Craig Cannonier moves to ‘set the record straight’ on Island’s economic situationBy Ceola WilsonRepairs and upgrades to Heritage Wharf almost emptied the public purse this month, Government has claimed.Premier Craig Cannonier said Bermuda had come “close” to not meeting its financial obligations.A Government spokeswoman later explained the Island had almost broken through its statutory borrowing limit.At a press conference on Thursday the Premier told the media it was time for “frank talk about where we are as a Country”.“We have an economy right now, a budget that the OBA as a Government inherited and it’s frightening what’s been happening. Within March, this March, we were close to not being able to pay our bills as a Government.“This should be concerning to the Country; this is something that we inherited. But this Government will walk us through and will be responsible in bringing us out of the situation that we are in.”Asked to elaborate the spokeswoman said: “The Progressive Labour Party had a debt ceiling of $1.45 billion.“One of the first things the new Finance Minister Bob Richards did was to find out what the cash flow status was in order to understand what the breathing room was between the authorised debt ceiling and the amount that was actually owed.”Mr Richards knew the ability to raise the debt ceiling would depend on what was agreed upon in Parliament but thought “it would not be a problem”, the spokeswoman said.“However there were unforecasted and unbudgeted emergency repairs (due to poor workmanship), which had to be made to the Heritage Wharf dock in preparation for the arrival of the cruise ship Breakaway, [which] cost many millions and millions of dollars.“Also, there were upgrades that had to be made to the same dock. Because of that, the Government almost ran out of money. That is, the authorised limit and the debt ceiling had shrunk to almost zero before getting the new debt ceiling passed.“The new debt ceiling legislation was laid on the same Friday that the Opposition replied to the Budget. The following week after the Budget speech was presented, legislation was laid to increase the debt ceiling, allowing the Government to pay its bills. If it had been one week later, the Government would not have been able to pay its bills.”Despite the “frightening” situation, MPs were focused on “schoolyard politics” Mr Cannonier said.“It does disturb me that we are still practising what I would consider to be schoolyard politics where we are misdirecting the public as to what is really going on,” he said.Referring to the poor grade given by the Opposition Progressive Labour Party on the One Bermuda Alliance’s first 100 days as Government, the Premier said it was his intention to “set the record straight”.“The world is passing us by. We are in a global economy competing here and we can no longer be so insular that we’re fussing among ourselves.”