It would appear that the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) has been caught revealing their true nature.

Every reasonable thinking person would have thought that they would have taken at the very least twenty-four (24) hours to deliver a concise and well-thought out objection to the budget communication as presented by the governing Free National Movement (FNM) yesterday, but in their haste to be heard, to be seen as doing their job as the official opposition, they stumbled out of the gate with a weak, nonsensical and basically irrational response.

“PLP: Budget a tale of epic failure” – The Nassau Guardian

Excerpt from this article; “The budget communication was a ‘tale of epic failure’, Progressive Liberal Party deputy Leader and Shadow Minister of Finance Chester Copper said yesterday.

Minister of Finance Peter Turnquest presented the 2019/2020 budget yesterday in the House of Assembly.  ‘What we can categorically say about the latest budget is that the FNM (Free National Movement’s) strategy of taxing and borrowing and focusing on putting numbers over people has inflicted untold pain and suffering on the Bahamian people,’ said Copper at a press conference.

He said that despite the government’s focus on fiscal responsibility and deficit reduction, overall debt has increased as well as the debt-to GDP ratio.

‘This government, despite all its talk of old bills, borrowed like a drunken sailor, increased incurrent expenditure by $246 million, increased the debt-to-GDP ratio from 54.4 percent in 2016/2017 to 58.2 percent in 2018/2019 and the national debt increased to $8.2 billion,’ he said.”

As Mr. Cooper goes on to attempt to chastise the government’s efforts to bring the country’s fiscal situation under control by then questioning how will it meet its current fiscal projections, I ask of him to honestly stand before the people of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas and as a person seeking to be deputy prime minister and say that large amounts of monies were not borrowed over the past two years to settle outstanding government debt left in place by the former Progressive Liberal Party and also how many government have actually met their fiscal projections?  A lot of people may accuse me of pointing fingers and playing the ‘blame game’ on this issue but it is a reality that we live; a reality which I. Chester Copper and the rest of the PLP seems to wilfully ignore of just be unaware of.

While I. Chester Cooper and the rest of the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) now accuse the Free National Movement (FNM) government of “taxing and borrowing” and “focusing on putting numbers over people”, I remind him that this is the very same model that pervious governments including the PLP have followed, only this time by the end of its first term as the government it will yield positive results for the citizens of The Bahamas and not four economic downgrades.  Then there is the accusation of “numbers over people”, this is how Mr. Cooper would out it and I ask him how long can we ignore the numbers?  Should we wait until the numbers have run out of our favour, the cupboards are bare and there is nothing left for the people?  Is this responsible governance?

The Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) response to this budget would be laughable it were not so desperately shameful. The Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) at this point has lost ALL moral authority to chastise anyone, even the peanut man on the street, on fiscal responsibilities and prudence.

The Progressive Liberal Party continues to fail for one reason; it is their nature.

END