The Tribune

ACCORDING to the governing Free National Movement, the government has performed dismally since the May 2012 election.

The opposition party said in a statement yesterday that after considering a number of areas of public interest and concern, it had no choice but to issue failing grades to all minsters.

“After grading on a curve, and taking this report card through two appeals, we still could do nothing to improve overall performance,” FNM chairman Darron Cash said yesterday.

According to the opposition, the current Christie government has resurfaced as a tax-and-spend administration. “They keep increasing taxes but cannot stop spending on nonessential items like foreign travel, make-work for well connected local consultants and unnecessary work for foreign consultants,” Mr Cash said.

“It is hard for Bahamians to take the Prime Minister seriously when he talks about the need for more money to run the government when his government is squandering money left right and centre.”

He said that at a time when average Bahamians—especially the young ones Mr Christie claims he believes in – cannot get a bank loan to start a business or some concessions from banks to save their homes, some “big shot well-connected insiders” are able to get special deals at “a certain government controlled financial institution” now run by a relative of a Cabinet minister.

Calling Mr Christie “a most unusual Minister of Finance”, Mr Cash noted that for some reason, the Prime Minister believed a multi-million dollar forensic audit at the National Insurance Board was necessary to investigate a housing contract worth “a few thousand dollars”, but claims of fraud and insider dealings in the millions evoke no similar outrage – “not even a peep from the ‘I demand accountability’ Prime Minister.”

He said: “This selective application of professional and ethical standards by the Prime Minister may be due to the fact that a huge problem for his government and the country as a whole is the sad reality that Prime Minister Christie has been erratic and unstable in his style of governance and public ramblings.

“Consequently, the Bahamian people never know which Prime Minister will show up from one day to the next.”