BLP legacy: built nine new sports pavilions and started construction of four more, provided ten new multi-purpose hard courts and resurfaced ten others along with six new playing fields and provided high quality lighting at sports facilities in 12 communities in eight parishes; and provided for Associate and Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees through the Barbados Community College, while completing the drafting of a Cultural Industries Development Bill.
As the next General Election draws inescapably closer, Barbadians are witnessing an increasingly desperate Democratic Labour Party Government jumping from pillar to post, frantically trying to lengthen its laughably inadequate list of accomplishments comprising Constituency Councils and free summer camps and bus fares for schoolchildren compiled after nearly five years in power.
But even more disturbing than the paucity of the DLP’s track record has been the brazen manner in which in everything it seeks to do, no matter how noble it might appear on the surface, the activity is deeply rooted in the most unseemly type of partisan political crassness.
Now the Dems have exceeded even their most contemptible standards employed in feeding the summer camps by giving new meaning to sharing the “fatted calf” as it relates to the so-called David Thompson Memorial Constituency Council Football competition.
For only a party endowed with a special kind of insensitivity could, in the midst of widespread economic deprivation, decide to take $600 000 of taxpayers’ money approved by Parliament to seemingly finance the work of the councils, that the DLP would have us believe is so crucial to community improvement, and spend it on a political football competition intended to perpetuate the name of Thompson, a task far easier than trying to rescue his image so heavily tarnished by the sordid CLICO affair.
Meanwhile, Leader of the Opposition Owen Arthur, has revealed how a new BLP Government would radically improve the financial and career prospects of young Barbadians by fashioning an Economy For Youths that would permit them to make a living from the areas where they show particular talents and keenness, sports and the creative industries sector.
Promising a full presentation on the Economy For Youths in the BLP’s coming manifesto, the eminent former Prime Minister and Minister of Finance praised the foresight of his colleague Mia Mottley for her role in creating the privately funded LIME Pelican Football Challenge, the first shot at establishing professional football in Barbados.
Ronald Jones’ dismal failure with football also reflects the DLP’s inability, in nearly five years, to bring into effect the Cultural Industries Development Bill left by the BLP. On the other hand, the increasing number of policy alternatives being announced by Arthur clearly shows the BLP’s readiness to put to work its acknowledged leadership, economic and governance talents to return Barbados to its accustomed prosperity and progress.
Pathetic DLP scare tactics will not stop people from realizing in their pockets and bellies that they are much worse off under the DLP.
• Beresford Leon Padmore is a pseudonym for the Barbados Labour Party.