By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

MORE than $500m has been spent by the government to assist ordinary Bahamians affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, Public Service and National Insurance Minister Brensil Rolle said yesterday.

Speaking in the House of Assembly, Mr Rolle said the money was used to fund various COVID-19 relief initiatives including the government’s food assistance programme and its unemployment benefits among other things.

“The National Insurance (Board) has spent nearly $100m as a form of income support to COVID-19 and that is separate and apart from the $180m in real money spent by this government as a form of income support for thousands of ordinary Bahamians affected by COVID-19 and their job layoffs,” Mr Rolle said during debate on the resolution to extend the country’s state of emergency to November 13.

“That does not include the total spending or the additional spending that was brought about in job retention and the food programme which is near another $100m and I’m talking real money impacting real Bahamians and some of my friends in Exuma said to me the last time I spoke ‘you like to call them big numbers but we know that ain’t true’.”

The Garden Hills MP added: “But that is the reality, Mr Speaker, that is what the kind of income support that the government has come up with in these unprecedented times. We have spent, the government and National Insurance over one half of a billion dollars. Think about that, Mr Speaker.

“That in many cases, that is the budget of six ministries and seven ministries combined. That’s what the government has coughed up during these times for the Bahamian people to show their support and that’s only income support, Mr Speaker. That’s only money. That’s not other kinds of assistance that the government has provided to the Bahamian people and to suggest that we could’ve done something different, or we did not inject enough… is in my opinion totally unacceptable.”

Responding to criticisms from the opposition, Mr Rolle defended the Minnis administration’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Yes, we may have made some mistakes, but I don’t know of anyone who hasn’t made any mistakes when something confronts them. Think about it, Mr Speaker, before COVID there was the impact of Hurricane Dorian in the Northern Bahamas. Think about that,” Mr Rolle said.

“We had to cough up millions and millions of dollars in income support. Our rebuilding effort continues, and people have been misplaced but yet we also say that some of us say the government is doing nothing and we are taking the wrong steps.

“But there is absolutely no Bahamian I believe can truly and honestly say that the government has not tried and has not successfully done what it had to do for the Bahamian people,” he added.

Mr Rolle said the government sought to protect the economic wellbeing of Bahamians in view of COVID-19 crisis.

This, he added, could be seen in its decision to not lay off any of its 22,000 strong workforce in the public sector.

As it relates to those workers employed by the government as a part of its 52-week employment programme, Mr Rolle had good news for those individuals yesterday.

“We said that during these tough times, Mr Speaker, we’re going to take another step. We’re going to take the 1,200 individuals in the 52-weekend programme who were performing the task and working with the rules of the public service, we’re going to make them and cause them to become permanent in the public service,” he said.