In The Royal Gazette of Friday, 22 March 2024, in the Opinion column of Mr. Chris Famous, Member of Parliament for Devonshire East, lied. There was no innuendo, no interpretation or inflection. It was a lie.
Mr. Famous wrote, “the One Bermuda Alliance opposed putting Bermudians first, opposed keeping healthcarecosts down and opposed the construction of desperately neededaffordable housing.”
On Friday, 15 March 2024, the OBA MPs voted not to pass the Government Loans Act 2024. This amendment would make it so that the Progressive Labour Party government can seize money that was previously saved to cover Government spending, when we don’t have enough revenue to cover the spending directly.
The Government, any government, can then spend it on whatever they wanted.
The legislation does not specify what the money would be spent on. Because of the nature of our financial arrangements, the use of those funds do not have to be reported to Parliament. So not only does the Government have no obligation to spend the money as they proposed, they also don’t have to tell Parliament if or how they did so.
Our position is that those savings should not be spent by the Government of the day on whatever happens to cross their minds on that given day.
This legislation shaves away yet another restriction on the PLP Government, and any government of the day, that controls our worst excesses and opens us up to yet more of the financial mismanagement that got us here.
We voted against the bill. We did not “oppose keeping healthcare costs down and opposed the construction of desperately needed affordable housing”. That is a bold-faced lie.
We expect better from our elected representatives.
The Hon. Jarion C. Richardson JP MP
Leader of the Opposition