Constituency councils can work – but not with ministers of Government running them.
Reverend Ferdinand Nicholls made this point Sunday during a church service on the final day of the Barbados Labour Party’s 73rd Annual Conference at the Grantley Adams Memorial School in St Joseph.
“[Constituency] Councils can work but will best function when they’re under the leadership of the people, not the minister,” the House of Freedom representative told the gathering.
He suggested that the councils should be accountable and should fall under the oversight of the financial management of Government.
In a wide-ranging sermon, Nicholls spoke out against partisan politics and in favour of “the politics of inclusion”.
“. . . What is desperately needed is someone who will inspire this country to a place where the people all have the same mind, a mind to produce, a mind to work,” he said.
“It demands full hands on deck. The politics of partisanship has no place either in the current or future existence of this country. Barbados does not belong to the Democratic Labour Party. Barbados does not belong to the Barbados Labour Party. It belongs to the Lord.”
According to Nicholls, Barbados must make full use of its best brains and best people, men and women excelling not necessarily in academia “but in values, morals and strong belief systems”.
He was critical of some religious leaders. “Let us commit to no more religious games,” he said. “I apologise for the behaviour and actions of some of my fellow ministers . . . . If I had the ways and means some of them won’t be in the pulpit.”
