sections
within the department.
The introduction of an integrated data management system for the Department of Child and
Family Services is expected to go live early in this
budget year. This database will further support the
high standard of client service delivery established
within the department.
Madam Chairman, the department has noted
an increase in clients and/ or family members presenting with m ental health challenges (diagnosed and u ndiagnosed), substance abuse, aggressive and violent
behaviours. Consequently, health and safety has become a major concern to the Department of Child and
Family Services , Administration Section. The change
in client profile has been associated with an increase
in the number of threatening and /or violent behaviours
directed towards staff in 2017. This heightened the need for DCFS to examine the health and safety of staff, and develop strategies to reduce risk factors in
the workplace. Trauma, secondary trauma, compassion fatigue and burnout have been experienced by DCFS staff during the last year , and have a significant
impact on the entire d epartment.
In an effort to reduce this impact, over the
next budget year staff will receive ongoing training
around mitigating safety risks, working with dually di-agnosed client and maintaining wellness and self -
care. Debriefing—the process of providing assistance
to employees following an event of a critical or cat astrophic work incident —will be made a mandatory part
of the Department of Child and Family Services
standard operating procedures. Debriefing will provide staff with an opportunity to discuss their account of the
incident; develop a plan to reduce the likelihood of
that i ncident occurring again, and provide staff with
the necessary guidance, training and support to effectively move pass the incident.
Madam Chairman, during the 2018/19 budget
year, the administration section of DCFS endeavours to improve its physical space such that staff will be
better protected in the execution of their daily duties.
This will include the installation, activation and monitoring of panic buttons, the installation of a safety screen in the reception area, along with security sy stems , where n eeded.
Madam Chairman, the Psycho- Educational
[Psych o-Ed] programme falls under the remit of the
administration section of DCFS. Psych o-Ed was d eveloped to be a resource to children who could not be effectively serviced locally or those who had exhaus ted all available therapeutic services. As our ability to
diagnose various psychological, behavioural and edu-cational challenges has improved, more children are being identified with needing speciali sed services that
cannot be provided locally.
During 2017, a total of 15 clients were serviced overseas in therapeutic placements for a co mplexity of issues identified across the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) IV Crit eria of Mental Disorders.
Madam Chairman, fortunately, with the i mplementation of an assessment team as a part of the
restructuring of the Department of Child and Family
Services, there has been a significant decrease in the
number of Psycho -Ed clients being referred without an
accurate diagnosis or a clear -cut treatment plan of
what was to be gained by the overseas treatment placement. Consequently, during the last budget year
Psych o-Ed only had one client who was referred to an
overseas service provider that speciali sed primarily in
providing clinical and co mprehensive assessments at
a university hospital.
The current data revealed that from April
through December 2017, 15 clients have been ser-viced overseas, a reduction from 22 during the same
period of 2016. Four were females and eleven were
males. The majority of the clien ts presented significant
problems and three out of the five [were] multiaxial classifications.
1496 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly Madam Chairman, as the field of social work
can be a thankless profession, at this time I would like
to take the time to thank all the staff within the D epartm ent of Child and Family Services for their commitment and dedication to providing effective services to those families requiring the array of services that
they provide. That ends Head 23, Madam Chairman.

HEAD 52 —DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNITY AND
CULTURAL AFFAI RS

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Madam Chairman, I will now
present the fiscal year 2018/19 Estimates of Expend iture and Revenue for Head 52, the Department of
Community and Cultural Affairs which can be found on pages B -255 through B -261 of the Estimates Book.
Mission statement. The department's mission
is to cultivate a greater sense of national identity and
pride by engaging with the community to develop our
society through culture, heritage, and educational outreach.
The department’s objectives. Madam Chai rman, the department’s objectives are shown on page
B255 of the Estimates Book. There is no need for me
to repeat them here.
The Department of Community and Cultural
Affairs administers two programmes and 12 business
units for which a general summary is contained on
page B -256 of the Estimates Book. The fiscal year
2018/19 budget estimate for Head 52 is $2,242,000, a
net reduction of $769,769 when compared to the ori ginal estimate for fiscal year 2017/18. This is due to the
transfer of the community education and development programme to the Ministry of Education and Wor kforce Development.
Madam Chairman, I will now discuss the 10
business units that fall under programme 5202, Cul-tural Affairs.

Programme 5202—Cultural Affairs

Business Unit 62000—Grants to Organisations

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Madam Chairman, the total
amount budgeted under this business unit for fiscal
year 2018/19 is $223,000, which reflects a small i ncrease of 5 per cent, or $10,000 compared to fiscal
year 2017/18 budget allocation ( see page B -256).
The Department of Community and Cultural
Affairs is responsible for promoting, preserving, and
celebrating Bermuda’s rich and diverse cultural heri tage and for the arts. These goals are achieved in part
by partnering with private sector organi sations by
providing funding. Organisations that will receive f inancial support in the upcoming fiscal year are:
• The Bermuda Historical Society;
• St. George’s Historical Society;
• St. George’s Preservation Authority;
• Bermuda Arts Council; • Bermuda Heritage Association;
• Bermuda National Gallery;
• Cultural Legacy Fund recipients; and
• St. George’s Foundation.

Business Unit 62001— Administration

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Madam Chairman, the function of this business unit is to provide for the admi nistration and operation of the Department of Comm unity and Cultural Affairs which is located on the fourth floor of the Dame Lois Browne- Evans Building.
Madam Chairman, the budget estimate for fi scal year 2018/19 for this business unit is $818,000, as shown on page B -256. A decrease of $25,000 compared to fiscal year 2017/18. Administrative operating costs have been reduced for courier services, contrac-tors, and overtime pay.
Madam Chairman, the budget estimate for fi scal year 2018/19 for this business unit is $8 . . . I already read that, Madam Chairman.
I am moving right along.

[Laughter]

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Madam Chairman, business
unit 62001 contains allocations for salaries and wages, professional development, communications, pr ogramming and general office supplies, educational
materials, website maintenance, books and periodical
subscriptions , and telephone services.

Business Unit 62010— Emancipation
and Cultural Festivals

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Madam Chairman, the
budget estimate business unit 62010 in fiscal year
2018/19 is $59,000, a decrease of $102,000 com-pared to the original budget estimate for fiscal year
2017/18.
This decrease is largely attributed to a reall ocation of funds to business unit 62210 to augment expenditures for the expanded Bermuda International
Gombey Festival.
Madam Chairman, this business unit covers
the cost of promoting the culture and heritage of Bermuda and its people through festivals and other pr ogrammes and events such as the Emancipation
Commemorative Ceremony and Harbour Nights.

Business Unit 62020—Heritage Celebrations

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Madam Chairman, the total
estimate for this business unit for fiscal year 2018/19
is $236,000, an increase of $19,000, or 9 per cent,
over fiscal year 2017/18, due to increasing infrast ructure costs by external vendors. This business unit c overs the cost of celebrations for both Heritage Month
and the Bermuda Day Parade. Heritage Month cel eBermuda House of Assembly brations are a series of cultural events and activities
which concludes with the fantastic Bermuda Day P arade.
Heritage Month. The theme for Heritage
Month 2018 is “What We Share” which mirrors the
Bermuda National Gallery’s theme of the same name
for their 2018 biannual exhibition. This theme is designed to promote unity , and this year we will be encouraging community -wide participation as we present
a robust series of events, entertainment , and activities
that will illustrate many aspects of Bermuda’s unique
heritage.
Bermuda Day Parade. Madam Chairman, this
year is the first year that Bermuda Day wil l be cel ebrated on the last Friday in May instead of on the 24th
of May. (Sounds good.) In this regard, we will begin the process of rebranding and reshaping Bermuda
Day. Considerable emphasis will be spent on reengaging the community with the Bermuda Day Parade.
There were 53 entrants in the 2017 Bermuda Day P arade and we intend to do even better in 2018. To as-sist float entrants and boat decorating, the Depar tment of Community and Cultural Affairs will be offer-ing free workshops to the public. The departm ent will
make a special effort to contact potential new entrants
and it is hoped that the whole community will support
the Bermuda Day Parade in 2018.

Business Unit 62030—Cultural Education
Programme

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Madam Chairman, the
budget esti mate for business unit 62030 for fiscal year
2018/19 is $29,000 (see page B -256) representing a
decrease of $12,000, or 29 per cent compared to the
original estimate for fiscal year 2017/18. This decrease is due to a reallocation of funds to business
unit 62080 to support the Bermuda Literary Awards.
Madam Chairman, in fiscal year 2018/19, the
department will continue to develop three new study
guides entitled, Shipwrecks , Traditional Bermuda
Boatbuilding, and Medicinal Uses of Plants for use
within the s chool system to complement the Bermuda
Folklife Documentary Series which is collection of full
length feature films highlighting the traditions and tr adition bearers of Bermuda.

Business Unit 62050—National Heroes Day

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Madam Chairm an, the all ocated budget for fiscal year 2018/19 is $59,000. This
reflects an increase of $3,000 compared to the orig inal estimate in fiscal year 2017/18.

Business Unit 62060— Promotion of the Arts

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Madam Chairman, the fiscal
year 2 018/19 budget estimate for business unit 62060 is $44,000 which is the same as the original budget estimate for fiscal year 2017/18 (see page B -256).
Madam Chairman, the two primary activities
associated with this business unit are the Premier’s
Concert a nd the writer -in-residence series. The Premier’s Concert is used to promote the visual and performing arts. In previous years, the annual Premier’s
Concert has served to highlight selected students between the ages of 10 and 20 years old who are exce lling in a variety of genres of the arts. Last year the
Premier’s Concert provided an opportunity to sho wcase the restaging, at the Ruth Seaton James Centre
for the Performing Arts , of the Bermudian continuing
performances at CARIFESTA XIII in Barbados includ-ing participating dancers, spoken word artists, visual
artists, crafts persons, Gombeys and musicians.
In the fiscal year 2018/19, the Premier’s Concert will continue to highlight and feature outstanding
young people in the visual and performing arts with an
intent to introduce an element of apprenticeship and additional training to the programme.
Madam Chairman, the Department of Co mmunity and Cultural Affairs develops our literary arts by hosting an annual writer -in-residence workshop
focusing on a variety of genres. Recogni sing the rise
in popularity of thrillers and detective fiction, the department is currently hosting a three- week writer -inresidence programme focusing on mystery and crime fiction. The department was fortunate in securing
award winning British /Grenadian writer and adaptor,
Mr. Jacob Ross to serve as the instructor which also features a public reading and workshops for secondary school students.
In fiscal year 2018/19, the department will
seek to have a writer -in-residence programme f ocused on historical fiction. Given the historical bent of
many Bermudian writers, this workshop will provide
the opportunity to explore some of the experiences of
our past through the lens of creative writing.

Business Unit 62070—Folklife

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Madam Chairman, the
budget estimate for business unit 62070 for fiscal year
2018/19 is $142,000, which is a decrease of $15,000 from the original estimate in fiscal year 2017/18 (see
page B -256). This decrease is attributed to a realloc ation of funds to business unit 62080 in order to support the Bermuda Literary Awards as well as a reduc-tion in the Folklife Apprenticeship Programme and
Folklife Documentaries.
Madam Chairman, the Bermuda Heartbeats
Lecture Series, now in its 15
th year, is funded through
this business unit. The new season commencing in
April 2018 will feature nine events and three film
nights. As part of this programme the Department of
Community and Cultural Affairs will feature events including a boat tour focusing on the architect ure of
the buildings fringing Hamilton Harbour in collabor a1498 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly tion with the Bermuda National Trust ; a retrospective
interview with eminent Bermudian historian and social
activist Dr. Eva Hodgson ; and Azores Day, in collaboration with the Casa Dos A çores Bermuda—that was
my best attempt at Portuguese.
The department completed two Folklife Documentary films during fiscal year 2017/18 entitled Traditional Bermuda Games and Crafts , and Wha Ya
Sayin ? Bermudian Dialect, Spoken Word and Stor ytelling . In fiscal year 2018/19, the department intends
to launch these two documentaries which feature tr adition bearers Judith James, Shirley Pearman,
Yvonne James, George Leon Burt, Florenz WebbMaxwell, Brittani Fubler, Bruce Barritt, V ejay Steede,
and Ruth E. Thomas. The department will also work
towards completing a film on Bermuda’s traditions
featuring cultural experts such as wedding cake ma ker, Ms. Juliette Jackson, and cultural doyenne , Miss
Ruth E. Thomas.
Madam Chairman, the Department of Co mmunity and Cultural Aff airs offers the Folklife Apprenticeship Programme to support the preservation of cultural knowledge and skills from one generation to
the next. During fiscal year 2017/18, the department
focused on the art of float building given the scarcity
of tradition bearers in this area and the importance of
this skill for our iconic Bermuda Day Parade.
This year, the department plans to implement
a version of the Apprenticeship Programme that aligns
with assisting programming to offer a fuller, more r obust experienc e for the apprentices.

