By PAVEL BAILEY 

Tribune Staff Reporter 

pbailey@tribunemedia.net

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell said the FNM made a mistake in 1992 when selling a government plane.

“There are millions of dollars being spent, economies can be employed as a result of it, and that’s basically the argument,” he said, defending the Davis administration’s decision to spend $2.5m on a confiscated plane officials are repurposing for government use.

Mr Mitchell added: “We just get ourselves distracted in so much nonsense in this country when there are actually serious issues we have to face. For example, you have the energy reform measures that have to take place. You have the housing issues which have to be addressed. You have the Grand Bahama Port Authority and its lack of performance. And then you have a history of an FNM government that has been derelict in its duty towards the country. Their view is to leave the status quo, kick

everything down the road and not make any hard decisions about the future of our country. I call them the party of ‘no‘. Dr Sands is ‘doctor no‘. Everything is no, no, no, no, no.”

“But if you are in government, you have to have an eye on the future. You have to make sure that our kids are properly educated. I am really pleased with the results this year. The education system has come back. These are the big issues we are dealing with, not running around making arguments about nonsense. And they all know it’s nonsense because if they were to win tomorrow they wouldn’t do a darn thing about it. They’d just employ what’s there and continue going on. It’s just politics.”

Last week, FNM leader Michael Pintard criticised the Davis administration’s decision on the plane, claiming that the maintenance cost of the aircraft would be “exponentially higher” than travelling on a local airline.

He said the money would have been better used securing fire trucks for the Family Islands.