By MORGAN ADDERLEY

Tribune Staff Reporter

madderley@tribunemedia.net

EXUMA MP Chester Cooper said yesterday the country is being “chopped and sold for control” to the interests former Prime Minister Sir Lynden Pindling “spent his life keeping at bay”.

The latest Progressive Liberal Party member to criticise the Disney Island Development agreement for South Eleuthera, Mr Cooper said the deal only leaves locals with “crumbs”.

However, Tourism Minister Dionisio D’Aguilar defended the deal yesterday, noting the government feels it is important to “create opportunities for that community”.

Mr Cooper also called on Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis to stop political victimisation against PLP supporters “forthwith”, describing the practice as “wicked and destructive” and a “barbaric state of play (that) sets our country back 100 years”.

Mr Cooper made these remarks at a PLP South Andros branch meeting yesterday.

Mr Cooper expressed dismay as he compared Sir Lynden’s legacy to the current Minnis administration. “I thought how sad that we went from such a giant of a man who had such a heart for his own people, to a government that now only pretends to care,” Mr Cooper, pictured below, said.

“I wondered what Sir Lynden would think if he saw the nation that he loved so much being chopped up and sold for control to the interests he spent his life keeping at bay. I wonder how he would feel seeing this FNM government usher in the next era of the Bay Street Boys.

“I wondered what he would feel if he saw how this FNM government would so carelessly disregard so many of our own countrymen who are hurting and in need all in the name of impressing and doing the bidding of international agencies.

“I also lamented that the FNM can’t even dream of having leaders like Sir Lynden anymore. People who stand up for their country, not tear it down and call their countrymen corrupt on the world stage.”

He went onto address the Disney deal, hitting out at the government for giving a 50-year seabed lease in Eleuthera “to a cruise line for peanuts, and still give them Crown land and all the tax exemptions in the book.”

He added: “We get just over 100 jobs and no business opportunities, no shops, no restaurants. Watersports that is reserved for Bahamians given away to the cruise lines.

“Only crumbs left for the small man, the self-employed and the budding entrepreneurs.”

Mr Cooper’s remarks echoed that of fellow PLP and Englerston MP Glenys Hanna Martin, who on Monday said the Minnis administration negotiated miserably on behalf of Bahamians, producing a “shameful” deal.

Yesterday, Mr D’Aguilar was asked to respond to the PLP’s ongoing criticism of the Disney deal.

“I disagree, of course,” he told The Tribune. “Mrs Glenys Hanna Martin obviously has a point of view. We think that it was a good deal. South Eleuthera, of course for many years has been impoverished and we feel that it is important to create opportunities for that community. I mean what was amazing is the people in South Eleuthera were seemingly very supportive of it.

“And so…as I say, it’s important to get spades in the ground to get the deal done. Mrs Hanna Martin is probably someone who negotiates and takes a long time to make a deal. We feel that it’s important to make the deal, let’s get the boots on the ground, the spades in the ground, and people employed and people enjoying empowering people and creating employment for our people. So we think it’s a good deal,” the tourism minister said.