Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) Chairman, Fred Mitchell is calling on the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Peter Turnquest to publicly apologize for misleading the Bahamian people  regarding the $42 million Hurricane Relief funds that Mr. Turnquest said the Free National Movement (FNM) administration could not trace.

“He [Mr. Turnquest] needs to apologize to the House [of Assembly] for misleading the House and to the Bahamian public,” Mr. Mitchell said.

The PLP Senator alluded to the fact that DPM Turnquest admitted that monies that he [Turnquest] had previously said was ‘missing’ or that the Minnis administration could not find was  in fact, in the  consolidated fund where the former administration said it was.

Mr. Mitchell explained that the finance minister, after being pressed by the media asked the reporters if he was “speaking Greek”, when they asked him if there was still an ongoing investigation in the alleged missing $42 million. It’s  right in the consolidated funds where they said it was’.

“The ‘they’ that he was referring to was the Progressive Liberal Party and that’s a fact. We said it wasn’t lost.  He said that we diverted the money away from its purpose to pay for our campaign.

“That turned out to be a gross untruth;  all along the money was right there,” Mr. Mitchell said in the video on his website.

Mr. Mitchell further stated that what Mr. Turnquest  stated in the House of Assembly during his contribution to the budget “is not something the Minister of Finance should be saying”.

Upon introducing the new budget to Parliament in May of this year, Mr. Turnquest said the new government upon coming to office met “the cupboard bare.”  This statement  along with  the fact that there was no agreement on the exact amount of  the fiscal deficit between the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank of the Bahamas caused confusion in the financial sector.