Opposition Leader: ‘Premier’s About Turn on Tourism & Economic Development’

It is unfortunate that the Premier chose not to show empathy to Bermudians suffering without jobs and facing a bleak future by missing the opportunity to reduce the size of the Cabinet payroll.

The appointment of Mr Tyrrell, in particular, was unnecessary as the Transport Ministry duties could have been given to an existing Minister such as Wayne Furbert whose workload can hardly be strenuous. With the appointment of Jason Hayward, Lovitta Foggo’s Ministry also lost a lot of its responsibilities.

When the PLP won the 2017 election, Jamahl Simmons was made Minister of Tourism and Economic Development. When he was made Minister without Portfolio, Zane DeSilva became Minister for Tourism and Transport. Economic development appeared to fade into the background.

The Premier recently resurrected economic development and, by now adding tourism to his brief, he has effectively gone full circle by recreating a Tourism and Economic Development Ministry.

It is now three years since the PLP won the election. We are now seeing our second Tourism and Economic Development Minister. We have also had three people responsible for gaming and three people responsible for immigration. We have also seen two Finance Ministers.

To me, these are clear signs that there is no direction within Government and no idea about how to get things done and how to fix our economy. As Nero fiddled, so is our Premier.