Former Prime Minister Owen Arthur has described as “madness” Government’s decision to pump more money into Four Seasons while leaving the neighbouring Cave Hill Campus bereft of funds.
Stating that a “university township” in Barbados could be a major force for economic revival, Arthur said the University of the West Indies (UWI)?Cave Hill Campus might already be “the single largest generator of foreign exchange of any single enterprise in this country”, and therefore the same way that university townships could generate employment and income in other countries, Barbados could develop the Cave Hill-Warrens corridor as an integrated township linking financial services, commerce, tourism and education.
“It is of such vast potential that if we have to create a higher education levy to assure the future of tertiary education, I would be the first to support it,” he told the audience at Cricket Legends in the first Independence lecture hosted by the School of Politics on Sunday.
“It has to be the perfect metaphor for the present madness taking place in the country that the Minister of Finance has already pumped $120 million into the Four Seasons project and is looking for more to pump, while on the other side of the road he is leaving the UWI Cave Hill bereft of funds . . . . Both institutions are in the minister’s constituency,” Arthur said.
