| PLP Chairman blasts FNM at Sea Breeze branch meeting |
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| Submitted by Elcott Coleby | |
| Thursday, 12 November 2009 05:05 | |
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Nassau Bahamas Sea Breeze, it is a delight for me to be here tonight on the supposed territory of my FNM counterpart. I’ve got this feeling that your prospective Candidate and I have the same thing in mind for Carl Bethel. The Party’s standard bearer in the 2007 General Elections has been representing our Party well in the Honourable Senate; Senator Hope Strachan, has assured me that if I handle Carl Bethel in his capacity as FNM Chairman, she will handle Carl Bethel as the FNM candidate in Sea Breeze. If you remember well, he only just slipped through in the last election – Hope Strachan really had him beat that time around as well. But we all know now that some peculiar things happened during the last Election – things that we can not and will not allow to happen again. I should mention that both Carl Bethel and myself signed up on an Internet site which would allow us to attract support for our efforts as the respective Party Chairman. I observed the numbers who signed up in support of Carl and was shocked at the few that did. On the other hand the numbers comprising mostly young person’s who accepted my invitation was heartwarming. Having said that, it is safe to conclude that it is just a matter of time before Carl Bethel and the FNM get rolled out of Sea Breeze or whatever they choose to name this Constituency whenever they ring the bell. It is safe to conclude that your Candidate Senator Hope Strachan will go on to take her rightful seat in the Honorable House of Assembly. As your Party Chairman and a man who has been around politics for a long time it is easy for me to assess the mood in the Country and in each constituency. Behind the scenes then, we have a list of which Constituencies are likely to end up in the “win” column for the PLP. Sea Breeze, you are on that list. But I don’t want this projection to make you sit on your laurels and wait for victory to fall into your laps. You will have to work hard to win your seat. Carl’s political future is hanging in the balance. This will cause him to stop at nothing, and do all he can imagine, fair and unfair to try to hold on to his seat – and we know that the FNM can be tricky. So work hard Sea Breeze, keep your eyes and ears to the ground, and do not allow the political enemy to steal what is yours ever again. My Brothers and My sisters tonight we are here in Sea Breeze, this week found me in Marathon Monday night, Elizabeth last evening. We will probably be on some family Island on Saturday and Sunday I will be speaking to the PLP Women’s Branch. This should be some indication that your new Chairman is on the move. Let me pause here and thank those of you who supported me in my bid to assume the helm of chairman once more. Surely in the time of political war, the Party is better served by a full time Chairman – my schedule this week alone proves this. To PLP’s in the Family Islands be assured the PLP train is coming to your Island shortly. Sea Breeze, you can consider this a time of acquaintance, as I will have to visit you again in short order to deal with certain strategies we will be implementing to cause there to be a retooling of our branches. My team and I are busily formulating plans to put each branch on the cutting edge with respect to training in the areas of protocol, campaign tactics, and public relations and how to better work Election polling stations. We will also be attempting to make each branch more technologically savvy, more in tune with the functioning of Central Party initiatives, and suggesting more successful approaches to fundraising. As I mentioned in Marathon on Monday evening, there is an element to the reigniting of the spirit of our branches and the spirit of our Party generally, that I and my executive team cannot facilitate without you. We have to become a family again in the PLP. We have to return to some of the values and strategies of the past which made us a movement, and the real champions of the Bahamian people, without getting locked in the past of course. One of the things which made us unique was the fact that PLPs of old became their brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. Moving forward, it is going to be critical for every single member of our Party to drop his or her guard and overcome petty differences so that we can achieve our collective goals. Everything that is to be accomplished in this Country begins at the heart of the fellowship between us. It will be a concerted effort on my part as Chairman to bring the human element back to PLP politics so that we can be the spark of its return in our Country which at the moment is tattered and torn by poverty, crime, apathy and a myriad of social problems which are exasperated by the fact that we no longer seem to know how to treat one another. Party unity is big on my agenda Ladies and Gentlemen. This is what I am attempting to achieve as I encourage each and every one of you to find ways to connect even beyond branch meetings so that we can all begin to form lasting bonds. Soldiers when going to war must trust each other – must have each other’s backs. During the next 18 to 24 months we will be in the trenches together fighting a war for the future of our Country. We will have to defeat an enemy that doesn’t believe in what is best for our people, people who are hurting, people who have to do without basic necessities, our people who are living in fear of crime etc. This is a major battle before us that we can only win if we are united in purpose and love. So I begin tonight by setting this charge before you Sea Breeze. Do