Patrick Faber Has His Take on the National Debt

Patrick Faber

Like with most things political, facts depend on who’s doing the talking. Earlier in the newscast, you heard Fort George Area Rep, Said Musa, say the P.U.P. did well where debt is concerned and that it is the U.D.P. which has taken it to unsustainable levels. But Collet Area Representative, Patrick Faber, got up to say the exact opposite.

Patrick Faber, Area Representative, Collet

“The national debt, his figure is one point seven billion and that is a downright lie. I don’t know where he gets that figure. The figure that my colleague used, the two point two billion, is the accurate figure. That is what the national debt was, he said, at the end of the P.U.P. reign in 2008. Well Mister Speaker in 1998 when they took over the administration, on the first page of their manifesto for that election, they said—and you can check the words verbatim—the U.D.P. government has left this country with a whopping—that’s the word they used—with a whopping debt of five hundred and sixty-seven million dollars, you know. Now from 1981 to 1998, all that was racked up was five hundred and sixty-odd million dollars. That is half, fifty percent, two out of four, two quarters of a billion; billion with a B. And by the time the P.U.P. left office in 2008, ten years later, the national debt was at two point two billion dollars. Within ten years, they managed to rake up the debt by one point seven billion dollars, billion with a B again. And in the eight years of the U.D.P. administration, if we are to listen to the figure of two point seven billion where the debt is now, we have gone up another half a billion, five hundred million dollars. So noh make dehn trick unu…he; I noh know weh di go on with this bally.”