Business Unit 62080—Research and Publication

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Madam Chairman, the fiscal
year 2018/19 budget estimate for business unit 62080 is $101,000, representing an increase of $19,000
compared to the original estimate for fiscal year
2017/18 of [82,000]. This increase is largely attributed
to a reallocation of funds from business units 62030 and 62070 in order to support the Bermuda Literary
Awards as noted earlier in my presentation.
Madam Chairman, the Department of Community and Cultural Affairs recognises the importance
of supporting original academic research on Berm uda’s rich history and heritage. In fiscal year 2018/19
the department will sponsor another research project
that will add to our historical knowledge of Bermuda, a
project entitled , Mary Prince in Antigua: The Latter
Years of Bermuda’s National Hero, by Dr. Margot
Maddison- MacFadyen. Upon completion of the r esearch, Dr. Maddison- MacFadyen will present her
findings to the Bermudian public including school vis-its, publisher work and scholarly journals , and make
her work available on her existing website,
www.maryprince.org
. We are excited to learn more
about the fate of one of Bermuda’s internationally best known historical figures. The department will again sponsor two Bermudian researchers in fiscal year 2018/19: Brittani Cann- Fubler and Rosemary Hall who have teamed up
to study Bermuda’s unique dialect and linguistic trad itions and produce public lectures and academic papers.
Madam Chairman, as part of the Department
of Community and Cultural Affairs expansion of the Gombey Festival, the department will be working with
local and international historians on academic r esearch relating to Bermuda’s Gombey traditi ons, i ncluding links of similar traditions in the Caribbean and West Africa in terms of dance, masking, masquerading, and rhythm.
In fiscal 2018/19, the department will work
with the National Museum of Bermuda to publish and
launch Bermudian historian Dr. Clarence Maxwell ’s
completed manuscript entitled, Society of Prudent
Men: Bermudians and the Age of Revolution. Dr.
Maxwell’s research examines the social, economic,
and political character of Bermudian activity in the A tlantic World during the Age of Rev olution, from 1774
to 1804.
Bermuda Literary Awards . Madam Chairman,
the Bermuda Literary Awards are administered by the
Department of Community and Cultural Affairs once every five years to recognise excellence in Bermudian writing. The five existing cat egories of awards are fi ction, nonfiction, children and young adult fiction, poet-ry, and drama. In fiscal year 2018/19, two new categories of literary awards will be introduced. The prize for
cultural merit offered for books or scripts that are notable for contributing to the preservation of Bermuda’s
culture, heritage, folklife and/or history , and the
founder’s prize offered for books or scripts published prior to the establishment of the Bermuda Literary
Awards in 1999. The selected award winners in each
category will each receive $2,000 cash award and a
presentation in their honour.
Business Unit 62180— Special Projects

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Madam Chairman, the fiscal
year 2018/19 budget estimate for business unit 62180
is $100,000, a decrease of $74,000, or 42.5 per cent
when compared with the revised estimate of $174,000
for fiscal year 2017/18.
Madam Chairman, the increased allocation for
fiscal year 2017/18, which will not be repeated for fi scal year 2018/19, supported a special project that enabled the Department of Community and Cultural A ffairs to facilitate Bermuda’s participation in the thi rteenth edition of the Caribbean Festival of the Arts,
commonly known as CARIFESTA which was held in
Barbados from the 17
th to the 27th of August 2017.
This is in keeping with the department’s mandate to
promote Bermuda’s rich cultural heritage and develop
creative industries. The 2017 CARIFESTA festival
theme was Asserting Our Culture, Celebrating OurBermuda House of Assembly selves which provided an opportunity to showcase
Bermuda on the world stage.
Madam Chairman, the Bermuda Government
sponsored participation for more than 30 persons to
participate in CARIFESTA XIII in Barbados in such performance areas as music, dance, storytelling, and
theatre. The Department of Community and Cul tural
Affairs also sent artwork produced by Bermuda’s
premier visual artists including Dr. Edwin Smith, Dr.
Charles Zuill, Alan Smith, James Cooper, Rhona
Emmerson and others —and some of the Island’s outstanding and developing writers including Mrs.
Floren z Webb- Maxwell, Yesha Townsend, and Chris
Astwood.
Madam Chairman, in fiscal year 2018/19, the
department hopes to build upon the success of Ber-muda’s participation in CARIFESTA XIII by investing
in special projects that will focus on the development
of literary, fine , and performing artists. This will include
engaging with these artists to determine the areas
where the development of their marketability can be improved, particularly from the perspective of artists
whose work can form a more focused and deliberate
part of Bermudian cultural industries including cultural
tourism.

Business Unit 62210—Gombey Festival
Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Madam Chairman, business
unit 62210 is a new business unit with a budget est imate of $163,000 and is designed to facili tate expansion of the Bermuda International Gombey Festival.
Madam Chairman, the Gombey Festival has
been held annually to provide exposure to the folk art
and traditions of the Gombey which is an important
Bermudian icon. In fiscal year 2017/18, the pr ogramme was rebranded as the Bermuda International
Gombey Festival and expanded to a full weekend of
events and learning opportunities celebrating not only
our Bermudian Gombey traditions, but also intern ational influences from across the diaspora.
Madam Chairman, it is the department’s v ision that the Bermuda International Gombey Festival will evolve into an internationally known event attrac ting overseas troupes and visitors alike to our shores. The budget estimate for fiscal year 2018/19 will f inance the cost of travel and lodging for international
troupes, event infrastructure, financial awards to participating Gombey troupes , and the chosen honouree
for this year.

Programme 5203—Community Services

Business Unit 62100—Uncover the Arts
Programme

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Madam Chairman, the
budget estimate for this business unit in fiscal year
2018/19 is $190,000 which represents an increase of $18,000 over the original budget estimate for fiscal
year 2017/18.
Madam Chairman, the budget allocation u nder this business unit will allow the department to continue its partnership with the Bermuda Tourism A uthority to provide opportunities for both visitors and
locals alike to discover and enjoy various aspects of
Bermuda’s culture, arts , and entertainment. Some of
these programmes include the Skirling Ceremony at
Fort Hamilton with the Bermuda Island Pipe Band;
Bermudian Cookery Demonstration with Chef Cheryl Kerr; the Bermudian Gombey Review at Pier 6 with
the H & H Gombey Troupe; guided walking tours
Hamilto n, Dockyard, and St. George’s; Folk Medicine:
Yesterday and Today at the Botanical Gardens; and
the Somerset Boat Tour of Mangrove Bay. Lectures
on Bermuda’s history, culture, and traditions ; and
Bermuda’s history with Prisoners of War are also offered.
Funds allocated for this business unit are also
used to pay vendors who host the listed talks, tours ,
and demonstrations , as well as cover the cost of advertising, rental fees for tents, sound systems, and sites.

Business Unit 62130— Senior Citizen
Projects

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Madam Chairman, $78,000
is allocated to this business unit for fiscal year 2018/19, $2,000 less than the original estimated
budget for fiscal year 2017/18. The department continues to focus on allocating resources strategically
and identifying areas of meaningful cultural programming and heritage preservation that otherwise is not served by existing community led programming or
Government initiatives for senior citizens.
Madam Chairman, the Department of Co mmunity and Cultural Aff airs is responsible for organi sing a variety of programmes and activities for our seniors. During fiscal year 2017/18, the department hos ted six cultural and educational events for seniors with
the highlight being the annual Seniors Award lunc heon for 500 seniors to celebrate nominated seniors for their significant contributions made over the years. In alignment with this awards luncheon, a book was pr oduced of biographies of the lives of 23 outstanding
seniors and made available to the public for no charge. The funds associated with this business unit
will continue in fiscal year 2018/19 to provide culturally
relevant and intellectually stimulating programmes and activities for Bermuda’s senior population.

Programme 5204—Community Education

Hon. Michael A . Weeks: Madam Chairman, as I alluded to earlier in my presentation, programme 5204,
Community Education has been transferred to the
Ministry of Education and Workforce Development.
1500 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly Consequently, the budget estimate for this unit is
shown as zero under Head 52 (see page B -256).
Madam Chairman, I now turn to the subjective
analysis for the Department of Community and Cultural Affairs found on page B -257.
Salaries . Madam Chairman, the decrease of
salaries of $540,000 is due to the transfer of the
Community Education and Development Programme
to the Ministry of Education and Workforce Development.
Travel . Madam Chairman, the decrease in
travel by $84,000, or 46 per cent, has occurred because travel increased in fiscal year 2017/18 for a
specific project, CAR IFESTA XIII, which has now
been completed.
Advertising and Promotion. Madam Chairman,
this decrease of $41,000, or 39 per cent, represents
cost savings achieved by the department through the
use of social media in advertising and promoting the
department ’s events and programmes (see page B -
263). The decrease is also as a result of the transfer
of the Community Education and Development Pr ogramme to the Ministry of Education and Workforce
Development.
Materials and Supplies . Madam Chairman,
this decrease of $40,000 is also due to the transfer of
the Community Education and Development Pr ogramme.
Madam Chairman, the total estimate revenue
for the Department of Community and Cultural Affairs
for fiscal year 2018/19 is $6,000. Again, a decrease of
$83,000 is a result of the reallocation of the Community Education and Development Programme to the
Ministry of Education and Workforce Development.
Madam Chairman, the full -time equivalent
positions for fiscal year 2018/19 have been reduced
from 15 to 8 in the Department of Community and Cultural Affairs due to the transfer of the Community E ducation and Development Programme to the Ministry of Education and Workforce Development (s ee page
B-258).
Madam Chairman, this concludes my presentation on the Budgetary Es timates for fiscal year
2018/19 for Head 52, the Department of Community
and Cultural Affairs. However, before I move on I
would like to thank the Director, Mrs. Heather Whalen,
and all of the staff of the Department of Community
and Cultural Affairs for t heir dedication, commitment,
energy , and enthusiasm.

Hear, hear!
Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Although not a large department, the staff work extremely hard and are committed to serve the public with excellence.
That ends Head 52.
HEAD 55 —DEPARTMENT OF FINANCIAL
ASSISTANCE

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Madam Chairman, I will now
present the Estimates of Expenditure and Revenue for
Head 55, the Department of Financial Assistance, or
DFA, for fiscal year 2018/19 which can be found on
pages B -262 through B -265 of the Estimates Book.
Madam Chairman, the mission of the Depar tment of Financial Assistance is to ensure that Berm udians with insufficient financial resources have access
to services in order to gain, maintain, or regain a mi nimum standard of liv ing while encouraging personal
and economic independence. T he objectives of the
department are shown on page B262 of the Estimates
Book.
Madam Chairman, page B -263 shows that the
current total expenditure for the Department of Financial Assistance for fis cal year 2018/19 is estimated to
be $51,684,000. This represents a net decrease of $1,871,000, or 3 per cent, from the revised estimate
for fiscal year 2017/18. The reason for this decrease
will be discussed later.
The fiscal year 2018/19 Budget will prov ide
the financial basis for the Financial Assistance pr ogramme, which will enable eligible and qualified financial assistance clients to receive awards to maintain a
basic standard of living for items including:
• rental accommodations;
• food;
• utilities ;
• HIP and FutureCare premiums;
• rest home or nursing home care;
• in-home care or adult day care; and
• medical equipment, supplies, and medic ation.
Funding will also sustain the Child Day Care
Allowance Programme and provide for administrative and operational costs for the department.
Madam Chairman, the department has two
business units for which a general summary is contained on page B -263 of the Estimates of Revenue
and Expenditure. These business units which will be
discussed in order are 65050, G rant Administration;
and 65080, General Administration.

Business Unit 65050—Grant Administration

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Madam Chairman, the total
estimate for this business unit for fiscal year 2018/19
is $48,512,000. This reflects a decrease of $1,892, 000, or 4 per cent, when compared with the
revised estimate of fiscal year 2017/18 (s ee page B -
269).
Madam Chairman, business unit 65050 has
two components: grants to individuals (financial assistance programme proper ), and grants to organis ations. I will discuss these two categories of grant r ecipients separately.


Bermuda House of Assembly Organisational Grant Recipients

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Business unit 65050 i ncludes a total budget estimate for awards to approved
individuals in the amount of $44,284,000 for fiscal year 2018/ 19. This represents a decrease of
$1,492,000 compared with the fiscal year 2017/18
revised estimate of $45,776,000.
Madam Chairman, the Department of Financial Assistance Programme is governed by the Financial Assistance Act 2001 and Financial Assistance Regulations 2004 and subsequent amendments.
The department continues to assess persons
based on the formula set out in the Financial Assi stance Regulations 2004. These regulations stipulate that the eligibility for an award will be established
when the am ount of allowable expenses of the person
exceeds the amount of qualifying household income of the person or household and the value of local and
international investments owned by the person does
not exceed $500 in the case of persons under the age of 65 and $5,000 for persons over the age of 65.
Madam Chairman, the majority of persons r eceiving financial awards continues to be seniors and
the disabled populations. Services and funding for
seniors includes payments for rent, electricity, phone,
gas, rest and nursing home fees, adult day care or in -
home care medication, medical equipment and supplies.
Madam Chairman, the following table indicates the number of seniors and/or pensioners on f inancial assistance and the corresponding total mont hly expenditure during December of each year for the
past seven years.
Summary of numbers of seniors and pensioners and total expenditure during the month of Dece mber from December 2011 to December 2017:

Year Pensioners Total Expenditure
2011 522 $1.036 million
2012 701 $1.349 million
2013 773 $1.522 million
2014 820 $1.681 million
2015 903 $1.909 million
2016 969 $2.003 million
2017 1,038 $2.069 million

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Madam Chairman, these
data illustrate that over the past seven years, from
2011 to 2017, both the number of seniors and/or pensioners receiving financial assistance and the corr esponding total, these data illustrate that over the past seven years from —I am getting tired. I believe I read
that already —all right . . . these data illustrate that
over the past seven years from 2011 to 2017 both the numbers of seniors and pensioners receiving financial assistance and the corresponding total expenditure to
service this population has doubled. This growing
trend of increasing numbers of seniors and pension-ers on financial assistance is expected to continue
due to Bermuda’s ageing population and the inability
of many persons to sustain a basic standard of living
during their senior years.
There were 1,038 seniors and pensioners
serviced by the Depart ment of Financial Assistance in
December 2017, the highest number on record. Sim ilarly, the department spent approximately $2,069,000
to service the seniors in December 2017. Again, the
highest pay-out on record.
Madam Chairman, currently 103 senior clients
are in nursing homes and 84 are in rest homes. Eighty -seven senior clients live in Bermuda Housing
Trust properties. The remaining seniors reside alone
or with family members.

