By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

PROGRESSIVE Liberal Party Chairman Bradley Roberts has lashed out at Free National Movement Chairman Michael Pintard over his suggestion that the government use Value Added Tax (VAT) collections to fund hurricane repairs.

Calling the suggestion "drivel" on Friday, Mr Roberts pointed out that the opposition party was staunchly opposed to the implementation of the tax and that the country borrowed $2 million under its administration during the previous term.

"The PLP narrowed the budget deficit significantly since 2012," Mr Roberts said in a statement, "but will the level of VAT revenue balance the budget in the current fiscal year? Pintard must know because it was he who went to the media shooting off his mouth about VAT revenue and how VAT should be spent.

"If the VAT revenue does not completely close the fiscal gap and balance the budget in the current fiscal year, then Pintard would have been better served by either asking the right questions to the right people or keeping his blasted mouth shut."

Mr Pintard's suggestion followed Prime Minister Perry Christie's admission on Wednesday that the government would likely borrow from international agencies like the Caribbean Development Bank and the Chinese to bankroll the more than $60 million needed to restore storm-ravaged islands.

Mr Pintard pointed out that the new tax was implemented to reduce the national debt and therefore it could be reasonably expected that it should be used to circumvent any further increases to that debt.

He said the FNM was resolute in its commitment to a bipartisan relief effort; however, he stressed that any borrowing must be underpinned by specific guidelines and based on objective assessments for short-term and long-term development.

Mr Roberts fired back, stating that the FNM chairman should "stick to making jokes".

"Doesn’t Pintard know that it was his FNM that drove this country to the brink of the fiscal cliff and it was the PLP government that has placed this country’s fiscal house in order through its medium term fiscal consolidation plan?" he said.

"Does Pintard not know that this same fiscal consolidation plan has received the endorsement of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Standard and Poor’s, Moody’s, the Financial Times and the Global Investment Unit of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce?"

Mr Roberts said: "The PLP government achieved this for the Bahamian people by ignoring every single advice advanced by the FNM on the economy and public finances. Had the country followed the advice of the FNM, our economy would have crashed and burned long ago and this country would have been firmly in the hands of the IMF - staring the ‘chilling’ and unforgiving prospect of currency devaluation dead in the face as a viable option for the Bahamas going forward."

"The last institution in the world the PLP will take advice from on the economy and public finance is the FNM," Mr Roberts added.