you accept the challenge? All right, now that we have briefly dealt with some house cleaning matters, allow me to just hit on briefly some of the gross failures of this FNM Government which has me certain that they have to go! You would have heard me thank Mr. Ingraham for accepting Carl Bethel’s resignation from the Ministry of Education. Mr. Ingraham must have known that I was not about to allow his Government to get away with the short comings and inefficiencies being experienced in this Ministry. The teachers are unhappy, the students are not safe and in large part are not motivated, and we are not producing satisfactorily the level of graduates we need to grow this young Nation. Even though, I know it is being said that Carl Bethel was not fired, I mean did not resign for these reasons, just listening to the amount of problems coming out of our Educational system on a daily basis, it makes me happy that Carl is gone! If Carl Bethel’s performance in that ministry is any indication of what his performance will be like as Chairman, I am about to have an easy job. It was Carl you know who insisted that there was no need for School policing in our schools and no need to continue the element of Urban Renewal which saw a relationship building between members of the Royal Bahamas Police Force and many of troubled youth in our Government Schools. Carl chose stupid politics over policies which were working. What did we have just yesterday in our Country as a result? We had the double stabbing of two government school students. And my brothers and sisters, this is an incident that we heard about but I can tell you that there are very many more incidents of violence in our school which go unreported because the FNM would rather turn a blind eye than to accept that the PLP had in place better strategies to deal with the growing culture of violence in our schools. Ladies and Gentlemen, I don’t know who Hubert Ingraham will replace Carl Bethel with but thank God, Carl is gone! Ladies and Gentleman when the last PLP administration was in power there was steady progress in the overall national grade average in our Government educational system. Progress was slow but it was steady. The national average was improving not showing any evidence of decline. Then came Carl Bethel and the FNM. Down the average slipped a notch again while Carl went around show boating over his ability to open the schools on time which also turned out to public relations to cover up LIES. I say thank God Carl is gone! You see, don’t tell me about building more schools than the PLP, and repairing schools on time to open for the beginning of the school year when we know that our schools are turning into gang territories and institutions unable to produce model citizens. Don’t throw money at our teachers whom you are quick to threaten and even quicker to walk out on when they have concerns, like Carl Bethel did to the teachers at Eight Mile Rock High in Grand Bahama a few months ago. Those teachers and students for that matter had legitimate concerns but you will recall that initially, their trusted Minister of Education was too important, and too rude to give them the attention they so badly deserved. It was not until a pedophile was on the run and the news had become international that the Government responded as they should have. It was our own former Chairman, the Hon. Glenys Hanna-Martin, MP for Englerston who had to move in the House of Assembly for a select committee to investigate the matter – proving that the Progressive Liberal Party cared more about the situation than the Minister and his colleagues on the other side. I say, thank God, Carl is gone. This is the kind of leadership we have had to bear since the return of Hubert Ingraham and his Government in 2007. I have returned to assist in correcting that horrible mistake made at the polls in that Election and put our Country back on the right path. The FNM had the nerve to speak to the issue of my return as another example of just how disingenuous they will attempt to be for cheap political mileage. I had to remind them of how Hubert Ingraham returned as leader of the FNM. Poor Tommy Turnquest I understand brought in consultants to try and figure out how to repay Ingraham for his treacherous behavior. Tommy has not gotten over it yet – I believe many nights he replays the events over and over in his mind. On a blessed Sunday night Ingraham assured Tommy that he would not run against him. Monday Hubert Ingraham is nominated for the post of Leader. On Tuesday having been stabbed in his back, Tommy Turnquest had to bend down low and bows to Ingraham as Leader again. And Tommy is still bowing and he had better! Just ask Carl Bethel what happens if you don’t. The FNM would be wise to not talk again about any PLP coming out of retirement nor should they have anything to say about my age! They seem to forget that Hubert Inghram brought back a retired Permanent Secretary to become his Secretary to the Cabinet or a cadre of qualified Permanent Secretaries. And we must never let Bahamians forget that Hubert Ingraham chose one of the oldest members of the Royal Bahamas Police Force to serve as Commissioner of Police who I am advised has been instructed to announce his retirement effective the end of this year. Similarly Hubert Ingraham and the FNM had better not speak about democracy in the PLP. I am the duly elected Chairman of the Progressive Liberal Party having ran against an incumbent and two others during our Convention. Poor Johnley Ferguson and Ivoine Ingraham were not even allowed to exercise that right. The FNM in their internal management of their Party gave the Bahamian people a glimpse of the real dictatorial thinking behind them as Carl Bethel was selected and nominated by his Leader, a