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Last Updated: Feb 13, 2017 - 1:45:37 AM |
 Tens of thousands of Bahamians have no jobs, cannot pay their bills and are being evicted from their homes. Our nation’s murder rate is out of control. Tax hikes have sent the cost of living through the roof for already strapped Bahamians. Bahamian businesses are facing flat or no profits and very little to no hope of better coming. Baha Mar hangs in the balance. Now our southern isles face the devastation of Hurricane Joaquim. Rumours of corruption and clear indications of government mismanagement are rampant. All this mayhem, and Bradley Roberts, the Chairman of the PLP decides to talk his usual untruths, nonsense and engage in personal attacks. What he needs to tell the public is what his party’s government is doing about all these painful issues facing Bahamians. But that would be too much to ask since the answer is obvious, very little to absolutely nothing!
The FNM leadership has gone out of its way to demonstrate that we are committed to assisting the Government and other stakeholders in finding the best way to help our people adversely affected by the recent hurricane. It was against that backdrop that I commented on how we might approach some aspects of funding the recovery and reconstruction efforts.
It is clear that no effort to collaborate with this government or pose sensible and reasonable questions about the government’s management of any matter is met with rational responses from the very angry, vile and out-dated Chairman of the PLP. Robert’s nasty response to simple suggestions and questions relative to hurricane recovery and reconstruction has now raised a red flag about VAT and the government’s real motive for wanting to borrow huge sums of money and begs the questions: Where is the VAT money? How is the VAT money being spent? How has the VAT money been spent? How thorough is the assessment of damages? What portion of damages are covered by insurance or private contributions?
Mr. Roberts wants to know why the FNM borrowed $2 billion between 2007 and 2012. I have no answer to that since the FNM did not borrow $2 billion between 2007 and 2012 and there is no record that Mr. Roberts can produce, that I am aware off, to show that it did. However, the PLP, according to the tables produced in its own Budget Communications has already borrowed $2.11 billion in four years. Perhaps Mr. Roberts can explain why that is the case and what his party has to show for it. We could remind Mr. Roberts that the world faced a global recession commencing in 2008 that brought the most powerful economies to their knees but this would be a waste of time
since Mr. Roberts would simply bury his head in the sand and pretend that this was only make believe. Of course, it isn’t make believe each time Prime Minister Christie or Minister of State for Finance Halkitis point to this Great Recession to offer reasons for the challenges they claim to face.
Mr. Robert’s ignorance and shallow rantings about fiscal matters would be laughable if the nation was not facing such dire straights and in need of intelligent dialogue and problem solving. He alludes to the FNM obtaining extraordinary revenue from BTC and the sale of BORCO without looking at the other side of the ledger where the nation lost hundreds of millions of dollars in ordinary tax revenue due to the great fall off in the world and national economies as a result of the greatest recession the world saw in more than 80 years. Look at the borrowings of the USA, the United Kingdom and other economies in the period 2008 and 2012 and even the most ignorant person could see the impact of that the 2008 global economic disaster had on the fiscal affairs of those nations. Look throughout the region and see the struggle faced and continuing to be faced by those economies as a result. All this evidence and Yet Mr. Roberts wants to play Bo Peep. The International Monetary Fund and the various international ratings agencies sure did not ignore The Great Recession; that Bradley Roberts would is just in keeping with his irrational brand of politics.
$2.11 billion in four years compared to $1.87 billion in five years during a Great Recession; that’s the PLP’s record so far. It has borrowed $2.11 billion in four years. This is not new because in its first term in office under Mr. Perry Christie, the PLP government borrowed more than $800 million in five years compared to the FNM’s $800 million in ten years; the difference was that the PLP had precious little to show for its borrowing.
The PLP’s touted fiscal consolidation program was crafted under the FNM’s tenure. It is only too sad that they are doing such a lousy job of executing it. Read the former Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, The Right Hon. Hubert Ingraham’s last two Budget Communications and compare them to those of the current Prime Minister and Minister of Finance. Read the parts that have to do with fiscal consolidation and see if one could find anything that the PLP can claim as novel. Fact is, that the PLP went into office in 2012, picked up fiscal plans being ran by the FNM and sought to run with those plans; however, their bungling has made a mess of things and now the nation is suffering for it.
Mr. Roberts would be better off trying to help his government find its way out of the darkness of fiscal mismanagement and incompetence into which it has led the nation rather than pretending to know something about things that are obviously over his head.
It is unfortunate that Mr Roberts’s lack of respect for cultural artists in the Bahamas led to his attempt to dismiss me by referring to me at a comedian. The irony is that he is a chief member of the “jokey leaders” club.
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