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OBA should not dismiss UBP positives

Former premier: Sir Henry Tucker

Dear Sir,

The news is reporting on the One Bermuda Alliance cutting all ties with the United Bermuda Party. Need to change the image.

The old UBP’s first premier and one of our national heroes, Sir Henry Tucker, had such stalwarts as C.V. “Jim” Woolridge, the best tourism minister the country has ever seen, and many others too numerous to mention.

It is interesting that in 1998, the government of the day — the UBP — had a surplus of some $1,2 million. Has the present OBA forgotten all about that?

I know that when the reformed OBA regained government in 2012, there was an excess of $2 billion in debt because of the mismanagement of the Progressive Labour Party government. It would be interesting to know what is the amount of the present debt.

The OBA government made a lot of progress through fiscal responsibility, and we all knew it would take some 15 to 20 years to recover. However, the electorate did see things differently and they had only five years.

I do wonder where the money is coming from to finance two new bridges, to pay the $1.2 million for MRI scans and all of these other grandiose plans. I was taught that you cannot spend what you do not have, but it appears that the MPs like their lifestyle and have no intention of cutting back on anything — just spend, spend, spend, and because tomorrow never comes, we do not have to think about it.

In the meantime, the infrastructure suffers and there are potholes in the roads that do not need a large amount of money to fix.

However, in this Trumpian era, this will be considered fake news and an alternative truth.

ANTONY SIESE

Paget