sitting Prime Minister no less, to over-step the democratic rights of at least two others, to become Chairman. Zhivargo Laing wrote a book, fashioned after the title of the best seller, “Who moved my cheese” called, “Who moved my conch?” I hear Johnley and Ivoine in a collaborative effort are now working on, “Who moved democracy?” That is the very state of affairs in Hubert Ingraham’s FNM. Ladies and Gentlemen, my “in the know sources” tell me that Senator Johnley Ferguson having paused and deeply reflected on how he was treated by the FNM highly praised and self worshipped Leader Hubert Ingraham is embarrassed and hopping mad that he un-wittingly allowed his dignity and honour to be sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. Senator Johnley Ferguson feels like a man without clothes thanks to Hubert Ingraham. Members of Sea Breeze in the wake of an FNM press statement this week, I am duty bound to speak briefly about their “Stop, Cancel Review” policy and the dismal condition of the Economy before I take my seat. Carl came out of the gate this week putting the foot in the mouth of his public relations team on their first showing. In response to your PLP and even the findings of Standard and Poor’s, an international rating agency, the FNM is now trying to spin a response to the fact that their position to stop, cancel and review certain contracts and capital work projects, accelerated the effects of a Global recession on the Bahamian Economy. They chose to highlight the stalling of certain foreign direct investments in their attempt to distract us from the truth. Ladies and Gentlemen, thinking Bahamians including the FNM apologist know that is an indisputable fact that despite pleas by Investors to be allowed to continue their projects they were ignored. Even the President of the Chamber of Commerce and the President of the Contractors Association begged the government to allow the various projects to proceed including Baha Mar, Ginn West End, Albany, Ritz Carlton Rose Island et al. Their pleas, the pleas of the Investors and the pleas of thousands of Bahamians all fell on deaf ears for extended periods of time. Then the tightening of funds in the Financial Markets began to take root and by the summer of 2008 funding had virtually evaporated. The record will show that the FNM Government took the same approach on the Capital works project of the PLP Government. An example is the Lowe Sound Seawall project funded by EU donor funds. Knowles Construction was the lowest bidder and a contract was executed and materials ordered and delivered in North Andros. The Contractor was ordered to cease construction and same was held up for almost two years. Another example is the Seawall projects in Grand Bahama. Smith Construction was the lowest bidder by a mile. The Company was mobilized. The Contractor was ordered to cease construction and the job was held up for some eighteen months despite the state of the economy. The Straw Market was yet another example; the lowest bidder was awarded the contract and was mobilized. Orders for materials were placed. The contractor took control of the site. The Contractor was order to cease construction. The new Straw Market would have been completed over 18 months ago. I can go on and give more examples of the ruthlessness of the FNM government. On the other hand the special interest group presented Brent Symonette with their plans to convert Arawak Cay to a Container Port which my brothers and sisters is well under way to becoming a reality; at public expense, whilst the Straw Vendors are being tossed to and fro and only God knows when this heartless FNM will build their version of a Market. This is a clear example of which Hubert Ingraham thinks and treats Bahamians. Take care of the handful of money contributors first using public funds and then down the road promise to bring relief to the almost thousands of struggling Straw and Craft Vendors. The Lord knows that ain’t right. That is simply vulgar and repugnant. Ladies and Gentlemen, No amount of public relations can turn back the hands of time and cover up the mistakes of the FNM as just having been re-elected to Government in 2007, they came in on a which hunt while hoping to re-brand the many investment projects as their own. History has it on record and their collective conscience (if they have any) knows it to be so – that they boo booed as a vision-less Government with a leader who admitted that he didn’t have anything left to take this Country further. And they “poo pooed” on the Bahamian people as they catapulted us into the worst economic condition of our lives as they removed the cushion created by the Perry Christie led PLP Government which would have lessened the blow of this recession which has left so many of our people out of work and in despair. Here they come now with a band-aid approach to unemployment. Whatever they have to offer now is a day late and a dollar short! 2500 jobs – temporary jobs and minimum wage is their answer to the tens of thousands of Bahamians who are out of work. 2500 temporary jobs is quite possibly not even 10% of the jobs needed today for the amount of Bahamians out of work and the thousands more who will graduate between now and 2012. I don’t have the time tonight to go any further into how we are better qualified to manage the affairs of The Bahamas over and above the FNM. My team and I have decided to create a DVD presentation that will distinguish our performance from theirs so that Bahamians can see the difference for themselves. We know that if they are armed with the facts, the choice in 2012 or whenever the next election is called, will be clear. Like the young people would say, PLP or Nuttin’! PLP! All the Way! Newer news items:
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