February 15, 2013Dear Sir,Watching the new One Bermuda Alliance Government in action and then reading all The Royal Gazette articles and the online blog comments makes me wonder if we have our collective heads focused on the biggest issue facing us. Seems to me that with all the scatter action surrounding Mike Fahy and Shawn Crockwell’s attempts to revive business and tourism, your newspaper and the Bermuda public have lost sight of the fact that it’s Bob Richards who has the almost impossible task of righting the results of Progressive Labour Party incompetence and alleged corruption. The PLP was in power for roughly 5,000 days. Giving them the very extreme benefit of the doubt as to what the actual deficit is, let’s call it that magical number ... $1,400,000,000 otherwise known as $1.4 billion. All of that money has to be repaid. Whether you are the Government or John Q Public, when you borrow, you have to pay it back. Now, I’ll agree that if you are the USA you just print more money. Try that here and they’ll be laughing down the goalposts.Let’s just think about that number and let’s remember that the PLP were handed a $200 million surplus when they arrived in power. $1,400,000,000 divided by 5,000 means that the PLP overspent by about $280,000 every single day they were in power. Think about that. Every single day that the PLP was allowed to manage our affairs they spent more than a quarter-million dollars over what they took in. Try that at your house sometime. I mean think about that ... every single day, including weekends, the PLP ‘managed’ your money by spending $280,000 more than they took in that day. I honestly do not think we Bermudians grasp the importance of this. This money has to be repaid and how the hell that’s supposed to happen without some serious suffering is beyond me. If Bob Richards can balance the budget — that means not spending more than you take in — within five years we should replace the birdcage with a statue of him and Pauline. If he can pay that debt down over the next ten years we should rename some part of this country.Personally I believe that the people who put us in this position should never be allowed to manage money ever again. Unfortunately, the devastation caused by the PLP is so bad that the OBA will have to use all it’s resources just to turn this around, let alone fix it. For those who seek retribution or at least a forensic study into how this all happened and where did the money go ... be patient. Your day will come and then you know who had better be far, far away ... maybe in Brazil with his mates!SKY LARKINCity of Hamilton