PROGRESSIVE Liberal Party Leader Philip "Brave" Davis accused the Minnis administration of mismanaging its Hurricane Dorian and COVID-19 response.

“There’s no doubt Dorian caused terrible destruction,” he said in the House of Assembly yesterday. “It would have challenged any government. But this government mismanaged Dorian from the start – their effort was bungling, ineffective, embarrassing, disrespectful, heartless.

“And so Grand Bahamians and Abaconians have suffered more, it has cost us more, and the recovery is agonisingly slower.

“Incompetence matters. Here it led to more tragedy, more heartbreak, more anguish. “Who can forget the aftermath of the hurricane, during which this government failed to coordinate humanitarian aid, failed to lift flight restrictions for planes flying in relief supplies, failed to show up where they were needed most? Who can forget Bahamians begging for the government to show their face?”

He criticised the government for not offering free flights on Bahamasair for those who wanted to evacuate storm zones ahead of time, suggesting more lives could have been saved had this been done.

“How many people perished because they did not have the money to fly their family to safety? And if the answer is any number bigger than zero, how do they live with that?

“After the storm, for nearly a week, only private planes were evacuating residents out of Marsh Harbour, a handful of seats at a time. Where was our national airline?

“When they finally showed up, they charged $75 a seat on flights – charging people who had nothing left but the clothes on their back. After a social media storm, they backed off, but they had already shown us their true colours.

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