The Tribune

THE governing party’s latest attack on FNM North Abaco by-election candidate Greg Gomez has been ridiculed as a feeble ploy – the opposition claiming the PLP is just ashamed after being caught in the act of victimisation.

FNM acting chairman Darron Cash said the PLP, having fired Mr Gomez for his political affiliation, are now falsely claiming he never deserved to be hired on the previous government’s jobs programme in the first place.

He said: “The PLP is embarrassed that they have been caught! All they can do now is deflect attention from their five months of failure and inability to deliver what they promised in the general election campaign.

“No jobs programme, not real renewal of anything and only negative outlooks from the international community.

“But after shutting down the jobs programme established by the FNM and putting hundreds of people on the unemployment line, (PLP chairman Bradley) Roberts has some nerves to talk about depriving people of work.

“In the first instance, the 52 weeks jobs programme had no age limitation and, therefore, Mr Gomez’s eligibility on the basis of age was never an issue.”

He said Mr Gomez represents a real example of the PLP’s “systematic programme” of denying jobs to and taking jobs from people suspected of supporting the FNM and giving those jobs to their known PLP supporters.

“Now that the PLP leaders have been caught red handed abusing their power and the public treasury, all they can do is talk about Greg Gomez’s time spent abroad.

“Mr Gomez is a fitting example for most family island young men. He was reared on the island of Abaco, went abroad for training and exposure, and has now returned to the island of his birth to make a big difference and give something back to the people who made him who he is.

“The FNM’s impressive record of achievement and the strength of character and commitment of an island son who is determined to build on those achievements are the basis of Greg Gomez’s campaign.”

Mr Cash was responding to a statement by the PLP chairman, who claimed the payments to Mr Gomez for his work in Family Island Administration were “absolutely improper”.

Mr Roberts said: “He is not under 30, and therefore should not have qualified for the programme. In fact, his participation in the programme likely deprived a deserving young person of an opportunity.

“An invented claim of victimisation is a very sad basis for a campaign. Gomez lived for a decade in the United States, and only returned quite recently. Perhaps he’s simply out of touch with the concerns of the people, and doesn’t quite know how to get started.”

But former FNM Cabinet minister Zhivargo Laing, who help craft the 52-week programme, concurred with Mr Cash that it had no age limit.

He said: “There was no age limit, saving that retirees (60 plus) were not accepted. This notion that there was an age limit of 30 years is absolute nonsense.

“The programme was not a youth programme and that is why it was ran out of the Ministry of Finance and not the Ministry of Youth.”

When former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham announced the programme on May 25, 2011, he said: “The second component of our Job Programme is a National Retraining Thrust which will focus on skills development for mature persons. Again some 1,000 participants will be targeted for up to 52 weeks, with the goal of either upgrading skills for employment in existing fields or acquiring new skills for movement to new fields of employment.”