Members of the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) will celebrate their achievements but also continue to chart the way forward during their upcoming annual conference.
Chairman of the BLP’s 85th annual conference, Wilfred Abrahams, who is also the Minister of Home Affairs, shared those goals during a press conference at the party’s headquarters in Roebuck Street, The City, yesterday.
“The conference’s theme Achieving Against The Odds is predicated on the fact that when we came to Government, we faced what appeared to be an insurmountable challenge. We had issues with our economy and numerous downgrades and nobody wanted to lend us money. We had the obvious issues on the South Coast and the Bridgetown Plant was almost about to collapse. We had issues with foreign exchange reserves, we had no buses, no trucks. While we are not out of the woods entirely, we have made significant strides,” he said.
“We have a lot to be proud of and we want to contextualise it; how far we’ve come what we have left to do and what our plans are to achieve and to take Barbados even further forward.”
The conference runs from Friday to Sunday at Christ Church Foundation School, Church Hill.
There will be a cocktail reception and awards ceremony on Friday at which President of Guyana Dr Irfaan Ali will deliver the feature address.
The business of the party, Abrahams said, would be conducted on Saturday when Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley will address the nation. The conference concludes Sunday with a church service and other activities.
Party chairman The Most Honourable Reginald Farley, who is also President of the Senate, spoke about the significance of the conference, while chief executive officer Senator Patricia Parris said they will also be honouring many party stalwarts and youth.
“We will be recognising 33 stalwarts comprising of one from each of our 30 constituency branches, the Women’s League, League of Young Socialists and the United Kingdom branch. We will also be recognising four persons for their outstanding contributions to sports, two persons who made a contribution to culture and one person will be receiving the environmental award,” Parris said. (TG)
