Opposition Leader Marc Bean has accused Bob Richards, the Finance Minister, of making a “bad bet” by borrowing $800 million for the Island on an expectation of rising interest rates.

Those loans were approved by Parliament in 2013, with Mr Richards then telling MPs that instead of borrowing on “a year-to-year basis in the rising interest rate market”, the Island would be locked in to three years of low interest rates.

Mr Richards responded hotly this evening in the House, saying Mr Bean showed “shallow knowledge” of the subject — and telling MPs that the borrowing had been neither a bet nor a bet on interest rates.

Mr Richards called the Opposition Leader’s charge “patently untrue, and uninformed as well”.

Rising to speak during the debate over the Progressive Labour Party’s Reply to the Budget, Mr Bean told the House he felt it necessary to elevate the discourse.

While Government MPs have repeatedly invoked the need to rein in Bermuda’s debt and deficit, Mr Bean reiterated the Opposition’s charge of a “trust deficit” dogging the One Bermuda Alliance in the eyes of the public.

Mr Bean also accused Government’s supporters of imposing a “vile narrative” that civil service’s workers were lazy and unwelcome in the private sector, even as there were calls for the public sector be cut.

“It’s an attitude problem and some would say that it’s racist,” Mr Bean said. “OBA, talk to your people and get them to change their attitude.”