[Pause]

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Bear with me, Madam
Chairman. I have a litt le cold.
The remaining seniors reside alone or with
family members. The monthly cost of rest home and
nursing home care is $335,000 and $513,000 , respectively. Thus, a combined amount of $848,000 is paid
out monthly for nursing home and rest home clients.
This represents a decrease of $30,000 when compared with the previous year.
Madam Chairman, in addition to assistance
provided for rest and nursing home care the d epartment continues to support family members who qual ify to enable their senior relative to remain in the
household. This benefit is called “ home care allo wance” and covers a cost of up to $2,000 monthly per
client. This assistance continues to provide a muchneeded boost for seniors to spend time with their fam ilies and to remain in their own homes or those of their
loved ones. Currently, the department on an average
pays out $40,000 per month for home care service. This is a decrease of $6,000 per month compared to the previous year.
Madam Chairman, this decrease is attributed
to three factors. The first factor is the establishment of maximum payments for the various levels of in- home
care required by clients. The current fees for in- home
care paid out by the department are $15 per hour for
personal caregivers or companions; $25 per hour for
nursing assistants or aids; and $75 per hour for services provided by a registered nurse.
Madam Chairman, the second factor for the
decrease is that many seniors who previously were
able to remain in their own homes and receive care
there can no longer remain at home due to declining
health conditions which require that they be admitted
to the hospital or placed in either a rest or nursing
home.
Madam Chairman, the third factor is that
some costs for home care are now being absorbed by the Health Insuranc e Department as the first payee.
1502 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly Madam Chairman, notwithstanding the decrease in pay-out for home care service, the demand
for home care service is likely to continue as there are
many seniors who require care who cannot be accepted into a rest or nursing home due to the lack of
beds, i.e., insufficient capacity.
Madam Chairman, as of December 2017
there were 840 disabled persons receiving assistance. This is a decrease of 8 disabled clients over the same
period last year. Disabilities can range from short -
term/temporary to long- term/permanent and can be of
a physical nature and/or due to mental health chal-lenges. The d epartment spent $1,364,000 to service
persons with disabilities in December 2017.
Madam Chairman, the d epartment also pays
for the FutureCare insurance for all eligible senior cl ients. Currently, the monthly rate for each senior client
is $500.14. HIP insurance is provided for all clients
under the age of 65 at a current cost per client of
$429.24 monthly. The amount paid out for health i nsurance at these rates currently totals some $776,000
monthly. This is a decrease of $58,000 over the same
period last year.
Madam Chairman, the cost of medication for
the Department of Financial Assistance clients is in excess of $124,669 monthly , or $1,4 96,000 yearly.
Madam Chairman, the cost of the health care
for ageing baby boomers continues to be a challenge for governments worldwide. The Department of F inancial Assistance continues to work in tandem with
the Health Insurance Department and the Mini stry of
Health to examine strategies that will help to reduce
the costs of servicing this population.
Madam Chairman, over the last several years
there has been a gradual increase of able- bodied u nemployed and earnings low persons applying for f inancial assistance. During 2017, the total number of clients serviced per month ranged from a low of 2,618
and a high of 2,749. It is projected that the demand for
financial assistance will continue a similar trend in the
fiscal year 2018/19.
Madam Chairman, the c ombined financial
assistance pay-out for able- bodied unemployed and
earnings low clients averaged just over $651,000 per
month during the three- month period from October to
December 2017. This compared with an average pay -
out of just over $1,045,000 per month for the same
three- month period in 2016, a decrease of $394,000.
Madam Chairman, for purposes of historical
comparison, financial assistance total monthly ex-penditure for fiscal year 2017/18 was $11,509,000 in
the first quarter; in the second quarter, $11,003,000
and a slight decrease in the third quarter,
$10,760,000.
Madam Chairman, the average number of
clients per month in the combined categories of seniors and disabled persons in 2016 was 1,807, whilst
the average number of seniors and disabled i n 2017 was 1,867, representing an overall increase of 60 seniors and disabled persons combined.
Similarly, Madam Chairman, the monthly payout for the combined categories of seniors and persons with disabilities over the three- month period O ctober to Dec ember 2017 averaged $3,426,000 repr esenting a decrease of about $16,000 over the average pay-out for the same two categories in the same
three- month time period in 2016. This pattern of decrease is not expected to continue.
In descending order, the highes t items of e xpenditure for monthly pay -outs are as follows:
1) Rental accommodations. Monthly rental
accommodations paid on behalf of clients had
reached $1,256,000 in the first quarter of fiscal year
2017/18. Significant steps have been taken by the Department of Financial Assistance via policy chang-es to decrease the number of applicants desiring to
move into rental accommodations and not having a
means to contribute to the costs of the rental unit. As
a result, in the third quarter of fiscal year 2017/18 the
average rental pay -out was $1,155,000 representing a
monthly savings of $101,437.
2) Rest and Nursing Home Fees . In December 2017, the combined pay -out for rest and nursing
home fees on a monthly basis was $848,000. Com-pared to the pay -out 12 months prior to this, it is a decrease of $30,000 as discussed previously.
3) Insurance Premiums . This is a combination
of the cost for FutureCare which is for the clients who
are seniors , and HIP for the persons under the age of
65 and those with private insur ance of which the d epartment pays up to the amount of either FutureCare
or HIP and medical insurance. In December 2017, the
monthly pay-out for insurance premiums was
$776,000.
4) Food. In December 2017, the cost of food
was $412,000 monthly, which is a r eduction of $4,000
compared to December 2016.
Madam Chairman, all able -bodied applicants
are referred to the Department of Workforce Deve lopment for registration prior to becoming a client with the Department of Financial Assistance. This requir ement encourages Financial Assistance clients to begin the process of job readiness in order to be in receipt or receiving a financial award, and where necessary
clients may also be referred to the team social wor kers for life skills and money management training.
Madam Chairman, to further encourage our
able- bodied clients to reduce the length of time they
are dependent on Financial Assistance, the d epartment launched its community service components in
July 2014. The aim of this component is to encourage
networki ng and make able- bodied unemployed and
low earning clients more work ready by providing service to numerous charities across the Island while still
being in receipt of a financial award. Able- bodied cl ients are expected to provide up to 15 hours of communi ty service after being on assistance for a period


Bermuda House of Assembly of at least three months and are required to complete
five job searches weekly. Clients who are not yet i nvolved with the community service component are
required to complete 12 job searches weekly. Currently there is a three- month community service rotation
amongst community partners. As more stakeholders
are secured, the length of community service may
increase.
Madam Chairman, the d epartment will recruit
a full -time community service coordinator in 2018 to
expand this initiative. The Department of Financial
Assistance will continue to maintain a working rel ationship with the Department of Workforce Development, other Government agencies and nongovernmental agencies with a view to increasing and enhancing collaboration in empowering able- bodied
financial assistance clients to seek and find gainful employment.
Madam Chairman, the ultimate goal is to decrease the client’s dependence for assistance or to eliminate the need altogether.
The Child Day Care All owance Programme,
Madam Chairman, business unit 65050, also includes
the child day care allowance programme in the
amount of $3,400,000 for fiscal year 2018/19. This
amount remains unchanged from the previous year
(see page C -19).
Madam Chairman, the chil d day care allo wance programme was officially launched in November 2008 and is governed by the Child Day Care Allo wance Act 2008 and the Child Day Care [Allowance]
Regulations 2008. Most parents on the programme remain single, employed, and with two childr en or less
in a registered or licens ed child day care environment.
Persons applying for receipt of the child day care allowance together with the child must be registered as
status Bermudians. This status is determined by the
Department of Immigration and does not benefit nonBermudians or PRC holders. The child must also r eside with the applicant at the time of application and
be between the ages of 0 to 4.
Madam Chairman, the Child Day Care Allo wance programme eligibility criteria differs from that of
the Financial Assistance programme in that a person’s
eligibility is only centred on the total salary or wage of the applicant, or applicants. The established income threshold is $55,000 per annum. Child maintenance
payments are not factored as income during the assessment. Parents or guardians of children in the
Child Day Care Allowance programme are working,
attending school, or looking for employment. They
must conduct job searches if they are unemployed.
Madam Chairman, during fiscal year 2017/18
the number of applicants for this programme averaged
over 184 families and 203 children benefited. The average monthly award per child is approximately $797. Madam Chairman, from inception the monthly expenditure for the Child Day Care Allowance pr o-gramme has ranged from about $200,000 to about
$340,000.
Abuse, misuse and fraud continue to be
committed by a small margin of Financial Assistance
clients. The department’s Anonymous Hotline, 297 -
STOP (or 7867), which was established in January of
2014 for persons to report suspected cases of abuse
of the system continues to work well. Madam Chai rman, during fiscal year 2017/18 to date, there were 34
calls made to 297- STOP. Of these calls, 32 have
been investigated. Of the 32 calls investigated, 28
have been confirmed as fraud. Two calls remain under investigation. The department’s investigative offi cers recovered $62,000 is fiscal year 2016/17, com-pared to $57,000 recovered in fiscal year 2017/18.
Total spending for the first quarter of fiscal
year 2017/18 was approximat ely $12,485,000. This
amount was approximately 23 per cent of the allocated budget for fiscal year 2017/18, which includes the
pay-out for the Financial Assistance programme and
the Child Day Care Allowance programme only. Madam Chairman, spending for the second quarter of fi scal year 2017/18 was approximately $11,523,000.
When both quarters are combined, the current total
expenditure is approximately 44 per cent of the allotted budget for fiscal year 2017/18.
Madam Chairman, the September 2017
Speech from Throne stated that Government will undertake a review of the Financial Assistance pr ogramme and reform financial assistance to reduce abuse, discourage dependency, and ensures that
work pays. In order to progress this Throne Speech initiative, the then- Minister of Social Development and
Sports appointed a Financial Assistance Reform group, headed by Permanent Secretary Wayne Carey, in November of 2017. The group continues to
meet and it is expected that the reform exercise will
lead to cost savings of at l east $1.5 million, which will
help to offset the reduction in budgetary allocation for
the department in fiscal year 2018/19.
The Financial Assistance Reform group is examining a wide range of legislative policy and admi nistrative measures designed to achieve the Throne
Speech initiative and will conclude its deliberations in March 2017. At the same time the Department of F inancial Assistance will continue to focus on strategies
for reducing overall expenditure and on internal pol icies and strategies to ensure that clients benefit from
enhanced in- house services as well as available outreach services to minimise financial hardship.
Organisational grant recipients. Madam
Chairman, business unit 65050, includes funding for
organisational grant recipients at t he level of
$828,000. In fiscal year 2018/19 this amount has been
allotted for pay -outs in quarterly instalments of
$207,000 to five organisations, [which are]: Care of
the Blind; Meals on Wheels; Supportive Therapy for persons with AIDS and their Relatives (STAR); Teen
1504 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly Haven; and the Salvation Army, with respect to the
Emergency Housing Shelter on North Street.
I will now provide a breakdown of the organisational grant funding as shown on page C -19 of the
Estimates Book. Madam Chairman, in fiscal year
2018 /19, $30,000, has been allocated to Care of the
Blind. And $48,000 was allocated for Meals on
Wheels. Both allocations remain the same at fiscal
year 2017/18. The organisational grants for STAR and
Teen Haven are $150,000, and $200,000, respectiv ely.
Madam Chairman, the redevelopment of the
Bishop Spencer facility on Glebe Road to create a
new emergency housing centre has not commenced.
Accordingly, the Salvation Army grant with respect to
increased social programming has been reduced from
$800,000 to $400, 000 for fiscal year 2018 /19. Of note
is the fact that STAR and Teen Haven received an
additional monthly financial award based on the number of clients who are in need of residential services
within those organisations. This award is paid monthly at a rate not exceeding $1,500 per client.
Business unit 65080, General Administration.
Madam Chairman, the total estimate for business unit
65080 for fiscal year 2018 /19 is $3,172 ,000. A s per
the subjective analysis on page B -263, the largest
expenditure in this business unit is salaries, which is $2,948,000 that has been allocated in fiscal year
2018 /19. This is an increase of 1 per cent. This is due
to an increase in acting pay to give staff the opportunity to enhance their skills and expand their experience
whilst a new director has been recruited.
The employee count for fiscal year 2018/19
remains at 34.
Madam Chairman, members of staff of the
Department of Financial Assistance are currently r esponsible for caseloads exceeding 230 clients per
caseworker. As per best practice, this amount exceeds an acceptable number of caseload per cas eworker , which is more in line with 100 to 125 cases.
The work performed by the staff involves collection
and careful review and analysis of various types of
documents in order t o complete a full assessment of
each client.
Clients are processed in a very efficient manner to ensure files and needs assessments are a pproved on a weekly basis and in accordance with the
department’s policies and procedures. The work performed by the s taff is extremely challenging, demanding and growing in complexity which requires to pay
close attention to detail when evaluating clients.
Madam Chairman, the department has been
allocated $84,000 for capital acquisitions, as per page
C-13 of the Estimat es Book. This funding is required
for staff office furniture, carpet replacement, and an
upgrade and monitoring of the department’s software
system. The system upgrade is required to ensure
that the FASS [ system ] can interface with the E -1 sys-tem and other networks associated with the pr ocessing of payment for financial assistance clients.
Madam Chairman, due to budgetary constraints, a 33 per cent reduction in funds for staff trai ning has been made in fiscal year 2018/19. (See page B-263.)
Madam Chairman, $300,000 was reallocated
to the Department of National Drug Control to allow them to provide a grant to FOCUS treatment facility
services. The reallocation of funds is to provide a
grant to Focus to assist them in their continued service to assist member s of our community during the
stages of drug recovery.
Madam Chairman, explanations for p erformance measures as found on page B -265 will now
follow:
• To provide financial awards to 100 per cent of
our new financial assistance clients within 10 working days .
In fiscal year 2017/18, the Department of F inancial Assistance is expected to be at least 90 per
cent successful in providing clients with financial assistance within 10 working days. The process begins
with an applicant applying for pre- screening at th e
department on day one. During a pre- screen interview
the applicant is informed of documents that they will need to submit in order to create a file for asses sment. Required documents can include: picture ident ification, such as a passport bank statement; medical
certificate; and relevant bills, for example, BELCO or BTC [Bermuda Telephone Company]. The onus is on
the applicant to submit the required documents on a
timely basis.
Madam Chairman, once all documents have
been submitted then a file is created and vetted by the
pre-screen manager. If all documents are in place,
then an appointment is made with the financial assi stance worker to assess the case. This process is ge nerally completed within seven to ten days. As mentioned, the d epartment expects to attain a performance rating of 90 per cent for this performance
measure. It must be emphasi sed that a 100 per cent
performance rating is dependent on applicants retur ning all required documents within a timely manner.
• To aw ard grants to charitable organis ations
within 30 days of receiving request ed documents.
Madam Chairman, all organis ational grant r ecipients must submit a letter of request along with
quarterly financial statements requesting a quarterly
grant allotment. Once received, the information is r eviewed by the Director of Financial Assistance, and if
all information is correct request for payment is approved. The numbers of grantees will remain at five
due to the transfer of administrative responsibilities for
grant payments to the Ministry of Health for three organisations.
• To provide awards to 100 per cent of the day
care providers by the last day of month before they
are due.


