Former Free National Movement Cabinet Minister Former Attorney General Janet Bostwick lambasted the Christie Administration for not following through on its promise to decrease taxation.

“Instead they brought Value Added Tax. They got $800 million of our money and can’t tell what they did with it. They said that VAT money would be used to decrease the national debt. Look how much the national debt has increased with them,” said Mrs. Bostwick.

“We have a national debt that none of us have ever dreamt would happen in this country,” she said.

Mrs. Bostwick, who also once served as the representative for the Yamacraw Constituency, further charged that the government’s overall performance has had damning effects.

“I was at the hospital some months ago, and I was speaking to a lady who had a daughter who was a doctor. She was telling me that her daughter was migrating to Canada; and that on the same plane when her daughter left there were 42 other qualified Bahamians who were relocating to Canada,” Mrs. Bostwick said.

“We are getting the brain drain. We cannot afford it. The Bahamas is no longer for Bahamians. Bahamians have to look elsewhere. That is because you have this no good, inept, corrupt PLP Government, and it’s time for them to go,” she lamented.

During the PLP’s national convention in November, State Minister for Finance Michael Halkitis sought to justify the expenditure of VAT, but he came under much criticism as a result.

The Opposition expressed disgust after Mr. Halkitis said the VAT money had been used to implement educational and social programmes; for which the government had previously borrowed money from the Inter American Development Bank (IDB). Mrs. Bostwick was one of the keynote speakers at the FNM’s regional candidate launch in Winton last week.

Representing the party in that district are Fox Hill Candidate Shonel Ferguson; Dr. Duane Sands for Elizabeth; Brent Symonette for St. Anne’s; Elsworth Johnson for Yamacraw and Lanisha Rolle for Sea Breeze.