Opposition Leader Mia Mottley yesterday slammed Government for its decision to send home 3 000 public servants between January and March next year, describing it as the “ultimate betrayal” of the trust and mandate given to the Government in the February general elections.
An emotional Mottley told a hastily-convened media conference in the Opposition office in the West Wing of Parliament: “I am a very sad, sad person. The children of Independence were not supposed to do this to a post-Independent Barbados.”
Her remarks came within hours of the delivery of a Ministerial Statement in the House of Assembly by Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler. It was a highly anticipated austere mini-budget in which he announced thousands of employees from throughout the public sector would be retrenched early next year as part of Government’s efforts to halt the slide in the economy. Sinckler said a worrisome decline in revenues and a likely increase in the deficit had forced the Government to take action.
However, surrounded by a number of Opposition members Mottley argued that the measures were neither a solution to the country’s economic difficulties nor an aid to recovery.
