OUTSPOKEN radio moderator and retired banker Keith “Tony” Marshall believes the country needs an attitudinal change in order to create more entrepreneurs and to go forward.
During the Democratic Labour Party’s (DLP) last lunchtime lecture series for the year, Marshall said there must be some societal changes in various areas if the country was to prosper.
“What the country obviously needs is to up the ante on service. It needs to up the ante on the national approach to tourism. How many people in this country understand that tourism matters to all of us?
“What I am suggesting to you is that we need an attitudinal restructuring. If we don’t get an attitudinal restructuring, we are not going to make a lot of progress irrespective of what we talk about.
“If you can’t get the (cyclists) to stop riding on the sidewalk, if you can’t get the (drivers of) minibuses to adhere to the highway regulations, if you can’t get the young men in this country to stop wearing their pants below their bottom, how do you expect to change the economy rapidly?
It will not happen,” he insisted.
Marshall said he believed it was time to “look at Singaporing Barbados”. He said it was time people got up and executed and not just talk.
“And some semi-dictator has to stand up and stop looking at votes only . . . . Government has to look at the red tape. You talk about letting people use their savings, but they can’t use it if it takes two years to get an approval,” Marshall argued.
According to the former banker, too many people were seeking to become entrepreneurs but were reluctant to prepare proper business plans for financial institutions, and their research often lacked thoroughness. (MM)
