NASSAU, BAHAMAS — A row erupted in Parliament after Pineridge MP Frederick McAlpine accused the Minnis administration of terminating over 2,500 employees as Minister of the Public Service and the National Insurance Board Brensil Rolle insisted “that is totally untrue”.
Rolle said McAlpine appeared to be “carrying the bucket, I believe, for the PLP”, an assertion McAlpine took exception to.
During the budget debate, the minister said: “The previous administration handed out hundreds of contracts, mere months before [the] election, selling dreams and giving temporary solutions to persons seeking meaningful employment.
“They claimed to ‘believe in Bahamians’, but only played around to make it look like they were performing.
“After we came into power, they spun the narrative that this FNM administration sent everybody home.
“As the saying goes, numbers never lie.”
On a point of order, McAlpine said he believed the FNM was responsible for the termination of 2,500 jobs.
He attempted to table a January 30, 2018, publication by The Tribune titled ‘Termination of 2,500 from the civil service a breach of union agreements’.
McAlpine said Rolle was being misleading in claiming the Minnis administration did not lay people off.
He adopted the article.
Chiming in, St Anne’s MP Brent said McAlpine adopting the report meant he was ‘saying it is his word that these people were terminated”.
“That’s exactly what he is saying,” Symonette continued.
“I just want to make that clear. So, in his opinion, [Pineridge’s] opinion the government fired 2,500 people.”
The rise in unemployment from 9.9 percent in April 2017 to 10.1 percent in November 2016 was attributed in part to a more than six percent — just over 2,500 jobs — reduction in the public service, according to the Department of Statistics.
The issue has frequently been raised in Parliament.
Last June, PLP Senator Fred Mitchell and Attorney General Carl Bethel had a heated exchange after Senator Jobeth Coleby-Davis accused the Minnis administration of firing public servants upon assuming office.
Bethel said the government did all it can to preserve the public service.
Yesterday, Rolle said: “If 100 persons were terminated by the PLP —I’ll take it to another level — and the FNM did absolutely nothing about that, they shouldn’t be in government, shouldn’t be in government. And the member is saying to me is that the PLP stood idly by, did absolutely nothing when 2,000 Bahamians were terminated. Not one demonstration, not one word — what kind of opposition that is Pineridge?”
Exuma and Ragged Island MP Chester Cooper said he recollected the matter of the terminations being repeatedly raised by the opposition and called Rolle disingenuous and misleading.
During his contribution, East Grand Bahama MP Peter Turnquest said he is unaware of anyone who was terminated for “purely political reasons”.
The former minister of finance said that does not mean people were not let go, but this was either for cause or because certain programs came to an end.
McAlpine had raised the issue earlier in the budget debate, adopting a publication in The Tribune article, which indicated that 2,500 civil servants were terminated under the Free National Movement.
The MP noted that he did not indicate anyone was terminated for political reasons, but simply that “they were terminated”.
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