Bermuda House of Assembly Madam Chairman, documents submitted by
parents or guardians of children in the Child Day Care
Allowance programme are assessed on a quarterly
basis. Once a financial assistance worker has made
an assessment, the financial assistance manager will either approve or reject payment. Approvals for all day
care payments are made directly to the day care pr oviders. This is genera lly done every three months and
payments are made on the first of each month within that three- month period.
• To ensure that all 33 employees successfully
complete at least one relevant training course per
year.
Madam Chairman, all Financial Assistance
employees have not successfully completed this goal as either the course they requested was cancelled or
they were unable to attend relevant training due to their high caseloads.
• To complete 700 site visits for Financial Assi stance clients during the year.
Madam Chairman, the Department of Financial Assistance aims to complete at least one home visit each calendar year for all new clients. However, with the increasing number of new cases, Financial Assistance workers are unable to make the desired
amount of home visits. Although prospective clients
may not be seen in the calendar year in which they
become a client, they are seen shortly thereafter.
Madam Chairman, in closing my presentation
on Financial Assistance, and in the face of continuing
challenges for the department, I would like to
acknowledge the staff of the Department of Financial Assistance and express my appreciation for their
commitment, dedication, and for the efficient manner
in which they serve the Bermudian public.
Madam Chairman, this ends my presentation
on the fiscal year 2018/19 budgetary allocation for
Head 55, the Department of Financial Assistance.

HEAD 88 —DEPARTMENT FOR NATIONAL
DRUG CONTROL

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Madam Chairman, I will now
present the fiscal year 2018/19 current accounts est imate for Head 88, the Department for National Drug Control, which can be found starting on page B -266 of
the Estimates Book.
In fiscal year 2018/19 the d epartment has
been allocated the sum of $4,511,000, which is an increase of $332,000, or 8 per cent compared to that
allocated in fiscal year 2017/18. The increase mainly
represents the re- instatement of a grant to Focus
Counselling Services of $300,000, and salary i ncreases due to the re- grading of posts.
Madam Chairman, the Department for N ational Drug Control plays a key role in the Ministry of
Social Development and Sports with respect to addressing one of the foremost social issues affecting
Bermuda today —substance misuse and abuse. Under the National Drug Control Act 2013, the Department
for National Drug Control provides leadership and po licy coordination for the planning, development, i mplementation, and evaluation of a comprehensive n ational system of alcohol, tobacco and other drug
[ATOD ] prevention, treatment and rehabilitation services. In its leadership role, the Department for N ational Drug Control is charged with facilitating collabo-ration with all agencies involved in the national drug
control effort, including supply reduction and demand
reduction efforts. The department is also r esponsible
for establishing targets and standards of performance
for initiatives supporting the National Drug Control
Master Plan.
Consequently, the mission of the d epartment
is to lead efforts to reduce alcohol abuse and drug
misuse. The strategic goal of the department is to advocate for the adoption of effective measures to support substance abuse prevention and treatment of
drug dependence on the Island and the employment
of a balanced approach to supply and demand reduction efforts. In support of the strategic goals, the d epartment’s strategic objectives are as follows:
(a) Guided by the National Drug Control Act
2013 and the National Drug Control Master Plan, the department is responsible for coordinating the development, management, implementation, a nd the monitoring and evaluation of all national level drug control
efforts including the formulation and implementation of
national drug control policies and national strategies
(Master Plan), incorporating supply and demand r eduction activities through a balanced interage ncy/departmental approach.
(b) To strengthen and develop sustainable
drug prevention and drug treatment services by
providing policy direction and technical oversight
guided by the National Drug Abuse Prevention and
Treatment Strategies.
(c) To continue the development and maint enance of the national drug information n etwork (Bermuda Drug Information Network, or better known as
BerDIN) to provide comprehensive information on the
drugs phenomenon in Bermuda and drug- related i ssues affecting specific community groups and the
overall society .
(d) To provide support, advocacy, and r esources to stakeholder m inistries , departments, and
community partners to enhance efforts in achieving goals identified in the National Drug Control Strategy.
Madam Chairman, the Department for N ational Drug Control manages and administers both grant funds to partner agencies providing prevention
and treatment services, as well as a budget for core
administration functions, drug prevention, drug treatment, community development and, research/policy
initiatives. Funds are also allocated to assist in the implementation of the National Drug Control Master Plan and its action plans.
1506 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly Madam Chairman, the department employs
27 staff. The d epartment al headquarters is present ly
staffed by a director, five technical officers and one
full-time administrative staff. Direct staffing support to
the Nelson Bascome [Centre for Substance Abuse]
Treatment facility is provided by one t reatment coordinator that oversee s both the male and female reside ntial treatment programmes along with 19 clinical staff
(clinical coordinators, addiction counsellors, junior addiction counsellors and addiction counsellor techn icians) and support posts ( administrative assistant,
cook and maintenance) currently assigned to the
Women’s Treatment Centre and Men’s Treatment
programme. There are currently two vacancies within
the treatment programmes that are in active recrui tment.
Madam Chairman, I am pleased to provide an
analysis by business unit of the budget estimates for
the Department for National Drug Control for fiscal
year [2018/ 19 compared to fiscal year ] 2017/ 18.
Madam Chairman, since I am talking about
the BerDIN report, I am asking for leave to be able to
read some research that I did over the lunch [break.]
During this morning’s Question Period, there
was a misrepresentation of facts. I just need to . . .
The Department of National Drug Control . . . and it
was a misrepresentation of facts from the Honourable
Member of constituency 25, Honourable Member Baron. The Department of National Drug Control [NDC] advises that it currently does not collect information on
marijuana- related psychosis and juveniles because it
has not been specified as one of the standard indic ators collected by the United Nations Office on Drugs
and Crime [UNODC] of which Bermuda is aligned.
Therefore, this information is not in the 2017 BerDIN
report.

[Hon. Derrick V. Burgess, Sr., Chairman]

Thank you. I thank the Honourable
Minister.
My comments this morning were regarding
the comments from the Member for constituency 22
about the amount of . . . those persons who were arrested for cannabis, not the induced psychosis. So if
there was a confusion, I apologise. It was regarding
the information about how many arrests, et cetera,
were for cannabis; not induced psychosis. I appreciate those, as the Minist er will know, as the former Me mber for National Security, I —

Minister, carry on.

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Mr. Chairman, I have a
point of order and clarifi cation as well.
The Honourable Member who just took his
seat, Mr. Baron, and his colleague from . . . I don’t
know . . . Susan Jackson . . . both of them requested
to . . . whether or not the juveniles or children names
would be . . . what would happen w ith their names. So
I just want to make clear —

Carry on, Minister, you may complete
it.

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Okay. I will start from the
beginning for the sake of Hansard.
The NDC advises that it currently does not
collect information on marijuana- related psychosis
and juveniles because it has not been specified as
one of the standard indicators collected by the United
Nations Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC] of which
Bermuda is aligned. Therefore, this information is not in the 2017 BerDIN report. Such information may be
available from Bermuda Hospitals Board or through
scientific research. The department does collect i nformation from Bermuda Hospitals Board related to
inpatient and emergency room cannabis abuse and
dependents, but this information is not related to ps ychosis.
It is found on pages 82- 95 of the 2017 BerDIN
report. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As I continue, Mr. Chairman, the Department
for National Drug Control manages and administers both grant funds to partner agencies providing preven-tion and treatment services, as well as a budget for
core administration functions, drug prevention, drug


Bermuda House of Assembly treatment, community development and, r esearch/policy initiatives. Funds are also allocated to
assist in the implementation of the National Drug Control Master Plan and its action plans.
Mr. Chairman, the department employs 27
staff. The d epartment al headquarters is presently
staffed by a d irector, —

Continue.
Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, t he department employs 27
staff. The d epartment al headquarters is presently
staffed by a director , five technical officers and one
full-time administrative staff. Direct staffing support to
the Nelson Bascome [Centre for Substance Abuse]
Treat ment facility is provided by one tr eatment coordinator that overseas both the male and female reside ntial treatment programmes along with 19 clinical staff
(clinical coordinators, addiction counsellors, junior addiction counsellors and addiction counsellor techn icians) .
There are currently two vacancies within the
treatment programmes that are in active recruitment ,
Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to provide an analysis by
business unit of the budget estimates for the Depar tment for National Drug Control for fi scal year 2018/ 19
compared to fiscal year 2017/ 18.
Administration, 98000, page B -266. Mr.
Chairman, the comparative figures between 2017/18
versus 2018/19, the original estimate for 2017/18 was $978,000. The estimate for 2018/19 was $1,278,000.
[This is] an increase of $300,000, or 31 per cent.
Administration provides the organis ational
framework in support of the mission and mandate of
the department. Its resources are aimed primarily at
recurrent expenditures and Grants and Contributions to the treatment and prevention partners that provide
services for and on behalf of the d epartment.
The Administration allocation of $1,278,000
represents a 31 per cent increase from the 2017/18
allocation and primarily reflects the re- instatement of a
Grant to Focus Counselling Services. The budget c overs employee salaries and other operational expenses (facilities, utilities, maintenance costs, supplies and
training), as well as grants. As shown on page C -20
(Grants and Contributions) grants for key stakeholders totals $783,000 in fiscal year 2018/19, and will support
PRIDE, Salvation Army, CADA, Focus Counselling
Services, and Bermuda Addiction Certification Board.
The Department for National Drug Control is
established in part as a service delivery unit but can-not prov ide all of the needed services required within
the community. The Department for National Drug
Control depends greatly on purchasing services in the
treatment and prevention areas through grant alloc ations to reali se its mandate.
PRIDE provides evidenced- based life skills
programming within some of the primary school levels
to support drug education and drug prevention; Salv ation Army provides residential drug treatment and
community life skills programming for 10 males; and
Focus Counselling provides trans itional/supportive
housing for up to 28 recovering males who have par-ticipated in primary drug treatment at any treatment
facility ( prison, hospital, inpatient or outpatient services) to assist in re -integrating them back into the
community as productive c itizens, thus improving
treatment outcomes. The highlighted agencies have provided an integral part of the drug prevention and
drug treatment continuum of services for Bermuda for
many decades in collaboration with the Department
for National Drug Control.
Community Development, 98010, on page B -
266. Mr. Chairman, the original estimate of 2017/18 is
$267,000. The estimate for 2018/19 is $267,000. The increase/decrease is zero dollars, so no percentage
movement.
Mr. Chairman, t he allocation to Community
Development, business unit 98010, is $267,000 ,
which is the same as the allocation in fiscal year
2017/18. Funding is allocated to facilitate activities that are primarily targeted towards public education,
community development, information dissemination
and to support the grant to the Council on Alcohol and
Drug Abuse ( known as CADA) . (See page C-20,
Grants and Contributions .)
The goal of this unit is to educate the public
about the harms of alcohol and drug use; to ensure
the provision of clear and sustaine d messages to our
young people that “no use of alcohol, tobacco or other
drugs is acceptable” and to involve families, schools
and community organi sations in alcohol/drug prevention efforts.
CADA works in collaboration with the Depar tment for National Drug Control to provide community
1508 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly education on alcohol misuse as well as to provide the
server training programme (TIPS) which is mandated within the Liquor Licence Amendment Act 2011 [sic].
A grant of $100,000.00 is allocated to CADA to support these activiti es.
Other initiatives for the Community Development unit are to assist highlighting drunk or drug dri ving and road safety initiatives through public education and to continue awareness campaigns directed at u nderage drinking, adolescent drug use and emergi ng
drugs, such as fentanyl.
Moving on to Prevention, Mr. Chairman. Bus iness unit 98020, also on page B -266. And it is the
2017/18 versus the 2018/19 comparative numbers. The original estimate in 2017/18 was $220,000. The estimate for 2018/19 is $224,000, w hich is an i ncrease of $4,000, or a 2 per cent [increase].
Mr. Chairman, an allocation of $224,000 is
provided to support the efforts of the Prevention Unit
in business unit 98020. The 2 per cent increase re presents a salary increase due to salary increments. Funds in this business unit are utili sed to improve
coverage of drug prevention measures within the community, to improve opportunities for school -based
prevention interventions, and to increase access for
young people to targeted prevention programmes .
Funding is also utili sed to support the implementation
of a National School Drug Policy and for training Pr evention professionals and community members to
support drug prevention efforts.
The Prevention Unit facilitates the Teen
Peace programme operating in five public schools and
also supports the implementation and integration of the Al’s Pals p rogramme at the preschool and primary
1-2 levels. Funding is allocated within the business
unit to support facilitators and to purchase resources
to sustain thes e programmes.
Mr. Chairman, the Teen Peace programme
includes the utilization of the Bot vin Life Skills [Training] drug prevention curriculum along with Adventure
Education. Both are evidenced- based programmes
with proven positive outcomes among students for
making healthy choices. The programme saw 50 st udents participate over the 2017 school year across
five public schools. Efforts to expand participation are
limited by funding allocations.
Mr. Chairman, the Al ’s Pals programme has
continued in collaborati on with the Department of E ducation, with the majority of public and private preschool teachers and P1 and P2 teachers in the public
schools, providing the programme in their classrooms.
Al’s Pals is also an evidenced- based programme with
research supporti ng positive outcomes for children at
this age level. Approximately 650 students have participated in the programme during the 2017 school
year, an increase over the previous school year. The
Department for National Drug Control is committed
towards continued collaboration and support for the
Al’s Pals programme with the Department of Educ a-tion, and funds initial training, refresher courses and
resources/supplies for all educators implementing the
programme.
Mr. Chairman, parents in recovery are faced
with a multitude of challenges as they prepare to a ddress the needs of their children who have been wit hout a worthy parent role model during their active use
of substances. This has caused a breakdown in the
family thus affecting children. As a result, the Depar tment for National Drug Control has focused on deve loping skill sets for person in recovery through the
Parents ’ Toolshop education programme which is designed to encourage persons to develop their communication skills and set goals in building a benefic ial
relationship with their children. To date this pr ogramme has engaged 24 recovering persons. (That is
excellent!)
Mr. Chairman, Treatment, business unit
98030, also on page B -266. The comparative between
2017/18 versus 2018/19. The original estimate for
2017/18 was $397,000. The estimate for 2018/19 is
$405,000, which is an increase of $8,000, or a 2 per
cent increase.
Mr. Chairman, the Treatment Unit, business
unit 98030, is allocated $405,000 in fiscal year
2018/19, a 2 per cent increase compared to the prev ious year. The increase is directly related to the r egrading of a post. The Treatment Unit funding alloc ation is used to facilitate the implementation of key activities geared towards achieving the goals of the N ational Treatment Strategy, including Commission on
Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF) ac-creditation fees and resources; addiction specific
training and the AccuC are client management system
licences and training. Funds are also allocated to
support the grant for the Bermuda Add iction Certific ation Board (BACB) . (See page C- 20, Grants and Contributions .)
In fiscal year 2018/19, focus will remain on
maintaining CARF accreditation for the Men’s Treat-ment programme, the Women’s Treatment Centre and
Turning Point (operated by Bermu da Hospitals Board)
as required by the National Drug Control Act 2013. All of these programmes have maintained the “gold star”
CARF accreditation status throughout fiscal year
2017/18. CARF accreditation is spearheaded and
funded by the Department for Nati onal Drug Control
Island- wide.
Mr. Chairman, in conjunction with accredit ation, the registration of all treatment services prior to official licensing in accordance with the National Drug Control Act 2013 is in progress. The development and
implementation of supporting processes (application
process , fees, et cetera) will be implemented through
regulations under the Act.
Efforts will also continue to consolidate the
use of the AccuCare client management system in all
drug treatment programmes across the I sland to assist in standardi sed, best practice care.


