BARBADOS’ STOCK of foreign reserves and the private sectors’ continued access to imported goods are the only things keeping the island out of the hands of the International Monetary Fund.
According to economist Clyde Mascoll, Barbados is experiencing “a fiscal crisis of extraordinary magnitude” and the recent Budget did not address the central problem of expenditure.
Speaking last Thursday at the Barbados Association of Journalists’ Clennel Wickham Panel Discussion at the Grande Salle of the Central Bank of Barbados on the topic Is Taxing Barbadians More The Best Option? Mascoll said taxation was not the solution.
The Opposition spokesman on the economy noted that Government was seeking to increase revenue instead of making the hard decision to cut expenditure.
“The key to not taxing Barbadians more is for Government to live within its means and the Government has not done that within the last couple of years,” he said, noting that this trend started before 2008 but had accelerated.
“Taxing us and telling us that that’s the solution is not true in my judgment. Barbados will be under tremendous economic strain in the coming year,” Mascoll said.
When pressed to say whether he would send home public servants as a way of cutting spending, the former Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance suggested examining transfers and subsidies to statutory corporations but did not commit to job cuts.
He said that Government should go through each and every entity and do an analysis to “understand why we have spent the way we have spent in the last couple of years and then you make decisions to adjust that,” he said. (NB)
