The Leader of the Progressive Liberal Party made the case again last evening why the FNM has to go. You can read the Mr. Christie’s remarks below.
Remarks
By
The Rt. Hon Perry G. Christie
Leader of the Progressive Liberal Party
At the opening
Fort Charlotte Constituency Headquarters
21st February 2012
How are you tonight Fort Charlotte?
Are you ready to send Andre Rollins to Parliament?
Are you ready to elect the PLP as the next Government of The Bahamas?
It is a pleasure to be among family and friends as I stand with Dr. Andre Rollins here tonight. I will have a bit more to say about Dr. Rollins later in my remarks but I just want to say right now that this young man has a great future ahead of him. He’s tough, tenacious and talented. He’s a part of the leading edge for change in our country.
Are you ready for change?
Are you ready to take your country back?
Are you ready to build a safer and more prosperous Bahamas?
Sadly, our country is on the wrong track. We’re heading in the wrong direction. Just look at the incredible suffering our people are enduring with the lack of employment opportunities, and just look at the unprecedented levels of crime we’re experiencing.
And tonight I am here to tell you that the footprints and the fingerprints of Zhivargo Laing are all over your pain and suffering! He has been an abysmal failure. Everything he’s touched has gone from bad to worse. That’s why Ft. Charlotte has to halt him in his tracks. He ran away from Marco City in Grand Bahama. He found his way to Ft. Charlotte, thinking that here you wouldn’t know about his failure as a Minister and as an MP. But you have to let him know that you know. And you have to let him know that you’re not interested in cast-offs or castaways. You want good, solid representation and in the election that’s coming up only Andre Rollins and the PLP can give you that.
Do you hear me Ft. Charlotte?
As junior Minister of Finance, Zhivargo Laing has helped his boss, Hubert Ingraham, run the national debt up to unprecedented levels. He’s done the same thing with unemployment. One out of every three young Bahamians is now out of work. The economy is in an absolute mess. You can thank Zhivargo Laing for being a major contributor to that. He needs to pack his political bags and clear out. The country has had enough of him and of Hubert Ingraham. It’s time for both of them to go. And it’s time for the FNM to go.
Even after all that’s happened, they’re still in denial. They want to run away from the fact that they were late in seeing the recession coming. And they want to run away from what Standard and Poors confirmed, namely, that they made the economic recession much worse for us by stopping, reviewing, and canceling so many projects that we left in place; projects that would have created thousands of new jobs to go with the 22,000 jobs we created during our five years in office.
You know Fort Charlotte, The FNM is in a time warp! They’re stuck in 2007. They’re running the same campaign all over again. But Bahamians have already seen that movie — we know how it ends. In 2007, they made a wild bunch of allegations against the PLP during campaign time — but when they won, not a single finding of wrong-doing — in five years, not a single charge brought! Either their investigations turn up nothing, or they don’t even bother investigating their own inventions and lies. Then — after nearly five years of self-dealing, of Brent Symonette getting rich on government contracts, of bidding rules being broken repeatedly to help special interest insiders — they want to talk about corruption? With both hands and both feet inside the cookie jar, they have the nerve, gumption, temerity and the hypocrisy to recycle false and already disproved allegations against the PLP? Let me tell you something, my friends, they are going to regret it. They surely are.
They’ve been working overtime to suppress a report from the Public Accounts Committee investigating the roadworks — now why do you think that is? Ask yourself who has benefitted from the same roads dug up again and again? You know who was hurt by that — you were. Now ask yourself who stood to gain from this fiasco of a roads project.
Don’t worry — we will get that report out. We are determined for Bahamians to know the truth before election-day.
They want to run away from their failures and their wicked policies but we’re going to keep the focus where it belongs: on crime and the urgent need for JOBS, JOBS JOBS!!!!!!
We don’t have time for foolishness or distractions. We refuse to get down into the dirty gutter with Hubert Ingraham and the FNM. Instead we intend to spend all of our time developing solutions to the problems of crime and unemployment. We need to give our people hope again. And we need to bring back peace again. We can’t do this unless we have a concentrated assault on crime and the scourge of unemployment.
But the FNM does not want to talk about crime, and they don’t want to talk about JOBS either! Anything but that!
The economic and social fallout from unemployment is both vast and pervasive – ranging from poor Government revenue performance to a misery index that is off the charts. Crime and violence have also escalated to horrific levels as a result. We have to put our people back to work! And we’ve got to get crime under control. This is madness what we have now. And the worst part of the madness is a government that can only shrug its soldiers while young fathers are being gunned down in front of their homes and young mothers are afraid to walk the streets day or night
I encourage you to visit myplp.com for details on our plans to fight crime and bring our economy back from the dead. These are great plans we have and we have a great team ready to bring them to reality.
But there’s something else even more fundamental than that in this election. This election is all about believing in Bahamians. It’s about a Party – the PLP- that believes in our capacity as Bahamians to create, to innovate, and to own – versus a Party that puts Bahamians last because they really don’t have any faith in Bahamians.
But we believe! That’s why the Progressive Liberal Party intends to double the nation’s investment in education and training. Our proposal to create 21st century classrooms fits in perfectly with our commitment to create jobs now and create jobs for the future, too.
We’re also proposing Career Path Academies and Technology Centers through a collaborative effort with the private sector to expand technical and vocational training, as well as Information Technology skills, for thousands of young people annually.
And our Worker Re-training Initiative will dramatically expand access to retraining programs and work opportunities, because when technology and industries change quickly, we must keep pace.
My new team, a blend of experience and new generational vigor, are seriously committed to creating Jobs throughout our country. Yes, we created 22,000 jobs during my administration. We are proven and tested. We did it before and we will do it again.
As I said at the beginning, Dr. Rollins is a very dynamic member of that new generation of PLP leaders who will work hand in hand with our experienced leaders to quickly bring our plans to fruition so that The Bahamas can become a safer and more prosperous place for its people. Andre brings his intelligence, enormous talent, energy, worldview and patriotism to the Team. We are happy to have him as a member of the best team ever assembled in the history of Bahamian politics.
But I want you to know, Fort Charlotte, that I need your help on this. It’s all up to you. In order for Andre Rollins to play his part in the next PLP government, I’m counting on you to bring him to victory on election-day whenever it’s called.
Will you join Andre and the PLP in our quest of rescue and renewal for our beloved country?
Will you send Zhivago Laing back to Freeport in the next election?
Are you ready to elect Dr. Andre Rollins as you next MP?
Let’s go forward in unity to take our country in a new direction.
Forward to a safer Bahamas!
Forward to a more prosperous Bahamas!
Forward with the PLP!
PLP………….All the way!
_______
God Bless You and Good Night