Bermuda House of Assembly Grant funding provided to the Bermuda Addi ction Certification Board (BACB) provides international
certification testing for both prevention and treatment
professionals locally, funding to support addicti onspecific training to enhance workforce development in
this specialty area, supports recertification of professionals, and helps to maintain membership in the I nternational Certification & Reciprocity Consortium
(IC&RC). Certification is required for registration of
addiction counsellors to practice under the Allied
Health Professions Act 1973.
Mr. Chairman, Research and Policy Development, business unit 98050, located on page B -266.
The comparative between 2017/18 and 2018/19 is
thus: The original estim ate for 2017/18 was $305,000.
The estimate for 2018/19 is $290,000. There has
been a decrease of $15,000, or a 5 per cent [decrease].
Mr. Chairman, the Research and Policy D evelopment Unit, business unit 98050, has an alloc ation of $290,000, a 5 per cent d ecrease in its alloc ation from the previous fiscal year. The 5 per cent decrease represents a salary reduction due to the r egrading of posts.
Funding in this cost code is used to facilitate
information gathering and analysis, monitoring and
evaluation, as well as any relevant legislation and po licy development initiatives prioriti sed within the department and/or Ministry.
The primary activities of the Research unit are
geared towards collection and dissemination of reli able data through the Bermuda Nationa l Drug Information Network (BerDIN), identifying emerging trends and patterns of drug use, evaluation of the current
drug control efforts, and providing coordination, i mplementation and evaluation of the National Drug
Control Master Plan and Action Plan.
During fiscal year 2018/19, a Green Paper on
Policies to reduce Drug Abuse, which is a 2017
Throne Speech initiative, will be completed. In addition, the 2016/ 17 National Master Plan will be eval uated prior to the creation of the next five- year plan.
Mr. C hairman, the annual Bermuda Drug I nformation Network (BerDIN) meeting was held with all Network members on October 26
th and 27th, 2017.
This annual event has greatly increased collaboration,
understanding and information sharing between all
agencies involv ed in demand and supply reduction
activities. The 2017 Annual Report of the Bermuda
Drug Information Network (BerDIN) was released to
the public at the end of October 2017.
The report of the 2017 National Household
Survey on Drug Use and Health A mong the A dult
Population in Bermuda was released to the public in
August 2017. Consumer satisfaction surveys, stak eholder feedback surveys and quality records reviews
were completed within the Department for National
Drug Control, Women’s Treatment [Centre] , Men’s
Treatment programme and the Right Living House operated under the Department of Corrections; data
collection has also taken place for the Drug Abuse
Monitoring Programme [DAMP] within the p risons in
2017/18 fiscal year.
Men’s Treatment, business unit 98060, also
found on page B -266, Mr. Chairman. A comparative
between fiscal year 2017/18 versus the fiscal year
2018/19 is as follows: the original estimate for
2017/18 was $874,000. The estimate for 2018/19 is
$885,000, an increase of $11,000, a 1 per cent i ncrease.
Mr. Chairman, t he Men’s Treatment pr ogramme, business unit 98060, was allocated
$885,000, a 1 per cent increase from the previous
fiscal year. The slight increase is due to increase in
salaries due to the regrading of posts.
The funding allocation provides the operational and staffing cost required to provide outputs to meet the treatment/ rehabilitative needs and goals of
adult males needing residential treatment at the Ne lson Bascome [Centre for Substance Abuse] Treatment facility .
The Men’s Treat ment programme is a r esidential treatment programme for m en in Bermuda. It
provides long- term, comprehensive primary treatment
for addiction disorders. The programme’s primary
treatment is delivered over a 12- month period using a
phased approach. During the last phase, a transition
plan is developed which includes participating in vo lunteer services, job shadowing, and referral to trans itional supportive residency program and/or after -care
services. This programme was accredited by CARF for the period 2016 to 2019, with the “gold star” accreditation award of three years.
The Women’s Treatment Centre, Mr. Chai rman, business unit 98070, found on page B -266. The
comparative between fiscal year 2017/18 versus fiscal year 2018/19, the original estimate for 2017/18 was
$1,103,000. The estimate for 2018/19 is $1,127,000, this is an increase of $24,000, or a 2 per cent i ncrease.
Mr. Chairman, t he Women’s Treatment Ce ntre, business unit 98070, has been allocated
$1,127,000 for the 2018/19 fiscal year; a 2 per cent
increase over the previous fiscal year. The 2 per cent
increase represents salary increases due to the r egrading of posts.
The funding allocation provided is utili sed to
meet the outputs and needs of women in residential substance abuse treatment. The Women’ s Treatment
Centre provides both residential treatment for women
at the Nelson Bascome [Centre for Substance Abuse]
Treatment facility , as well as supportive residency at a
separate site. The Women’s Treatment Centre is the only residential treatment facility for women in Berm uda. It provides long- term, comprehensive treatment for
addiction and related disorders. The program is deli vered over a 12- to 15-month period using a phased
approach. The phased approach to treatment delivery
1510 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly enables the client to reach short -term goals and cel ebrate accomplishments and develop stronger internal
locus of control. Community involvement and re- entry
is gradual and includes a partnership with local bus inesses and organi sations to facilitate volunteerism in
our clients.
The supportive residency facility and pr ogramme allows a safe environment for the reintegration of women back into the community who
have completed a programme of substance abuse
treatment at the Women’s Treatment Centre, or who
are accepted by the Women’ s Treatment Centre. All
transitional clients are females who have been drug
free for at least one year. The programme is managed
by the Women’s Treatment Centre and is located within the general community. The Women’s Treatment Centre programme has been ac credited by
CARF since 2009 and currently has a “gold star” i nternational accreditation ranking for the period 2017–
2020.
Mr. Chairman, the National Drug Control Master Plan, business unit 98080. You can find that on
page B -302. The comparative with fiscal year 2017/18
versus fiscal year 2018/19. The original estimate for
2017/18 is $35,000. The estimate for 2018/19 is
$35,000. There is no increase, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, business unit 98080 is in place
to provide for the effective implementation of the N ational Drug Control Master Plan; cross -ministry initiatives with the P olice [Service] , [Department of] Cu stoms and [the Department of] Corrections; evaluation
of the Master Plan and to encourage cooperation and
involvement of other government departm ents and
civil society in the implementation of the Master Plan
initiatives. This business unit has been allocated
$35,000 in fiscal year 2018/19, the same as the prev ious fiscal year. Funding has been used for training for
police officers and the government analyst with r espect to fentanyl; for the provision of training for finan-cial intelligence agency [FIA] officers as it relates to
money laundering and for public information campaigns warning the public about fentanyl. (It is a very
dangerous drug, Mr. Chairman.)
Funding allocated in fiscal year 2018/19 will
be used to ensure the completion of the evaluation
and renewal of the next five-year National Drug Control Master Plan in collaboration with policymakers,
stakeholders and the community. Remaining funds
will be utilis ed for the implementation of priority initi atives identified within the existing National Drug Co ntrol Master Plan.
Mr. Chairman, I will now discuss the subjective analysis for Head 88, as shown on page B-267 of
the Estimates Book.
Salaries. Mr. Chairman, the budget allocation
for Salaries is $1,924,000 for fiscal year 2018/19
compared with $1,655,000 in fiscal year 2017/18 . This
represents an increase of approximately $269,000, or
16 per cent, and is a direct result of multiple vacancies in 2017/18 and salary regrades for clinical posts at-tached to the t reatment centres in 2017 /18.
Wages . Mr. Chairman, the budget allocation
for Wages is $324,000 for fiscal year 2018/19 compared with $327,000 in 2017/18. This is a decrease of
approximately $3,000.00, or 1 per cent . This decrease
is as a result of an anticipated reduction in contractors’ fees.

Training. Mr. Chairman, the budget allocation
for Training is $33,000 for fiscal year 2018/19, a d ecrease of approximately $1,000, or 3 per cent. The
decrease is the result of cost -saving efforts. Training
efforts included addiction -specific and evidencedbased training for local treatment and prevention pr ofessionals along with supporting the professional d evelopment of department staff.
Transport . Mr. Chairman, the budget alloc ation for Transport is $22,000 for fiscal year 2018/19, the same as that allocated in fiscal year 2017/18. The
travel allocation allows for attendance at international
meetings and conferences specifically related to drug policy, professional certifications and drug prevention.
Communications . Mr. Chai rman, the budget
allocation for Communic ations is $41,000 for fiscal
year 2018/19, the same as that all ocated in fiscal year
2017/18.
Advertising and Promotion. Mr. Chairman, the
budget allocation for Advertising and Promotion is
$73,000 for fiscal year 2018/19 compared with
$78,000 allocated in 2017/18. The decrease of
$5,000, or 6 per cent is the result of funds being reallocated to materials and supplies within the Prevention budget. The Department for National Drug Control
is responsible for providing community education and drug prevention initiatives to decrease the age of first
use and prevent or diminish drug use in the communi-ty. Funds are directed at media campaigns and ed ucational events to meet this responsibility.
Professional Services . Mr. Chairman, the
budget allocation for Professional Services is
$468,000 for fiscal year 2018/19 compared to
$702,000 in fiscal year 2017/18. In fiscal year
2017/18, the treatment f acility had multiple vacancies
due to the hiring freeze and staff attrition. Contractors
had to be used to cover the vacancies to keep the
treatment programmes operational and, therefore,
funds were moved from salaries to cover the costs,
causing the incre ase in expenditure. The $234,000
decrease shown reflects the return to regular funding due to vacancies being filled. Normally contractors provide relief coverage for staff leave at the treatment
programmes and are facilitators for the Teen Peace
programme operating as an after -school programme
in five middle schools.

