Opposition Leader Grant Gibbons yesterday derided Government?s claim to have crafted a ?social agenda? Budget, saying that it was not supported by the numbers.

And the Premier?s stated focus on ?the social agenda? was tantamount to an admission of failure to deliver after five years in power, the Opposition Leader said in his formal Reply to the Budget Statement.

Dr. Gibbons also called on Government to start planning on replacing the hospital, cleaning up the baselands and replacing the Causeway.

?We?ve heard that the past comes back to haunt us, and the spectre hovering over the 2004/2005 budget is the continuing failure of the PLP government to deliver what it promised in 1998,? he said.

?In a fantasy world, a new Finance Minister and a new PLP administration could put the past behind them, make a fresh start and move on. But when a government takes responsibility for financial decisions ? as the Progressive Labour Party did in 1998 ? the consequences of failure stick. And this budget is essentially a reaction to the consequences of inaction, waste and mismanagement. It?s an acknowledgement of what?s gone wrong under the PLP government for the past five years.

?It?s haunted by a record of non-performance.?

Just $2.5 million, or 15 percent, of $16.3 million in new money is going toward new social programmes, while two thirds of $35.4 million in increased spending is being swallowed in wages and salaries, Dr. Gibbons noted.

He pointed out that the new money going to social spending did not even amount to 60 percent of the travel budget for the coming fiscal year.

Finance Minister Paula Cox had dipped into the $11 million Government received from the bases handover deal, he said, because she knew that $2.5 million would not be enough to convince the public that Government had a social agenda.

?The $11 million was the estimate to replace Longbird Bridge, and it absolved the US government of their responsibility to maintain the bridge until 2039,? he said.

?This money should rightly have been considered a capital contribution, because all the engineering reports conducted by both governments concluded that the bridge had come to the end of its useful life and should be replaced.?

Despite underestimate payroll tax receipts for the last five years and collecting some $78 million more than expected, Government was short on new money to spend on social programmes because of excessive wage settlements, the ?mismanagement? of the tourism sector and overall waste and mismanagement.

?With proper estimating that money should have gone stayed with the taxpayer and gone toward savings, mortgages or college education,? he said.

?But since the PLP Government collected it, why didn?t they spend it on something that produced results? Instead, the $78 million has gone into oversized cars for Ministers, excessive travel and the belly of the beast of government bureaucracy, never to be seen again.?

Dr. Gibbons said that every PLP Budget over the last five years had claimed to be socially focused.

?If two PLP governments couldn?t get it right over the last five years, why should we believe them when they say they can do it now?? he asked.

?This budget is not a blueprint for a stable and prosperous future; it?s a reaction to the mistakes of the past.?

He then turned to the Berkeley construction project, calling it ?a towering symbol of gross waste and mismanagement?.

?The scale of waste and mismanagement at the Berkeley site is something we have never before seen in Bermuda?s history,? he said. His speech included a timeline of events on the Berkeley project outlining a history of contradictory statements by the then Works Minister Alex Scott.

?I don?t want to say this too loudly, in case somebody in Washington hears. But it appears that Bermuda is harbouring a weapon of mass deception,? Dr. Gibbons said.

He reminded colleagues that Government had finally admitted that the project was going to cost over $100 million, up from the original estimate of $71.2 million, and that Police was still looking into the missing $700,000 for the performance bond on the project.

?So much for caring about our youth. So much for having a social agenda. The Premier and the Cabinet have lost all credibility over this issue and have abused the trust of the people of Bermuda,? he continued.

On housing he hammered home the UBP?s contention that there has been ?no planning, no progress? and that none of the Government?s initiatives had ?made a dent in the housing crisis.?

But, he said, Government was planning to ?displace St. George?s people to build homes that cost $600,000 to $800,000 and to turn the community at Prospect upside down with additional low cost housing. And the Government seems willing to continue to make the Bermuda Housing Corporation responsible for solving Bermuda?s housing problems.?

He said: ?The highlight of the PLP Government?s record on housing was the mother of all Bermudian scandals at the Bermuda Housing Corporation, a national disgrace initially denied by the PLP government as they desperately tried to sweep it under the carpet.

?The original mission of the BHC was lost in a miasma of golden paintbrushes and missing public funds.?

He said while Government had given seniors a nine percent pensions increase, that money was coming from the one off payment from the bases deal as well as pension fund reserves, and there had been no indication of how it will be funded in coming years.

He also criticised what he said was a lack of long term planning for seniors, health care, pensions and housing.

He outlined the UBP?s proposals on housing presented during last year?s General Election and said that a bond could be issued by Government to provide money to help Bermudians finance their first homes.

Dr, Gibbons added that Bermuda?s ?economic fundamentals? had deteriorated since the PLP came into power ? 1,000 jobs had been lost, inflation rates were double that of the US and Canada and the balance of payments was in such bad shape that exchange controls may be necessary.

Bermudians were paying $120 million more in taxes than they did in 1998, the government payroll was 31 percent higher and total government spending had increased at double the rate of inflation, he continued.

Tourists were spending $100 million less a year than they did in 1998, and there had been a 50 percent drop in the number of new international business registrations.

The Opposition Leader added that economic growth had been fuelled by the September 11 attacks on the United States and Hurricane Fabian.

Government should be looking at spending money on replacing the Causeway, the hospital and cleaning up the toxic waste from the former baselands.

?These three expensive projects are hanging over Bermuda like a collective sword of Damacles,? he said.

?With the number of large capital projects already allocated in this budget, the United Bermuda Party believes we must plan now to prevent massive future debt and serious economic hardship down the line.?