Excerpt from this article; “Prime Minister Perry Christie yesterday warned Free National Movement (FNM) Leader Dr. Hubert Minnis to be mindful about criticisms made against public servants who are responsible for figures revealed in his latest value-added tax (VAT) communication, after Minnis said Christie is ‘delusional’ if he believes anyone has brought his explanation on how VAT revenue has been used by his administration since its implementation in 2015.

‘What I should say to the public is that I note that the member of Parliament for Killarney (Minnis) who is no longer the leader of the Opposition, has indicated that the figures are unbelievable.’ Christie told reporters outside of Palmdale Primary School yesterday.

‘I simply want to say for the record, the figures [and] the accounting was done in accordance with the requirements of the constitution.

‘The financial administration honored that and they were prepared by the same civil servants and public officers who will advise him, if by chance, he becomes the next prime minister of the Bahamas.”

Prime Minister Perry Christie should be ashamed of himself and his entire administration; as it has been this government that has seemed free to question public servants in their professional capacity, at each and every available opportunity; with this past week being no exception, as Transport and Aviation Minister, Glenys Hanna-Martian, accused Auditor General Terrence Bastian of ‘guesstimating’ while conducting his most recent audit of the Road Traffic Department. 

 Indeed the Auditor General has been the subject of much ridicule and admonishment by this Christie administration when his figures did not reflect those which the government hoped that they should be.  This was seen in the case of the audit of the Urban Renewal program, where the auditor general’s figures suggested some ‘accounting irregularities’, which to this day are still unexplained. The Progressive Liberal Party government immediately went on the defensive, undermined the office of the Auditor General and hired a ‘private’ firm to do an audit of the program, which gave them the more favorable figures that they desired.

Then there was the  issues of the figures coming out the Department Statistics regarding the high level of unemployment in the country, which were quickly refuted by Minister National Insurance; Hurricane Czar Shane Gibson in an attempt to support the claims of the creation of 32,000 jobs created by this present Progressive Liberal Party government.

I ask; were these ‘figures [and] the accounting….[not] done in accordance with the requirements of the constitution”?  Or is this an instance where it is more convenient for the Christie administration to simply ignore the constitution of The Bahamas?  

If these “figures [and] accounting…[were] done in accordance with the requirements of the constitution”, then didn’t the Christie administration seek at that time to disparage them [public servants] by being carless and irresponsible….”?

Again, Prime Minister Perry Christie attempts to take the natural course of the ongoing conversation and twist it to fit his foolish needs, as no one has, including Dr. Minnis, questioned or criticized the public servants who were responsible for the figures revealed in his [the Prime Minister’s] latest value-added tax communication but rather Dr. Minnis and many others are questioning the Prime Minister and sometimes Minister of Finance’s; the Rt. Hon. Perry Christie’s very liberal interpretation of these figures.

The Progressive Liberal Party fails for one reason, it is within their nature.

END