OPPOSITION LEADER MIA MOTTLEY has promised that when she addresses the Chamber of Commerce tomorrow she will be providing a vision to help Barbados get out of some of its economic problems.
Addressing the St Michael North East branch of the Barbados Labour Party at the Lawrence T. Gay Primary School, Mottley said she would not make “promises in the sky” but would provide a vision for Barbados as well as the kind of decisions and debates in which the country should be engaged.
Mottley said: “One of the questions we will have to answer: Do we not now need a National Health Insurance Programme to help ease the cost of health care that has been skyrocketing? Now I would never be part of anything that causes students to have to pay up front before going to the Cave Hill Campus. [But] If we are having 50 lawyers graduating each year don’t you think they should either pay back some of the taxpayers’ money spent on them or give the country a hundred hours of their time?”
Offering suggestions she considered could energise the foreign exchange earning sectors of the economy, Mottley said Government should get the offshore energy sector going; bring back some investments into the tourism sector and get the international business sector going.
She bemoaned the fact that the office which was scheduled to be opened in Hong Kong in February 2008 was closed by the David Thompson administration shortly after assuming office in January 2008.
Mottley further lamented the fact that after negotiating with the London Court of Arbitration to have its first off-shore location in Barbados, the Thompson administration scrapped the plans. (WG)
