Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) Chairman Bradley Roberts has called Free National Movement (FNM) Leader Dr. Hubert Minnis and his party “hypocrites and full of double talk.”
Less than a week after heavy rain caused extensive flooding through several parts of New Providence, the FNM leader criticised the PLP Government on its slow response to the national disaster.
However, the PLP chairman believes Dr. Minnis and the FNM should be the last ones to point fingers as they themselves had short-comings when it came to unexpected weather issues during their tenure as government.
In a press statement on Friday, Mr. Roberts said, “For those with short memories like Dr. Minnis, I remind all and sundry that it was none other than Dr. Hubert Minnis, a Cabinet Minister in the FNM Government, who knew that the Grand Bahama Port Authority (GBPA) had discontinued weather monitoring in Grand Bahama as early as December 2009, but could not see his way to open a Met Office in Grand Bahama to protect the health and safety of residents of the Northern Bahamas.
Pleas from the then Opposition fell on deaf ears.”
“This willful negligence contributed to extensive property damage and the needless loss of life when a tornado struck Grand Bahama on the fateful morning of the 29th of March 2010 at around 11:20 a.m.”
“Reports later revealed that the Container Port received word of the tornado at around 11:17 a.m. just three minutes before the storm made land fall at around 11:20 a.m.”
He went on to further criticise the FNM leader, saying “Minnis did not drop the ball in that case. He never held the ball or accepted responsibility for the safety and welfare of the people of Freeport and even if he did, he did not find his voice to speak up for those people.”
“Minnis was not slow to act on behalf of the people of Grand Bahama, he did not act all to their eventual peril.”
Mr. Roberts said the FNM added ‘insult to injury’ in May 2012 when they left office without fixing the problem.
In fact, he said it was the current government that saw to it that a Met Office be opened in Grand Bahama as soon as it took office.
The chairman bashed the FNM leader by saying Dr. Minnis was “dead wrong” in suggesting the Met Office did not issue warnings in time.
“The record clearly showed that both the Met Dept. and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) communicated storm warnings to the media in a timely manner and often,” he said.
“It is regrettable however, that some media outlets did not report the weather alerts from the Met Office and NEMA with the same level of importance and urgency as they report storm warnings and severe weather systems during the hurricane season. This, in the view of the PLP, is an improvement opportunity going forward.”
