THE SUGGESTION BY a local economist that Barbados lost more than $20 million during a recent two-day shutdown has drawn the criticism of a Government minister.
In fact, Minister of Industry, International Business, Commerce and Small Business Development, Donville Inniss, has described the submission by economist Jeremy Stephen (below) that the island lost $22 million in productivity as “irrelevant”. 
Inniss, who was overseas when the passing of Tropical Storm Matthew forced an almost 48-hour national shutdown last week, said there was nothing which could have been done to prevent the situation.
“Obviously, in any threat of a natural disaster the country cannot expect to have the same level of productivity, and no one ought to expect that. So I don’t see the relevance of . . . placing a dollar value on the loss of economic activity because we had no choice.” (RB)
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