Rentals. Mr. Chairman, the budget allocation
for rentals is $113,000 for fiscal year 2018/19, the
same as allocated in fiscal year 2017/18. The D eBermuda House of Assembly partment for National Drug Control rents offi ce space
as well as pays a small rent to WEDCO for the treatment facility.
Repair and Maintenance. Mr. Chairman, the
budget allocation for Repair and Maintenance is $374,000 for fiscal year 2018/19, the same as that
allocated in 2017/18. Funding is utilised for repairs
and maintenance mainly at the treatment facility.
Energy. Mr. Chairman, the budget allocation
for energy is $147,000, the same as the allocation for
2017/18.
Materials and Supplies. Mr. Chairman, the
budget allocation for materials and suppli es is
$188,000 for fiscal year 2018/19, a $5,000 increase from fiscal year 2017/18. This increase represents the anticipated need for materials and supplies required
for the drug prevention programmes.
Equipment purchases. Mr. Chairman, the
budget allocati on for equipment purchases is $20,000
for fiscal year 2018/19, a $1,000, or 5 per cent, i ncrease from fiscal year 2017/18. The increase is the
result of funds required to complete the data analysis
system for the research unit.
Other Expenses. Mr. Chairman the budget a llocation for other expenses is $1,000 for fiscal year 2018/19, the same as the allocation for fiscal year
2017/18.
Grants and Contributions. Mr. Chairman, the
Department for National Drug Control is established in part as a service delivery unit, but cannot provide all
of the needed services required within the community.
The department therefore depends greatly on purchasing services in the treatment and prevention ar eas to realise its mandate. The 62 per cent increase in
grant allocations for fiscal year 2018/19 reflects the reinstatement of a needed grant to Focus Counselling
Services as indicated previously. It is anticipated that
the total funding of $783,000, listed under Grants and
Contributions on page C -20 of the Estimates Book,
will be used for providing grants to CADA, the Berm uda Addiction Certification Board [BACB], PRIDE, F ocus, and Salvation Army (Harbour Light and Life Skills
programmes).
Mr. Chairman, CADA and BACB provide essential activities required by legislation. CADA’s T IPS
programme is mandated within section 39B of the Bermuda Liquor Licence Act 1974, and Addiction
Counsellor Examinations and Certification is required
for registration of addiction counsellors under the A llied Health Professions Act 1973. PRIDE provides Life Skills programming within the primary school levels to
support drug education and prevention, and Salvation Army provides residential drug treatment and life skills
for males. The re- instated funding for Focus Counselling Services will assist in the provision of transitional
and supportive housing for recovering males.
Mr. Chairman, in closing, the Department for
National Drug Control will continue to work collabor atively with other key ministries, such as, Health, Edu-cation and Workforce Development, and various departments such as Corrections, Court Services, and the Bermuda Police Service, Customs, and international partners to ensure the implementation of a balanced approach to efforts made in achieving a healt hier and drug free Bermuda.
Mr. Chair man, this completes the presentation
on Head 88, and I would like to take the opportunity to sincerely thank all staff who work in the Department
for National Drug Control, and any drug rehabilitation
services, for their continued hard work and dedication.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[Business unit] 33010, Happy Valley
Child Care. The Minister spoke to a reduction in the
cost for Happy Valley of $27,000 and he spoke to the
changes is some of the services, potentially food and
that kind of service. I wondered if he would give a little bit more detail on how they are going to get to that
reduction.
There were 17 young people that were actually in that particular facility, but there seemed to be
quite a bit of demand for that facility. So is there a way
for us to figure out how we can get more opportunity?
Because if the demand is higher than what they are able to service, we have to find a solution for what we
can do with that ov erflow.
It is my understanding that a bus was needed
for this particular facility. My question is, Has the bus been provided? If the bus has been provided, is it b eing utilised? And what impact does having the bus
have? And what impact does that have on t he budget?
Moving on to 33020, Family Services, there
seemed to be a lot of information about the increased
demand in the services that are needed. I am happy
to see that there has been an increase in the funding for this, but obviously with the amount of services that
seem to be needed and the varied needs for that particular service, it is difficult to meet the demand, obv iously, with the constraints of a tight budget.
Specifically in that area there was a portion
which talked about neglect. Would the Minister be
able to provide types of neglect and what were the
degrees of neglect that led to people in this service?
1512 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly Once an allegation of abuse has been substantiated,
what is the process to take it to the next level? Ages
of children once they get past parental control. What
is the age that moves them to that area?
Now on 33020, Foster Care.

Can the Minister speak to the primary
cause of children moving into the foster care pr ogramme? What is the plan for c hildren who age out of
foster care? What kind of support do the kids who age
out of that programme receive? Are they taught life
skills that allow them to sustain themselves once they
no longer have the support of a foster parent?
Obviously, there is a need for foster parents.
And the Minister spoke to some advertising on Fac ebook to reach out to find more foster parents. With
that need, can the Minister speak to what that number
is? Are we able to meet the demand? And what are
we looking for from foster parents? And are we giving them all the support that is needed in order for them to
become foster parents and take really good care of
these kids?

[Pause]

Under 62080, Research and Public ation. What is the cost of the Mary Prince research pr oject, and what is the time frame for completion? Once
completed, will this be included in the school curric ulum?
I note that there was a reduction in professional services. Can the Minister speak to what is actually in that reduction? There is also a reduction in repair and maintenance. This is on page [B -]257.
There is a reduction in repair and maintenance. Does
that mean that the facilities that are referred to are not
going to need maintenance? Or, you know . . . some
clarification of how that is going to be achieved.
Moving on now to Head 55, Financial Assi stance, page B -262. This particular area seemed to
have a lot of attention. There was a huge need which
seems to be growing. The Minister spoke quite at
length of all the details that are covered in this partic ular area. Obviously, once again with a budget which
makes it very difficult to cover, but obviously we also
will have to understand that these needs are not going away. And, as the Minister spoke to, many of them
are actually increasing year by year. So we will have
to find a way to focus more finances in this particular
area until we find a way to reduce those costs.
Speaking specifically to seniors, I know that
everybody here understands that Bermuda has an
ageing population. I know as I was canvassing and
speaking to a lot of the people, this was a hot topic.
This was the issue. People were trying to figure out
how they were going to be able to afford, sustain, their
lives in Bermuda with the increased cost of everything that we do in Bermuda and not being able to meet
those needs. So, in looking through what we are able
to provide, I think it is important that as the number of
seniors is growing, we are going to have to pay very
close attention to how we are going to provide those
services, knowing that this cost is onl y increasing year
after year.

The Minister spoke to the fact that
there has been abuse of the system that has happened. Can he give us some indication of what types
of abuse, what fraud has actually happened? He used
the word “fraud” so I am just following along with it . . .
the abuse of the syst em. So my question is, What has
been the result of that? If somebody is caught doing something obviously to get around the system, what
are the consequences for them? And to go through
finding out what those issues are, what is the cost of us having to go into the details of finding out how we
got to that point?
The Salvation Army shelters. So, the Minister
spoke to the fact that there was going to be a move to
the Bishop Spencer facility. When would we be i ntending for that move to happen? And what will be the
overall cost of that change? And what will the impact
be on the budget once that new facility comes on line, because maybe some things are going to move from
a different facility? So there could be changes in what
happens with that.
On page C -20, 7 086, the Focus Counselling.

Just some further detail on how that
programme is going to be . . . what is the impact?
Who is going to be involved in it? Obviously, it has a
big budget number. So just looking to s ee what is going to be added by moving to that programme. Just so
that we can get more details of what that impact is


Bermuda House of Assembly going to be and how it is going to affect the community.
[Pause]

Thank you, Mr.
Chairman. And I thank the Minister for the detailed
presentation in terms of Head 23. I am going to go to
Child and Family Services, on the theme of asking the
question on the Subjective Analysis on page B -251
with respect to salaries.
I did ask the question on the other head earl ier in the week on this department and the answer that came back was because the numbers on the increase
or decrease for salaries, under Subjective Analysis on page B -251 under Salaries, we had last year an 8896
and this year 8815 which would show a decrease of
81. I wanted to underscore this because it is a large number. And we spoke to the 2.5 per cent uptick that
the Government had announced which would, in and
of itself, provide an increase . . . if you take 2.5 per
cent on last year’s number, and you know that you got
2.5 per cent more, it will give you an additional
$222,000 at least.

Right.
So my question is that I just wanted to underscore the fact that the Minister had indicated based on
previous requests for information that the 2.5 per cent
uptick is not included in this budget number. So we
are showing, albeit there is a 2.5 per cent award, as
against $8,896,000 there is actually a decrease in the
difference between last year and this, and it is just to make sure that we understand that this decrease is
based on the fact that this 2.5 per cent award that is
being heralded is not included in these budget numbers, so that going forward we will have extra money
that will have to be allocated to this because the N ational Budget Office apparently, my understanding,
has indicated that there ought not to be the 2.5 per
cent increase included in these numbers.
I just wanted to point that out because when
we see supplementary expenditure coming through
then there will be a basic understanding as to the pur-pose therefor. So I just wanted to make sure that we
had that.

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Point of order.

Okay.
In the salaries number, last year we had
$8,896,000 as salaries. Th is is on page B -251 under
Child and Family Services, Head 23, Subjective Analysis, first line, third column in, 8896 is last year. If we
take that as being the base, and there is a 2.5 per
cent uptick that has been given across the board, one
would assume that the difference between last year’s
8896 and this year’s 8815 would have increased by 2.5 per cent of 8896. It would be at least $222,000.
But, in fact, it has decreased.

Yes . . . no, the
Honourable Member just asked me what was the reason.
1514 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly The Chairman: One second.
You have been very consistent with that question, I think on every head you have gotten up on. So I
think the question i s, Is the increase included in the
budget or not?

No. I mean if the
idea is to delve into the numbers, then I have to ask
the question why, if 2.5 per cent of $8.8 million is
$222,000, why are we going down by 81? That gives
us a $300,000 swing, and that number does not make
sense.
I would like to go to page B -250. In his brief,
under Residential Treatment Programme, 2303, the
Minister indicated that there was a dedication to the
Residential Treatment Services that the Government
had committed to. But the overall amount of money
allocated has actually gone down. The predominant
aspect of that came out of 33060, where there is a
decrease of [$]298,000, and item 33110 business unit,
Youth Residential Treatment, where there is an decrease of 270, whi ch has been offset by the Observ atory Cottage increase. In the Minister’s brief he ind icated that commitment to the programme is being
shown, but the money allocated to the programme is
down overall by $268,000. So I just wondered if the
Minister could jus t revisit that explanation so we can
make sure that the explanation agrees with the numbers in front of us.
I just wanted to make a comment on the st atistics that the Minister indicated with respect to the
1,222 new referrals, an increase of 211 referrals that
he had on these various residential programmes. The
numbers are not just staggering, they are really quite
frightening because it would suggest that some of our
young people are being subjected to situations that
hopefully we are able to embrace them and protect
them a little bit more. So, the Minister indicated that
out of the 1,222 new referrals, there were 430 that
were substantiated. My question to the Minister is, Are we begi nning to break the back of that challenge in terms of how our young peo ple are being abused, neglected?
It is really quite . . . and the Minister spoke to neglect.
I think my honourable colleague asked what kind of neglect. But whatever neglect of a child is sad—
sexual, physical, behavioural, emotional, and other
neglect, as well as some cognitive challenges and
substance abuse.
So, are we getting a handle on gripping this
monster? Because our children need to be able to
have a better shot here.
Exposure to domestic violence. You know we
need to . . . how are we exploring f urther intervention
so that there is a better opportunity for our kids?
I would like to go to page B -253 under Child
and Family Services, under the performance
measures, under item number 1, Happy Valley Child
Care Centre. He indicated a minimum of 85 per cent
of the children to achieve set developmental and edu-cational milestones. The question is, What are the
standards that are being utilised to set or make sure that these children can measure up? What is the i nternational standard that is being set for the Happy
Valley Care Centre for children?
Under 33020, performance measures, again,
the number of children who are protected from ongoing child abuse. And the target outcome obviously has to be 100 per cent. We do not want any child subjec ted to that. But, again, what are the reporting stan dards that would say that we have actually got a handle on this and we have been able to try to come to grips with this challenge?
The number of children whose risk is reduced,
under number 2 for Family Services, 33020, the number of children is given at 120. The question is, Out of
how many? How many children were there? We have there that it was reduced, but is that 120 out of 200, or
500? Where are we in terms of that?
Also, under number 3, the number of social
inquiry reports where fathers are granted joint cust ody. I wonder if we could have a better feel for where parents are granted joint custody? This kind of almost
sets a stigma that somehow there is something negative about fathers being granted joint custody. There could be challenges to some of our children in which
one or the other parent could be creating a challenge
within some structure, and I just wonder if social i nquiry reports where parents have joint custody would
be a more useful measure, I believe.
The foster care. There were five children, according to item number 3, on page B -253, five children
being the targeted outcome. Four were placed during
2017/18, five. But how many do we have on the wait
list?
Also, the average cost per resident, and thi s is
under 33070, also on page B -253. The average cost
per resident at the home per day for Brangman Home
is $600. This has remained static over the years from


Bermuda House of Assembly 2016/17, 2017/18 (this is on page B -253 towards the
bottom). It has remained static over the four columns
that are alluded to in the Budget Book. And the question begs, Are we looking at the real costs? Or should
we be looking at enhancing or increasing the actual amount that we are spending in this particular area?
It is certainly inconsistent with the additional
cost of groceries, services and the like. So I am just curious. I just want to make sure that we will not be
falling behind in this particular area.
Under B -254, Family Services, business unit
33200, Bermuda Youth Counselling Services. It spoke
to a number of assessments being completed and a
number of clients admitted to the programme; 75 and
80 were the projected outcomes for the next year. The question is, What is the population to be assessed?
You know, we just need to get an idea as to whether
we are trying to embrace the lion’s share of the chal-lenges or can we only cope with . . . I mean, we can
only cope with what we can cope with. But I just wondered how significant a difference we are making in those programmes in being able to ens ure that assessments are properly completed.
I am going to pass on Community and Cultural Affairs, because I have some questions with r espect to Financial Assistance. The Minister gave quite significant details in terms of where we stood respec ting Financ ial Assistance and the seniors who are in
financial assistance and the able- bodied unemployed,
the earnings low, and the unemployed—

And the grant . . .
I’m sorry, [B]- 263, I beg your pardon. And the grant for
Financial Assistance under programme 65050, Grants
Administration . . . the amount that has been allocated
is $48,512,000.
Now, while this number . . . the Government
did announce that they are trying to get a handle on
people who have become dependent on financial as-sistance and, therefore, they want to be able to r educe that dependency. And I certainly understand it
becaus e I do know that a year or two ago we had a
similar kind of approach that you cannot be indefinitely delving or dipping into the pot of Financial Assistance
without making a concerted ability to help to better yourself.
So I understand that this is going down by
$1.8 million. But if you look at the actuals from 2016/17 on page B -263, four programmes, 65050,
Grants and Administration, it was at $50,665,000 two
years ago. And the Minister thinks that it is going to be
able to go down to $48,512[,000] this coming year. So if you look at that differential, we are talking about
two-plus million dollars less now than we had alloca ted before. As I said, I understand the concept, and I
understand what the Government is trying to achieve,
but the question begs, How are we practically trying to put those reductions into actuality?
The same question I have on the subjective
analysis on page B -263 for salaries, because now the
Junior Minister has put a spanner in the works to say
that the 2.5 per cent is included in th e budget number
and, by saying that, the numbers, again, do not add. If
we took 2920 from last year, put a 2.5 per cent uptick,
it would be at least [$]73,000 in the current year. So
we just need to have clarity on whether the 2.5 per
cent is included, or whether it is not included. That
would be useful.
The day care providers . . . and this is on
page B -265 for performance measures. I heard the
Minister indicate that there had been some situations of fraud within the department. And it is going to be
difficult to completely wipe that out. There are going to
be people who are going to try to get over the system.
And I applaud the Minister for (a) being able to identify
it; and (b) being able to send investigators out to be
able to figure out what is going on, because I do not
think it is fair for people who are in genuine need to
have to be short -changed because there are people
who basically have nefarious purposes in terms of asking for financial assistance. So, when the Minister
indicated that there were . . . there was a significant
number; more than we would like to see, who were
acting fraudulently. I just want to make sure that (a) we support the Government’s efforts to try to
stamp it out; but (b) to ensure that when people are
found to have subverted the responsibilities of the d epartment [when] making their applications that there
are significant penalties. I believe—

Okay.
Now, the Minister indicated that the staffing
complement precluded some of the home visits and
some of the assistant site visits. And the question is, Of the staffing complement, what is the average cas eload? Is it getting better? I think that in the numbers of
1516 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly people there are going to be two more, two additional
caseworkers, or two additional people in the Financial
Assistance, and I am just curious to know whether
there is . . . what the caseload is per caseworker. And
will they be able to catch up on the [ability] to have as
many site visits for Financial Assistance clients as
they would like to have. Six hundred is the number
that they have. If you divide that, not necessarily by
34, maybe by 30, because you will have people who
will be confined to the office . . . you are talking about
at least 20 people, 20 cases that people would have
to cope with.
If the Minister could also indicate with respect
to job searches, now this is something that is not new. It has been required perenni ally that if somebody is
requesting financial assistance they must show that
they are actively looking for work. The Minister ind icated that job searches are required at five per week.

