Finance minister Bob Richards hit out at the Opposition’s economic track record at a press conference yesterday.

He slammed the Progressive Labour Party for overspending its annual budget for five consecutive years, to the tune of $418 million, comparing it with how the One Bermuda Alliance underspent by $89 million during its first four years in power.

He blamed overruns on major capital projects — examples, he said, of the PLP “missing their targets” — for much of the overspending and said it was Bermudians who were ultimately “required to pay because the PLP did not properly manage” those projects.

Mr Richards, OBA candidate for Devonshire East, also noted that the Auditor-General gave five consecutive qualified audits on the PLP Government’s financial statements, compared to four consecutive unqualified audits for the OBA.

“Now a qualified audit is a bad thing,” he said. “An unqualified audit is a good thing. That’s five audits that the Auditor could not certify that the PLP Government’s financial statements presented a true and fair picture of their management of the people’s money.

“And, in contrast, that’s four straight audits for the OBA Government on our financial statements, which the Auditor gave her stamp of approval.”

Mr Richards claimed the Opposition’s record was one of “skyrocketing deficits to unprecedented debt levels, versus the OBA’s work to narrow the deficit each year with the aim of balancing the budget in the end”.

He added: “Against this backdrop, there are some very questionable positions the PLP has taken in their platform, which do nothing to assure the bad practices of the past are not going to be repeated in the future if they were to become government.

“A case in point is the Bermuda Fund, which is to use pensioners’ money to fund new Bermuda business ventures which are, by definition, high-risk. We will not do that.

“[Opposition leader] Mr [David] Burt’s plan to broaden the tax base by taxing passive income of Bermudians — that would be things like income from investments, savings, and most crucially, rental income. Income that many Bermudians rely upon to pay down their mortgages. This plan amounts to essentially, income tax. We will not do that. It is not part of our Budget strategy, announced in the spring.”

He claimed the PLP had failed to outline how it would balance the country’s books by 2019 and the only way would be to follow the OBA’s plan.

“I would ask Bermuda, given the PLP’s track record and [the] big spending plans they have in their platform, can you believe them? Can you take this one sentence insertion in their platform and without any explanation [of] how they would do it ... actually believe them?

“Saying you will balance the budget and actually doing it are two very different things. We are not just saying we will do it in the OBA; we are in the process of doing it right now.”

In a release issued on Tuesday night, the PLP dismissed Mr Richards’ comments as distraction attempts amid the OBA’s “losing campaign for re-election”.

“It’s no wonder they keep resorting to lies and scare tactics instead of standing in front of the people and debating issues that matter,” the statement said.

“Issues like the loss of 2,000 jobs, pathways to status, and the increases in the cost of living that are plaguing our working families.”

The PLP has said tax reform aimed at the privileged will be a key priority if it wins the election, along with a “job-creating” Bermuda Fund, an economic diversification unit and a payroll tax exemption for any Bermudian company that brings previously outsourced jobs back to the island.

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