Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham claimed last night that Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) Senator Allyson Maynard-Gibson once told him she is pleased he is governing the country during tough times.
Ingraham said if the FNM government did not have ‘decisive leadership’, the will, the determination and the courage to do certain things, “then the Great Recession would have been worse for this country”.
“We have not had to lay off civil servants like some developed countries have had to do,” he said.
“Anybody who believes that (PLP leader) Perry Christie and the PLP would have done better is simply living in a dream world of unreality.
The PLP has repeatedly accused the FNM administration of worsening economic conditions through some of its actions.
Ingraham said, “The country cannot afford to go backwards to the reckless, do-nothing, scandal-ridden days of the weakest government in Bahamian history.”
Ingraham also hit at repeated criticisms from the PLP that his administration drove up the national debt substantially through borrowing.
He noted that the PLP’s parliamentary team supported “every loan and every borrowing we undertook except for one — the $40 million airport gateway project. That’s the one bringing water to you in eastern New Providence.
The prime minister said, “We borrowed because we decided it was better to take advantage of our borrowing headroom to get projects done to transform our capital city, to improve and upgrade infrastructure in our Family Islands and to cushion the severity of the global recession.
“And we created thousands of jobs for Bahamians in these difficult times; we did it so the country would be in a better position to move ahead when the bad times ended.”
