Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, K. Peter Turnquest’s optimism that The Bahamas would be delisted, has turned into certainty.

“We rose to the occasion, we’ve written, we’ve visited and we’ve gotten good news that we will be removed from that listing.”

The minister made the very important announcement in his address to Free National Movement supporters  at an open house on Thursday, in celebration of the Minnis Administrations’ first year in office.

Mr.Turnquest also admonished that his ministry is indeed progressing, despite what the naysayers may have said.

“Our ratings have been stabilized, we’ve seen where today we have already increased our revenue by $25 million dollars.

“We reduced our net recurrent spending by $67 million dollars, and we’ve reduced the GFS deficit by $92.3 million dollars. We’re making progress.”

However, Mr. Turnquest said there’s much to be done to get the country’s finances back in order.

“We have to bring discipline, we have to be focused, we have to bring accountability, and we have to be transparent.

“We have to ensure that those expenditures that we engage in on behalf of the Bahamian people will bring value to the Bahamian people,” Mr. Turnquest said.

“We don’t have any money to waste. Our debt trajectory is still on an upward path. We cannot sustain it; it must start to reverse.

“So we have a plan, we have planned to reduce this deficit. The debt in the first instance, we want to bring that debt down from a number that is approaching $8 billion dollars, we want to bring that down, its 57 per cent of GDP, we want to bring it down to 50 per cent,” said the Minister of Finance.