The Tribune

YOUR SAY

By BRADLEY ROBERTS

National chairman

Progressive Liberal Party

THE government must proceed with its fiscal consolidation plan even as the Free National Movement, its surrogates and operatives, continue to sow seeds of confusion and cultivate a spirit of negativity in an attempt to distract this government from its mandate to act in the best interest of all Bahamians.

The FNM, who were at the wheel when the ship of state ran aground on a reef and sprung a leak are the very ones sowing seeds of confusion and preaching gloom and doom over the government’s efforts to right the ship of state. This fiscal crisis occurred under their watch yet they seek to wash their hands just as Pontius Pilate did, express ignorance of and accept no responsibility for the country’s current fiscal crisis.

The PLP government did not create this mess as we left a budgetary surplus when the government in which I served as a Cabinet Minister demitted office in 2007.

The PLP government inherited this mess upon its return in 2012 and continues to work diligently on behalf of the Bahamian people to restore prudence to the management and stewardship of our nation’s public finances.

As members of the government in opposition on the public payroll, the FNM parliamentary caucus has proven to be absolutely useless and I dare say a liability to the government in turning this country around.

For example, the FNM Member of Parliament for Montagu Richard Lightbourne publicly criticised and opposed government consultation with the business community on tax reform and the implementation of VAT.

Further, Mr Lightbourne criticised the government’s highly successful policy of amnesty and tax incentives for those in arrears on real property tax.

Notwithstanding that this policy initiative placed more than $20 million in the public coffers, Mr Lightbourne expressed dismay that the government had not confiscated the properties of those in arrears on their real property tax payments and sold those properties to recover outstanding taxes.

Is this the official policy position of the FNM?

The leader of the FNM, Dr Minnis, who admitted to being confused about the urgent need for tax reform, called on the government to come clean on the circumstances which have prompted this sudden lurch towards the imposition of VAT.

This after years of warnings from international agencies about the narrowness of our tax base and the need to broaden the same.

This after the national debt was increased by some 40 per cent during Dr Minnis’ five-year tenure as a Cabinet minister.

He also asked for an objective study, but as soon as the government released an Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) study on VAT, the FNM chairman, Darren Cash, called on the government to halt the imposition of VAT.

The record shows that the government will expand the social safety net programme by some 30 per cent during the first three to five years of the VAT implementation to protect the poor and marginalised.

In real dollars, this expansion amounts to an increase of some $30 million. It is misleading and intellectually dishonest to suggest that the government is reducing the national debt on the backs of the poor.

The FNM is clearly devoid of constructive ideas on national issues, dishonest and appears rudderless, therefore, they are a useless bunch who are subsisting on government largesse with little to no contribution to show in return.

In its October Financial Digest, the Central Bank of the Bahamas confirmed a narrowing of the public debt as the government continues to contain public spending; this is welcome news to all Bahamians of goodwill, albeit an inconvenient truth to critics of the government.

This measure, along with tax reform and economic growth, represent the necessary policy thrust to navigate this country out of the fiscal mess we currently find ourselves in.

The PLP encourages the government to remain focused and to stay the course as the Bahamian people are counting on their cool heads and deliberate and well-reasoned policy decisions to ultimately prevail.