Shadow Minister of State for Finance Peter Turnquest said he is worried that Prime Minister Perry Christie's delivery of the budget communication would be clouded by the "sideshows" that have surfaced over the weekend.
Turnquest was referring to rumors that China Construction America (CCA) could possibly be the new developer for the bankrupt Baha Mar project. Christie promised to address the Baha Mar situation today in the House of Assembly.
Turnquest told Guardian Business yesterday that Christie's address would be "predictable" and "clouded," suggesting that he was already aware of what Christie would talk about. He said that he hopes to hear about what the Christie Administration has done to improve unemployment, tourism growth, and the financial services sector.
"All these issues are converging at the same time for that very purpose, to distract from the dismal performance of the government over the last year. Yes, I think to some extent that these sideshows will have a distracting affect on the budget presentation," said Turnquest.
"Nonetheless, I believe those of us who are focused would pay close attention to what the government proposes because at the end of the day we recognize that we are going into the election and plenty of promises have been made and plenty glossing over the many pitfalls and challenges ahead of us," said Turnquest.
"We are hopeful that there would be some real concrete announcements to developments in the economy, new developments in terms of investments in infrastructure, the tourism sector, and the industrial sector. We would like to hear something about the financial services sector on how we are going to shore that up because we have been suffering losses quite a while now," said Turnquest
According to Turnquest, Christie has a list of repetitive topics that he is expected to talk about.
"It will be all about Baha Mar, new negotiations on the Hawksbill Creek Agreement (HCA), the proposed cruise port in East Grand Bahama, Four Seasons in Eleuthera, and how Resort World has transformed Bimini," said Turnquest.
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