The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Chief Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

PRIME Minister Philip Davis said there is “no alarm” over the country’s national debt increasing by more than $1bn in the final year of his administration’s term before the election, pointing to economic growth and a lower debt-to-GDP ratio.

“When you talk about debt, you have to look at what the ratio of our debt is to our to our GDP,” Mr Davis told reporters yesterday after viewing the body of the late Neville Wisdom.

“When we took office, our debt to GDP was over 100 percent. Our last year in office, when they say we borrowed a billion dollars, our debt to GDP was about 72 between 60 and 70 per cent so there's no alarm by that.”

Mr Davis said his government was still operating within internationally accepted fiscal standards, and urged the opposition to remember that the country’s fiscal position is also scrutinised by international agencies.

His comments came after the Central Bank reported that the national debt increased by $1.071bn during the 2025-2026 fiscal year, pushing the total above $13bn.

The increase included a $697m rise in the government’s direct debt and a $373.5m increase in contingent liabilities. The latter represents debt the government may have to repay because it has guaranteed loans for state-owned enterprises.

Despite the increase in national debt, the Davis administration’s April 2026 fiscal report showed a deficit of $121.2m.

“If you were mishandling the economy, if there was challenges with our concerns about our fiscal position, would we have been upgraded, not just once but twice?,” Mr Davis charged.

However, FNM leader Michael Pintard disputed his assessment yesterday, calling the debt surge concerning.

He said the increase was troubling because questions remain about how much more than $1bn was spent.

“It is worrisome, especially since we have multiple islands with no ambulance, no fire trucks, incomplete clinics, lack of diagnostic equipment for MRIs, CAT scans, including Grand Bahama, where weekly we are paying to help residents go and get scans or exploratory interviews off island, because the facilities are not available on island,” the opposition leader added.

“We have families right now whose power is off? Because there's a transformer issue, or some other piece of equipment, or there's a staffing issue, and and all of these, when you take $700 million and divide it by ambulances and fire trucks and diagnostic equipments and crime-fighting tools, it is a big deal, and the prime minister has to feel the pain and frustration of the people that he has been elected to serve.”