FORMER MINISTER OF SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION HAMILTON LASHLEY thinks it is time to take the PetroCaribe deal being offered by Venezuela as a means of getting Barbados out of its current economic energy crisis.
Lashley, at the ceremony to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the civic-military union in Venezuela for democracy, held at the Venezuelan Embassy in Hastings yesterday, said that because of the negative impact by the drawn-out international recession, it was time that all the Caribbean, specifically those in the English Caribbean, moved towards an alternative energy solution.
Signing on to the deal would forge linkages with Venezuela and help the people of the Caribbean, he said, adding that countries that had signed on to the PetroCaribe agreement had not felt any backlash.
David Denny, general secretary of the Caribbean Movement for Peace and Integration, said that the PetroCaribe agreement was broader than just the exchange of finances and fuel because it related to development in terms of culture, sports and social development through the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America (ALBA). (LK)
Here, CUBAN AMBASSADOR TO BARBADOS, Lisette Perez-Perez and Venezuelan Ambassador Jose Gomez Febres (second right) looking at the wreath placed at the bust of Venezuelan national hero Simón Bolivar, with Member of Parliament Hamilton Lashley (left) and David Denny (right), general secretary of the Caribbean Movement for Peace and Integration.
