Open government is needed

Friday 27th March 2009, 2:58PM GMT.

From Gino Risoli.
SENATOR Ozouf was in his prime last week. He has been a minister since ministerial government was formed, and a senior one at that.

On television, on radio and in the newspaper, he has had the audacity to deny all responsibility for the financial arrangements of the incinerator contract that has cost me and the rest of the public millions of pounds because of the inadequacy of the contract. If the ministers are not responsible, then who is? I have to admit that his bullishness of denial was quite a performance.

I remember Deputy Daniel Wimberley trying to obtain the details of the incinerator contract, so he could scrutinise, but civil servants and senior ministers were obstructive. This is truly a case where transparency of information and less client confidentiality would have seen a different outcome.

By the way, remember that every penny wasted could have been used for good causes. Remember also the ‘safe pair of hands’ slogan at the Senatorial elections. The same safe pair of hands that had no idea of the impending credit crunch, who turned their back on the tourism industry, who had wasted millions upon millions of pounds on different projects.

We will never know how much they have frittered away simply because we have not demanded what surely belongs to us, an open and transparent government.
34 Queen Street,
St Helier.


  1. 1
    phil

    This is one …err… unfortunate mishap that we got to know about.
    How many similar …err… unfortuate mishaps never get to see the light of day?
    Senior civil servants are like mushroom growers – they like to keep everything in the dark.

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