I am asking the
question. I am not suggesting that the policy has not
changed; I am asking a question. And the question is
. . . the 5 per week and the 12 per week job searches
that are being required . . . I have said it was
longstanding, it is not something new. My question is that many of the job search . . . the fulfilling of the cr iteria is predicated upon a person who wants financial
assistance going to a company, Mr. Chairman, and saying, Can you fill out this form? And I am just wo ndering if we have come up with any other way that we
can help to ensure that we evidence that, as opposed
to not just saying go to a company that may not be
asking for an employee. So you have potential clients
showing up —

No. My question
is, Have we put in a process and linked it, perhaps
into Workforce Development, as well as the knocking
on the doors? That is what I want to know.
Obviously, you want to make sure that we do
find work.
In terms of the Administration on page B -266
under National Drug Control, there was an increase of
$300,000. The Minister indicated that the reason for
that was the reinstatement of the grant to Focus, the
$300,000. Focus was initially part of the branch and
then it was de- funded. The purpose for the defunding, as I recall, was as a result of not having suff icient information, like the accounts and stuff, coming into the Ministry. My question is, Is that now being brought up to date and regularised? Because the services that are performed by Focus are key services to
the community and it is painful — The Chairman: Member, you are sitting in this House.
You know that they cannot get the money unless they follow the rules. Come on, just —

No, no, no. I a m
not saying that anything has changed; and I am certainly not attempting to be argumentative with you, Mr.
Chairman. I just want to understand that we did not, or
there was not a de- funding just for the sake of defunding, that there was de- funding becaus e there was
a specific purpose, a specific reason. And with that specific reason I want to make sure that we are sati sfied that it is regularised. Even though we can budget
for it . . . and I know that the money will not actually be
paid out —

On page [B] -267
under Professional Services, under Subjective Anal ysis with respect to Professional Services which was
initially budgeted at 702 and is now down to 468. I
understand what the Minister said. The question is
that I do not think that I heard, when I was writing my
notes, how many individuals had under -filled pos itions, and how many are now being reinstated as a result of taking off the freeze to accommodate the fact that—



Bermuda House of Assembly The Chairman: So you want the Minister to explain
that again?

Yes. If the Minister
can explain . . . as I said, I did try to follow him very
carefully. But we have here salaries, an increase of
269. The increase in salaries of 269 on the first line of the Subjective Analysis is offset by the decrease in
Professional Services. So my question is, between the
two we now have an increase of [$]35,000 net between the 269 increase and the 234 decrease. How
many people have . . . who were previously not wor king in that department because of freezes . . . how
many will now be reinstated so that we can have an idea of how this $35,000 is being spent collectively?
I do have a couple of other questions, but I
think . . . I had . . . just give me one second.

This is on . . . I am
going back to page B -263, with the Grants Administr ation, 65050. I just have a question. And that is a question that came to me, and I did not remember the answer, and I think it is useful to ask. When people have
home ownership, is there . . . or what is the procedure
by which they are determined to be eligible or not for
this financial assistance? I know it may have changed subsequently because I think there was something, as
I recall, that indicated that if you owned your own
home, historically yo u were not eligible for financial
assistance. And now I think that is being relaxed to
some extent; that it is not necessarily that if you own
you own home you would be ineligible. We do not want seniors who are house rich and cash poor to be
starving. So I am just curious if the Minister could just
let us know what the rules are surrounding that, just
for the edification of those who may have had those questions.
Community Education and Community and
Cultural Affairs, B -256. I just wanted to confirm under
programme expenditure 5204, under business unit
62160, Community Education, Admin; and Community
Education Course—

Page [B] -256. And
this is 5204, Community Education, and these are the
. . . actuall y all three programmes there have zero.
Are these the ones that were transferred to the D epartment of Education? That was just a question that . . . I did not write it down and he may have said it. But
I just wanted to make sure that this is what it was. I will sit for the moment and give the Minister
the opportunity to answer the questions and give other
Members the opportunity to speak.

Thank you, Honourable Member.
Any further speak ers?
There appear to be none, Minister . . . I’m so rry. One second. The Chair recognises the Honourable
Member Zane De Silva.
Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I just wanted to speak, Mr. Chairman, if I
could, very quickly to try . . . let me see if I can find the
page . . . with regard to H ead 23. The Honourable
Member, Pat Gordon- Pamplin, was talking about the
salaries and the 2.5 per cent uplift.

Yes.

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Just to help her out . . . and
she will know this. When the departments were looking at their budgets for the year, and as the Junior Minister said, the 2.5 per cent was included across the
board. So, what happened was, during that time we
said, Okay, we’re going to include that and we will
juggle everything and we will keypunch everything in
the syste m. And, as a former Minister, she will know
due to the efficient staff that are all here tonight we
had started working on the budget early. They had
punched in a lot of the numbers and during that pr ocess we continued to work and look at the budgets
acros s the entire Ministry.
We were looking at where we could save, how
can we . . . you know. Former Ministers will know that
that is what we do until the “D -Day” comes. So we did
all those, re- working and working and looking at the
numbers and crunching them , what have you. Numbers were punched in. And you will know there comes a time . . . and the Honourable former Minister Gi bbons will certainly know, as a former Finance Minister.
There comes a time when you have to say, Look.
Here is the cut -off. You keypunch it in. You say, That’s
it. But now we go back and we discuss it with Cabinet
colleagues and caucus colleagues. And, you know,
we may find that we have to do some further juggling, if you may. I am not going to say “fuzzing the numbers,” but we have to do some tinkering.
In this particular case . . . and the Honourable
Member, Pat Gordon- Pamplin, is correct. If you look
at the book, you have a decrease of 81. But if you
look at the number of 8.815 . . . and normally, under
normal circumstances, you look at that and say, Well,
yeah. It is 2.5 per cent missing. You are absolutely
correct.
But what happened was that once the numbers were put in, I think the Cabinet took a look at the ministries across the whole, they did some juggling, and I know that th e Ministry (and I am sure the Mini ster will speak to this in due course) . . . but the Ministry
1518 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly will be looking at moving some positions around within
the different departments. That is where you have
2.5 [per cent].
I am sure as you know, former Minister , . . .
well, actually you have another former Minister, [Member] Sylvan Richards. He will probably know too.
I don’t know if he went through the budget process at
all, but, you know, stuff happens. But that is the re ason. And it is a good pick up, and I t hink people a ppreciate that. But just to explain that this is what ha ppened. And you will find that by the time . . . well, for
next year’s budget I think you will find that everything
matches up perfectly.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I just
wanted to highlight really quickly as it relates to Head
55 under Financial Assistance, one of the most signi ficant parts of it . . . and I want to take this opportunity
to commend the Minister on an excellent brief as it relates to this Ministry. It is a broad Ministry that r equires, certainly a human touch. And I wanted to also
commend not just this Minister, but the former Minister
on his perfor mance in this particular area.
But, Mr. Chairman, make no mistake about it.
As I look at B -262, and also looking at Head 55 under
Financial Assistance, this particular area in this budget is vitally important, I know to you, Mr. Chairman,
and also to me, in that in constituency 32 so many of
our voters and our citizens are involved in some way,
shape or form, in Financial Assistance. So I think that
what has happened, and the Ministry has highlighted
that there has been a reduction of $1.5 million, I believe, in the Budget Book. But I do believe that —

I am sorry, 1.8. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
What I do believe is important is that as you
will find on B -265, under the measurement indicators,
it says, To im prove the grant administration, to [approve] financial awards of 100 per cent of our new
Financial Assistance clients within 10 working days.
Mr. Chairman, one of the things that was an
observation, certainly from those that are in my area,
is that they r ealise that the Government understands
that they are . . . partially of their predicament. But
they do realise that Government and our . . . realise
how serious it is for them. But the point they want to
make is that it is the efficiency by which financial assistance is made available.
So, while I realise that in Government, in dea ling with so many clients on a day -to-day basis is a
challenge, I do believe that . . . and that is why I poin ted out the measurement phase, because I do believe that in this par ticular budget coming through the Mini stry there is a re- emphasis on making sure that they
are a client -driven department. I was encouraged by
what I read, I believe it was in 263 in the book (if it
wasn’t 263 it was 262) as it relates to how they were going to implement a financial assistance programme,
or reintroduce almost, that was more, as I mentioned,
client based.
Mr. Chairman, our seniors are vitally important
to us all. They have served our country. They have worked hard. And all they are asking for is an oppor-tunity to continue to be productive citizens. But they
realise that the world that they are in is changing. And
in that change, they do not wish to be seen to be left
behind, or to be a burden to us all. But they are as king, and we have answer ed by providing to them an
opportunity to work, if need be, in the small areas that they can work. But to also take full advantage of these
social programmes that assist them in their everyday
lives.
I think that this Government should continue,
and is continuing, to demonstrate that we are pr epared to understand the plight that they are in. But as
we streamline this department we must always reco gnise the social element in this department, that they
are human, and they are simply asking for assistance
for a time period that can get them though this time
period. And I think that if we understand this, I believe
we can advance together as a Government.
As a furtherance to this section . . . I did not
want to go too much into the Minister’s brief because I felt that this area is an area that I am quite familiar
with. I have been to Financial Assistance on numerous occasions. I have been to Housing Corporation
for voters in my area and I think that this is an area
that we must see as a help part of our Governm ent.
This area speaks to the real hurt in our community. And if we do not get this right . . . and I do believe that
we need to be prudent. And we need to be clear on
how we deal with this area and we must make sure—

Right.
So, what I feel is that if we continue on that
vein then we certainly will do very well.
I am glad to see it in this budget. I hope that
we do continue in this vein. And I do believe that we


Bermuda House of Assembly are doing a good job going forward. And I thank the
Minister fo r doing so. Thank you.

Thank you, Honourable Member.
Any further speak ers?
The Chair recognises the Honourable Member Sylvan Richards, from [constituency] 7.
Mr. Sylvan D. Richards, Jr.: Thank you, Mr. Chai rman.
Mr. Chairman, I am not g oing to speak long
because I am looking forward to the Minister answering the questions that have already been posed. But I
must say I am going to piggyback off the Member
from constituency 32 who just took his seat, as he did acknowledge that the budget s hows a decrease of
$1.871 million in Financial Assistance for the 2018/19 year.
As a former Minister, I know it is a very i mportant Ministry. It is a difficult Ministry because you are dealing with peoples’ lives. This Ministry takes care of and looks out for those who are the most exposed amongst us. Even though we live in a som ewhat affluent country, there are many people out there
whose lives depend on financial assistance. So I, for
one, am very concerned that the budget has been
reduced by $1.8 million.
I know in the Minister’s remarks he went
through it line by line and kind of accounted for it. But I am a 40,000- foot guy, and I am looking down and the
budget has been reduced. So I am interested to hear
from the Minister how he can justify that. I understand
that you have to . . . everybody has to do more with
less. I get all that. But this is something that I think we
really, really need to drill down on.
I am looking forward to the Minister’s r esponse. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I could not let this debate go by
without weighing in on a subject that is near and dear
to my heart. Social i ssues are very important.
I am going to go right to B -250, Child and
Family Services, 33010, Happy Valley Child Care Centre. For quite some time, since my first entrance
into the Legislature, I have always said that this is a
success story, Happy Valley C hild Care Centre, which
has been budgeted some $918,000.
It deals with social issues on the front end,
unlike other programmes, or ministries, like National Security, which deal with problems on the back end. There is no secret in this country that we ha ve had
some very serious social problems. And since I have come into the Legislature, since 1998, I can tell you, Mr. Chairman, that those social problems have esc alated. And without pointing any fingers, or foisting any blame, we all must live with it. But we must arrest the
problem going forward.
If we contend that Happy Valley [Child] Care
Centre on Happy Valley Road is a success story, and if, Mr. Chairman, we recognise that we still have in our
midst some serious social problems, when the opportunity comes to afford some funding, let us look at
front end problems, front end solutions, as where we should be investing. Would I be so bold to suggest that if Happy Valley [Child] Care Centre can work so
well in the central parishes, then families in need in
the East End would benefit from a Happy Valley Child
Care initiative in St. George’s Parish, and a Happy
Valley Child Care extension could be of benefit in the
western parishes.
Now, I know that the Junior Minister of F inance might glare down at me right now as he is tr ying to, you know, do his part to make sure that we
balance. And I am all for that. But I am also, Mr.
Chairman, for getting it right for our social conditions. We need to make sure that as we look at one area
that we can put it into another, let us look in this direction.
As I look on B -250, Mr. Chairman, and I look
at facilities, such as the Brangman Home, 33070.

