Desperate to get elected, Perry Christie is making promises he knows he can’t keep. Next, he’ll be promising to cure cancer and AIDS, make us all thinner, richer and healthier and bring peace to the world.
The Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) yesterday released a 10-point pie-in-the-sky plan feigning help for struggling homeowners. The plan includes obtaining agreements from local banks to write off 100 percent of unpaid interest and fees for people facing foreclosure.
The desperate party has promised to implement the plan if it is successful at the general election.
“Across The Bahamas, homeowners are struggling as never before. Many homes have already been lost to foreclosure and many more Bahamians are sick with worry about their ability to keep their homes,” the PLP said in a statement.
This financial assistance is suuposedly going to come from a political party that never pays its bills on time and whose Treasurer was indicted on money laundering charges.
Regarding the write-off of unpaid interest and fees, the PLP reasoned, “This should be acceptable to the banks as they would already have made provisions against these losses. “Therefore, writing off the unpaid interest and fees would have no immediate financial impact on the banks. As for the delinquent borrowers, they would benefit from the fact that their outstanding balances would fall substantially.”
Point three of the PLP’s plan is to “actively encourage a reduction in the interest rate on the mortgages in question to prime plus one percent”.
The PLP has also pledged to “actively encourage” the banks and other institutional lenders to extend the loan repayment period under defaulting mortgages to the maximum allowed by the financial institution.
Bankers chuckled when asked about the liklihood of any of this really happening.
Additionally, the PLP said it would pass any legislation necessary to ensure that homeowners who have accumulated savings in their pension funds can access those” funds for the purpose of saving their homes from foreclosure.
Mr Christie didn’t mention anything about the pensions at City Market, which a top PLP supporter has placed into jeopardy.
“The Progressive Liberal Party believes that helping distressed homeowners is the right thing to do and the sensible thing to do,” said Mr Christie, who doesn’t even really know what’s coming out of his mouth any more.
