The Tribune

By DANA SMITH dsmith@tribunemedia.net PLP leader Perry Christie told Fort Charlotte constituents that finance minister Zhivargo Laing shares the blame for high unemployment levels and a bad economy. Speaking at the opening of the constituency's PLP headquarters last night, Mr Christie called Mr Laing an "abysmal failure" and said everything he's touched has gone from bad to worse. "The footprints and the fingerprints of Zhivargo Laing are all over your pain and suffering," he said. Mr Laing "ran away" from Marco City to Fort Charlotte "thinking (constituents) wouldn't know about his failure" as a minister and MP. "But you have to let him know that you know," Mr Christie said to constituents. "And you have to let him know that you're not interested in castoffs or castaways." The opposition leader claimed Mr Laing helped the Prime Minister run the national debt up to "unprecedented levels" and has done the same with unemployment. "One out of every three young Bahamians is now out of work. The economy is in an absolute mess. You can thank Zhivargo Laing for being a major contributor to that. He needs to pack his political bags and clear out. The country has had enough of him and of Hubert Ingraham." Mr Christie said it's time for the FNM to go as they are in denial of a Standards and Poors report that "shows they made the recession worse by stopping, reviewing, and canceling PLP projects". In defence of recent FNM claims of corruption within the PLP, Mr Christie called the claims "recycled". He said: "They want to talk about corruption? With both hands and both feet inside the cookie jar, they have the nerve, gumption, temerity and the hypocrisy to recycle false and already disproved allegations against the PLP? Let me tell you something, my friends, they are going to regret it. They surely are." These allegations mirror the FNM's 2007 campaign, Mr Christie said. At the last election they made a "wild bunch of allegations" against the PLP but couldn't find any wrong-doings, he claimed. "Either their investigations turn up nothing, or they don't even bother investigating their own inventions and lies." Mr Christie also told constituents the PLP is working to get a Public Accounts Committee report which investigated the roadworks "fiasco". The FNM has been "working overtime" to suppress the report, he said.