The Tribune

OPPOSITION Senator Zhivargo Laing has hit back at Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell in the ongoing war of words over the former government’s temporary work programme.

The FNM government, in which Mr Laing served as a Cabinet Minister, launched the programme in response to rising unemployment, but Mr Mitchell said the former administration should not be asking for more help for Bahamians now, when they left the country in a financial hole.

Yesterday, Mr Laing said: “The government’s response to my appeal to extend the 52-week employment programme for thousands of struggling Bahamians is that they cannot do it because they don’t have the money since we, the FNM, left the country financially strapped.

“That is simply untrue because whatever the Christie administration wanted to provide for in the 2012/2013 budget, it did so.”

He noted that the new government put into the budget:

• Millions of dollars to pay for a “bloated” Cabinet

• Millions of dollars to uproot trees and demolish houses in the name of Urban Renewal

• Millions of dollars to hire consultants

• $15 million in the Prime Minister’s budget to fund an unspecific plan

• Millions of dollars to fund a referendum on gambling

• Hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for minister’s travel

• Millions more “tucked away” in a budget that will produce a deficit of $550 million.

Additionally, Mr Laing said, the government forfeited millions of dollars so that the “super-rich people” could have their real property taxes capped at $50,000.

He said: “If the government can afford to make provision in the budget to do these things for themselves, it can afford to make provision in the budget for the people now faced with the prospect of no income and no jobs – its a matter of choice!

“Condemn me, blame me, even lambaste me; this much remains true – there are thousands upon thousands unemployed in the nation, made so primarily by the global economic recession.

“There are hundreds and hundreds who came into the job market since June of this year. Now added to those many thousands will be these persons coming off the 52-week programme.

“We, the Ingraham administration, felt compelled to do something about such joblessness when we were in office, so we created the 52-week programme. We provided $25 million in the first instance to do so. The demand was so great, we determined to reorder budgetary priorities, take the fiscal hit and increase the provisions by almost the same amount.

“The money went into the pockets of struggling Bahamians, many of whom supported the Progressive Liberal Party before and during the elections. Now, they are going home with no hope of immediate employment.

“That is the real issue and that should be the concern of the government. So far, the response has been, ‘To hell with them, Laing them left us broke even though we found money to do all kinds of things for ourselves’.”