INDIFFERENCE AND SURVIVAL at all costs dominate how Barbados is now governed, says Opposition Leader Mia Mottley.
And she contends this continues to be seen in the manner Prime Minister Freundel Stuart and his administration responds to issues confronting them.
The most recent example of this, said Mottley, the leader of the Barbados Labour Party (BLP), is the handling of the High Court judgment involving the Speaker of the House of Assembly, Michael Carrington, in which he was ordered to pay his physical challenged client money owed from a transaction some years ago.
Speaking at a mass meeting at 1st Avenue Richmond Gap, St Michael on Sunday night, Mottley said the right and decent thing for Carrington to do was to recuse himself while the matter was being investigated by the Committee of Privileges in Parliament.
She said that Stuart had come out in support of Carrington continuing as Speaker, even though the matter was under investigation within Parliament, was unacceptable. And this was even moreso when one considers those who drafted the rules and standing orders of Parliament never contemplated anybody other than the Speaker should be chairing the Committee of Privileges. That was done because they never believed that a Speaker would become the subject before such a committee.
She stressed these reasons contribute to why the BLP feels as a matter of principle Carrington should step aside at this time. That is why too, they will not be sitting in the House as long as he is presiding.
“I know that the people of this country regardless of age, class, job all know that right is right and wrong is wrong . . . because they can be no reason for not handing over a man his money for sale of a piece of land when you receive it,” said Mottley.
“What we have is survival at all costs by a Prime Minister who is indifferent and a bad minded Government,” she added, noting that Barbadians understand bad minded to mean people who don’t care anything about you; people who are studying themselves and not studying anyone else.
Mottley said because Barbados was now ruled by these tenets, this country was lurching from crisis to crisis. It is why too, Stuart had not dealt with Dr David Estwick’s outbursts, Dr Dennis Lowe’s handling of the retrenchment of the National Conservation Commission workers and Ronald Jones comments about cracking heads and shooting people.
“The Prime Minister can’t touch a man because he puts his party before country,” declared Mottley, citing the slim majority in Parliament is the reason for this lame duck approach.
She concluded: “A leader must understand the pain of his people or her people. A leader must have the vision where they want to take them. A leader must have the courage to act.
“This country is in deep, deep trouble but it need not be so because what this country needs more than anything else is good leadership and hope.
“I am not asking you to be optimistic because optimistic is passive, optimistic is just to believe that things will get better. I want you to have hope because hope means that we together can make it better.”
Email: sankaprice@nationnews.com