And, Mr. Chairman, I will
say this, as I talk about 33070 with regard to the
Brangman Home. I am encouraged that the Minister
and his team have seen fit to provide an increase in
what was allocated in the budget for that particular line item. It has gone from . . . and I believe as other
Members have alluded, it relates to revised 2017/18
estimate. But if you look further to the 2017/18 you
would see that it is a little bit more substantive. And
there are many benefits that I hope will be realised,
Mr. Chairman, as we look at that particular head,
33070. And it is important.
Likewise, wit h the Observatory Cottage, as
Members were alluding to [Head] 55, Financial Assi stance, which deals with situations on the back end. And no disrespect, because it is much needed in our
community, but I believe that the Government in the
ethos of the budget was going to look at how we can
lift persons up so that there is a lesser need in that
area.
Here is an example of an increase as it r elates to Observatory Cottage. And if my knowledge and experience serves me correctly, Mr. Chairman,
33090 sees a signi ficant increase in that area. That is
another example of putting your resources on the front
end. So when Members start looking at, and being
critical on one regard, they must look if it has been deployed in another area.
And I appreciate you directing me to the numbers, Mr. Chairman, because I can look at a number
or two, you know, in spite of me doing my first three
years down there where the Colonel would often crit icise us for being. I do know a little bit about the dollars and the cents.
So it is imp ortant for us to look, Mr. Chairman,
that overall, in Child and Family Services there has been an increase across the board, nominally at best, because some $15,750,000 has been appropriated for
2018/19, versus some $15,634,000. So there is an
increase bey ond the 1 per cent when you compare it
to the . . . well, it is the 1 per cent. They are both the
same, the 2017/18 and the 2007 [sic] revised are both
the same total.
But, as you look across the board, there has
been some movement to one area. And I think it is important to make that particular point, Mr. Chairman. So, with those remarks, Mr. Chairman, I will take my
seat and allow another Member to make a contribution.

Thank you, Honourable Member.
The Chair recognises the Honourable Member Pat [Gordon] -Pamplin. Mrs. Patricia J. Gordon -Pamplin: Thank you, Mr.
Chairman. I do have one other question. And that is
on page B -250, under Child and Family Services.
The Minister in his brief indicated that bus iness unit 33100, which is Psycho- Educational pr ogramme, was included in administration, which is
33120. However, in the book they are separated out.
The question that I have is that with the Ps ycho-Ed programme, the Minister indicated that there
were 15 clients overseas on the prior year, that 1 cl ient had been referred during the current year, and
that there were 22 altogether on the comparative year.
My question is, Of the 22 that were there, they are
now down to 15 clients, how many of those clients
have returned, or how many of them aged out of the
system? And of those who aged out, what is the follow
up and where do they stand to make sure that they do not fall between the cracks? Thank you.

Any further speakers?
The Chair recognises the Honourable Member, Zane De Silva.

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I thought it was . . . even
though I did rise to just give an explanation to the
Honourable Member Gordon- Pamplin, and I think she
accepted that as she has been in the position and,
certai nly, I am sure, has experienced that herself. But
outside of that, I did want to give a few comments on
the Ministry itself.
I will say that I was just a little disappointed in
the fact that we have been allotted 4 hours and the
Shadow Minister only spoke for about 10 minutes. I
thought that . . . it was about 11.5 [minutes], yes. But I
was a little disappointed in that I expected a little bit
more from the Shadow Minister, being that this was his Ministry. So, I was a little disappointed, and looking for a little bit more, to be honest. But, be that as it
may.
Mr. Chairman, I thought that I would like to
thank the Ministry staff. You will certainly know that throughout this entire budget so far to date there has
been lots of talk about vacancies throughout all the
ministries. And you will know that there has been lots of replies from Ministers, and tonight is no exception,
about filling vacant posts. I think it is important that we
emphasise the fact that we have had many civil ser vants throughout government that have been doubling
up, and some tripling up, Mr. Chairman, over the last
couple of years due to these unfilled posts.
I thought that it was only right that we, in this
House, emphasise to not only each other but to the
people of Bermuda, because sometimes the civil
servants get a raw deal. And I do not think that folks
really appreciate the pressure and stress that a lot of
the civil servants have been under for the last couple of years. As you will know, they went I think six years
without a rais e in pay. And, of course, on top of the


Bermuda House of Assembly non-increase in pay, they have been doubling up and
tripling up. And in this particular Ministry, I had the
honour and the privilege of meeting some of the people at the hard core. They work right at the core of a
lot of the challenges that we have in our country,
whether it be socially, economically, or otherwise.
And I think that the staff, whether it is in F inancial Assistance, whether it is in Culture . . . you
could pick any department you want and . . . Child a nd
Family Services. I see Mr. Maybury here tonight. I
know that I can tell you, Mr. Chairman, when I first met Mr. Maybury, who heads Child and Family Services, and his team, we had allotted like maybe 25, 30
minutes. We stayed for three hours.
And when yo u hear some of the stories first -
hand from our people, the experiences that they have
. . . and, you know, I am sure even from the time when
you had former Minister Richards, or former Minister Pat Gordon- Pamplin, even from their particular time in
office, they would have the stories too, I am sure. But I
think that our social fabric and some of our social i ssues with our children and our families have escalated in a very, very quick way. And it has put a lot of pressure on those departments as well. And I would like to
say a big “thank you” to everyone that has to deal with
this, whether it be Financial Assistance, or Child and
Family Services, because they have a lot of pressure. I think that we cannot praise them enough for the work
that they have done and continue to do.
I would also, whilst I am on Financial Assi stance and some of the things that we are doing social-ly, mention the fact . . . and I know the Minister
touched on it when he spoke about the Financial A ssistance Reform Group. And I know that s ome of the
Members opposite talked about the reductions we
have in Financial Assistance which is on page [B] -
262, Head 55. My thing is that it is a challenge. We
have a lot of our people that are struggling, Mr.
Chairman.

Mm-hmm.

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: A lot of families are stru ggling. And I take this opportunity to say, thank goodness the Progressive Labour Party had the foresight
to give our young ladies the assistance they need with some of their children with regard to day care, and
what have you, in the terms of $800 per month. I
mean, that is huge. That was vision to be able to do
that back then, and to be able to support our single
mothers in the way in which we have over the years.
So whilst I know there has been a decrease in
Financial Assistance, you will know that ––getting back
to the reform group, the reform group is headed by none other than our former Director of Family Services, Financial Assistance, Dianna Taylor ––I think
that we have a good group that has been working very
hard. And I think they do have the Opposition Mem-ber, Susan Jackson, who is also on that reform group. So I am sure that she brings feedback from her caucus.
[With] some things we have to try to put the
politics aside and work with the people of this country.
And I believe that the Financial Assistance Reform Group will do just that. My hope, Minister, is that we
can accelerate it and the PS carries it, and he certai nly knows how I felt about it. And I am sure that he is
pushing because he is part and par cel of that group
and certainly stays well in touch with them. So I know that on Tuesdays (I think they still meet on Tuesdays)
they have some robust and fruitful . . . well, yes. I
have given a couple of comments on the heads, but I
think it is a good tim e . . . I am sure former Minister
[Gordon] -Pamplin —

Yes.

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: And that is why . . . well,
you, you did the . . . I must say the Shadow Minister
certainly did not take up much time. It was you all.
All I am saying to you is that I am sure that
you would not mind giving credit to our hard- work ing
civil servants.

[Inaudible interjection]

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Okay. So don’t say I’m
rambling on.

You are!
Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: I am giving credit where
credit is due.
[Inaudible interjections ]

[Gavel]

1522 7 March 2018 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly Hon. Zane J. S. D e Silva: But see, the Honourable
Members say they want questions answered. I am
giving you an answer. The Minister has only been in
his seat for a couple of weeks. And as the Minister
that was there for a couple of months, I think that I can answer some of those. And one of those is . . . the
question was, Why are we making a reduction in F inancial Assistance?
Well, you will certainly know, you have, I think,
two or three former Ministers on that side who certai nly know some of the challenges that the country faced in Financial Assistance. So I am trying to give you the
answer. I do not expect the Minister of a couple of
weeks to be able to answer every question. He is
good. He is good, but I know he has been on roller skates since he has been there too. So I am trying to
give a little bit of . . . Mr. Chairman, some answers to
the questions that the Members opposite have had.
So, on that note, what I am saying to you is
that the reduction in Financial Assistance, you will note in the Minister’s brief he di d say the goal was to
cut that by $1.5 million in the next fiscal year. Okay?
Now, the way we hope to achieve that, with the parti cipation of your colleague, Ms. Jackson, right? As a
team we want to be able to put together all of the i nformation that we ar e going to gather over the next
several weeks (I hope it is going to take, because they
have been at it a couple of months now), and come
back to this House and get everyone’s support as to
what we are going to do going forward. And maybe
Dr. Gibbons and C larion Bank and Gibbons group of
companies —

Mm-hmm.
Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: With regard to Community
. . . my Minister can put me down any time he wants.
But, I am sure that he does not mind me giving the
information for not only the Members opposite but for
the general public.
One of the other things that I think is i mportant, Mr. Chairman, is on Head 88, National Drug Control, page [B] -266. I think we know that some of the issues that we have had in the country over the
past couple of years the National Drug Control will
play a very important part in assisting the Minister with
some of the initiatives going forward in collaboration
with the Minister of National Security. All right? Okay?
Now, before I take my seat, I would certainly
like to finish off on Head 52, Mr. Chairman, Community and Cultural Affairs, which is on [page] B -255. I
would certainly like to thank them (they are in the
House today). Ms. Dismont, I can’t look because she
gives you that smile and gets you all twinkly. But I would certainly like to thank the department of the
Ministry of Community and Cultural Affairs for the
great work that they have done. And I know they have
some good things happening for us especially when it
comes to Bermuda Day this year. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, ever so
briefly, I will pick up where the Member who just sat
down left off, on B -256, as it relates to 62130, Senior
Citizen Projects. I just want to take this opportunity to encourage the Minister, whilst on this particular line
item. There is some $78,000 allocated. As it relates to
this department, I see it as an opportunity. As I spoke
to front end initiatives, our seniors, as it interacts with
Community and Cultural Affairs, Mr. Chairman, as you would very well know, have a w ealth of knowledge
and experience. I would encourage the Minister to look at this line item to see how the initiatives for seniors can be partnered with the initiatives for young
people.
I mentioned the Happy Valley [Child] Care
Centre earlier. But there are other initiatives that seniors throughout our country can be involved in. It may take a little bit more than the $78,000 in this initiative.
But I am sure, utilising persons, like yourself, Mr.
Chairman, and others who are very much advocates
for our seniors, if we can look at how we can enhance,
grow this particular line item, there can be some great
benefit derived from it.
Our seniors have the knowledge to be able to
. . . and not only that, they come from a place, from a
foundation in which they c an be of great benefit. And
sometimes a young person would take and learn more aptly from someone that they might not know. So, I am just encouraging the Minister, as we look at Community and Cultural Affairs, to look at the opportunities
in this line item . Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair recognises the Honourable
Member Zane De Silva, from constituency 29.
Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.


Bermuda House of Assembly Mr. Chairman, I wanted to mention three quick
things with regard to B -255, Head 52, Community and
Cultural Affairs. I just wanted to mention three quick
things, because . . . and I will quickly take my seat.
One is, I would just like to remind the Minister
that he was posed a question at a funeral recently. And that was at Mr. Forty Rego’s funeral. Now, why
am I talking about this with Community and Cultural
Affairs? Because you will know, Minister, I think you
were there at the time, that there were certain people
that were calling for a national hero. And the cha llenge was put forth right in church that he should be
considered. So I just wanted to lay that down as a
marker, because I do not think I have to tell anyone in
this House about Forty Rego and what he stood for and what he accomplished, what he did for the young
people in this country.
That is number 1.
Now, the second thing that I wanted to do
while I am on my feet is also talk, because we have
just finished Black History Month. Now, Minister, what I wanted—

What line? What particular —

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: What I wanted to do was
look at the department’s objectives. And one thing that we did not talk about today that I think we should certainly [chase] . . . I would certainly implore you, Mi nister, to chase is, we just completed Black History
Month. We do not do enough . . . in fact, every Member in this House, I am sure, will remember the ad that
ran last Cup Match which explained how Cup Match
came about and the importance of it, because I do not
think a lot of people realise how Cup Match came
about and what it means.

[Laughter]

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: But the ad, but the ad . . .
other than a two- day holiday.

[Inaudible interjections and laughter ]

Member, hang on a minute. Let me
say that the rules are quite clear. Any Member can
speak after the Minister. Any Member can speak. The
rules are being followed by the Chair.
Carry on.

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I did refer to page [B] -255, Head 52, D epartment Objectives. And, you know, the Members
opposite laughed. See, what I was getting to is one of the things
that I think we should concentrate on in the Ministry,
and the PS certainly knows this, is that we should not
only concentrate on Black History during the month of
February, but we should do something every mont h of
the year, every year. We do not do it enough. And, of
course, I am going to talk to the Minister because we
do have some catching up to do. But certainly the PS
knows exactly how I feel with regard to that.
Now, I take my seat on this note, Mr. Chai rman. I would certainly implore us to try and do more for those of our people that have accomplished much
and have not been recognised enough. I mean, you
will know that they allocated some space for Clarence
Hill down in St. George’s and the Honourable MP,
Renee Ming was certainly happy that this took place.
And I have to thank Colonel Burch for his assistance
in that. But I think that which has been done for Clarence Hill is, again, I think is going to be at the end of
the day something that we are going t o be proud of.
We have helped one of our heroes who has certainly
had his challenges along the way. And hopefully we can continue in that vein looking at our sports persons, in particular, that have a lot to do with our culture, with regard to the discipli ne that they participate
in.
So I encourage the Minister to continue that.
And of course, I am always here to lend a helping
hand. Thank you, very much.