UBP questions PLP spending promises
Date Posted: Monday, December 17, 2007Author: Bermuda Network News
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The UBP has called on the PLP to explain how it will pay for its election promises.
Grant Gibbons, UBP candidate for Paget East , said the PLP’s policies, including free public transport, free daycare and a free college education for all Bermudians, would result in $160 million of extra spending.
He said: "The PLP’s reckless splurge of spending promises could cost the Bermudian tax-payer an extra $160 million - and Dr Brown and his colleagues are refusing to tell us how they will pay for them.
"These extravagant promises have been plucked out of thin air to win votes and the PLP are fully aware that they cannot deliver on them without a huge rise in tax bills."
He added: “That means the PLP is promising to increase spending by almost 500 per cent just to win an election. That doesn’t even include multi-million dollar capital projects. It’s desperate, it is dishonest and it goes to an issue at the heart of this election: whether you can trust the PLP to do what they say.”
Dr Gibbons said FutureCare would cost $64 million per year with free public transport costing $9 million.
Free day care for all Bermudian children would amount to $33.5 million per year and free Bermuda College tuition would cost $3.35 million per year.
The 500 interest-free loans for first time buyers would cost $25 million while the clean-up of Morgan’s Point is estimated at $25 million.