FNM Calls Roberts “Politically Delusional”

In a statement distributed to the local media yesterday, the FNM said that Mr. Roberts ignores the fact that the Ingraham administration gave the largest tax relief in the last 30 years when it removed or substantially reduced Customs duty on many food items.

Mr. Roberts said in an earlier statement that while PLP Leader Perry Christie was Prime Minister there were more jobs and less pain and suffering.  

The PLP chairman added that under Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham, the standard of living for the average Bahamian has declined, "through less and less real income."

"Further, from what is earned, a higher and higher percentage of their income is going to pay taxes," Mr. Roberts said in his statement at the time.

"The fact is, that Hubert Ingraham placed the single largest tax increase in recent Bahamian history on the backs of struggling Bahamian families and to add insult to injury, conspired to mislead parliament and the Bahamian people about his actions."

However, the FNM statement noted that the FNM Government has increased the ceiling on stamp tax exemption for first time homeowners to $500,000, allowing them to claim tax relief for a single homeowner up to $50,000.

The party also said that the FNM Government provided tax relief for Bahamians building restaurants or entertainment facilities in designated tourist areas under the amended Hotel Encouragement Act and provided tax relief for new businesses or renovated businesses in the City of Nassau under the Nassau Redevelopment Act.   

"Already, almost 1,000 Bahamians have been approved under the first time homeowners programme, receiving millions of dollars in relief; some seven businesses have already been approved under the Nassau Redevelopment Act; and businesses are taking advantage of the provisions under the amended Hotel Encouragement Act," the FNM statement said.

  "Mr. Roberts would do well to explain how it was that his party’s 15 members of parliament in the House of Assembly voted for the budget, which he says contained the largest tax increase in the recent history of the country and how were they deceived in the process."

    The statement said that if that were in fact the case, then the PLP would be a "most incompetent" group of parliamentarians and someone would wonder how the party could be trusted to lead the country.

"It is the duty of all parliamentarians to study all matters that come before the parliament," the statement read.

"It would be lost on someone like Bradley Roberts that when his party was kicked out of office in 2007 it left the government’s bank account in worse shape at negative $97 million, just $3 million below the limit, in what they said were the best times ever than they are today with an overdraft of $63 million, more than $20 million below the limit, in what every Bahamian knows is the worse economic times throughout the world since the Great Depression."

The statement said that Mr. Roberts told a "direct lie" when he told the Bahamian public that there are 9,000 households without electricity supply. 

"What he will not say is that his party never lifted a finger to help those in distress [when it came to] BEC [bills], even when an average of 18,300 people were out of work from 2003 to 2006," the statement read.

"It was the FNM that brought relief to some 5,000 households when it provided some $4.5 million to BEC and the Grand Bahama Power Company (GBPC) to ensure that households had their lights turned on. We did it before and we will do it again."

According to the statement, the PLP chairman should have "bitten his tongue" when speaking about delays in payment on contracts. 

"His party’s record on this score is so bad that any number of contractors had to walk away from contracts for non-payment," the statement read.

  "Of course, leading up to the general election of 2007, the PLP was all too eager to open the public purse to pay selected contractors, ignoring many of the rules of transparency and fiscal prudence in order to do so. Such behaviour has been called into question by any number of audit reports on hand."

  The statement went on to state that Mr. Roberts should "hang his head in shame to speak of telling the truth; he is a stranger to truth telling."

"That is why each time he spouts his lies and misinformation, he will be met with a response from the Free National Movement," the statement said.

"We will not be distracted by him and we will continue on our trust agenda for better, but we will also crush the lies of the politically delusional."