The Opposition’s electoral platform speaks best regarding its proposed Bermuda Fund to lure investment, according to Progressive Labour Party leader David Burt.

Mr Burt accused the One Bermuda Alliance of issuing “untrue” statements about the fund putting pension savings in jeopardy.

Mr Burt was responding after OBA advertisements called attention to changes in the Bermuda Fund proposal, in which references to using pension funds were said to have been “deleted” from the platform.

The PLP leader maintained that previous statements, ranging from Budget and Throne Speech replies to the Opposition’s Vision 2025, had been overridden with the issuance of the party’s latest manifesto.

“It’s not a question of ‘deleted’,” he said. “The platform has replaced what was on our website, which was Vision 2025.”

While he conceded that past statements should be fair game for political debate, Mr Burt insisted that the platform was the most relevant.

Along with Bob Richards, the Minister of Finance, both health minister Jeanne Atherden and home affairs minister Patricia Gordon-Pamplin have criticised dipping into pension funds as high-risk.

Pension funds, Mr Burt said yesterday, are overseen by the Public Funds Investment Committee.

“They are managed in a way which is prudent, and will continue to be managed prudently,” he added.

The Bermuda Fund concept made its debut in the Budget response of 2014, when Mr Burt as Shadow Minister of Finance suggested such a fund could be seeded with 3 per cent of the pension funds under Government control to “allow Bermuda to tap into the investment expertise on-island while providing an additional outlet for our large pension funds to invest more of their monies in Bermuda-based equity investments”.

The proposal was modified for Vision 2025 to reference using “a small portion” of pensions — a mention that was absent in the platform for the General Election.

Budget Replies are written by the Shadow Minister of Finance, Mr Burt said, and ought to be viewed in that context — criticising what he called “a senseless back and forth on minor issues”.

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