PLP Chairman Tells Michael Foulkes MP Look In The Mirror

EDITOR,

I am responding to the letter published by the Tribune on 15th October, 2020 by Michael Foulkes M.P. which grossly misrepresents the words of the leader of the Progressive Liberal Party.

The member for Golden Gates, Michael Foulkes, has some nerves to characterize the comments of the leader of the PLP, Hon. Philip Brave Davis, as reckless. If Mr. Foulkes wants to know what reckless behaviour looks like, he needs only analyse the behaviour of his colleague, the Prime Minister, because actions speak louder than words.

It was reckless for the Prime Minister to allow thousands of Bahamians to travel to a COVID-19 hotspot, South Florida, in July of this year without adequate health, safety, testing, and quarantine protocols in place upon their return to contain the community spread of the virus.

Another reckless decision by the Prime Minister was the cancellation of a number of projects designed to upgrade the country’s health infrastructure for purely political reasons. This reckless decision stalled NHI and contributed to the current state of the healthcare system which is near collapse.

Months into the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers were complaining about insufficient personal protective equipment (PPE), many have been needlessly exposed to COVID-19 and some have died as a result. Industrial actions and public pleas by the nurses union have not yielded satisfactory results for health workers.

Today, COVID-19 infections and COVID-19 related deaths are on the increase; the country remains near or at the bottom of the global performance index for COVID-19 handling. This indicates the country’s healthcare system is near collapse and the country’s economy is in shambles.

This is what the government has to show for the billions it has borrowed to date, prioritized and expended, and after suspending our civil liberties and imposing and extending multiple lockdowns and curfews. The record shows that every key performance indicator for this country paints a dreadful picture of the government’s incompetence, poor performance, poor leadership, political expediency, and recklessness.

I could list chapter and verse, the failings of this government, but the point of FNM hypocrisy and duplicity in the face of extraordinary incompetence is sufficiently made.

The responses of the political directorate of the government and the leadership of the FNM party sadly are to engage in acts of mass distraction from the failures of this government. The issue is not Mr. Philip Davis and the PLP – the issue is the incompetence of the Minnis government.

It is Minnis’ fault.

So Mr. Foulkes, the fault of recklessness and incompetence does not lie without or in the stars my friend – the fault lies within. You need not distract and deflect – only advise your colleagues to look within, get to work and change course in the public interest.

Yours etc.
Fred Mitchell
Chairman
Progressive Liberal Party