Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley has criticised the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) for giving Barbadians little time to analyse its manifesto.
On Friday night, prior to the DLP manifesto launch last night, Mottley took out a copy of the document stating: “We [Barbados Labour Party] gave you a manifesto with 11 days so that you could study it, you could lick it up, tear it, analyse it, do what you want with it because you need to know what your Government is talking about. Ralph Thorne hears the word transparency, but cannot properly put before this country a document that spells out in detail and to give you enough time to read it, to question it, to digest it, to go on the call-in programme and talk about it.”
Mottley was part of the BLP’s line-up for a Deacons Farm, St Michael meeting in support of its candidate Neil Rowe, who is contesting the constituency of St Michael North West.
Thorne, she said, was either taking the electorate for granted “or he doesn’t want you to see how shallow his recommendations are or how unaffordable they are because the easiest thing to do is to get up here and say that I going to reduce VAT to 15 per cent”.
“But the only body who benefits when VAT is reduced is not going to be you the consumer, it is not going to be the Government that loses the revenue, it is going to be the business persons because hardly ever do prices come back down when they go up,” Mottley stated.
She said in 2018 when the BLP captured office, the next year after discussion, rather than reduce VAT, they increased the reverse tax credit and recently proposed for pensioners, disabled special grants and a cost of living payment.
She pointed to the photos in the DLP’s manifesto, questioning whether the people were still supporting the party and made an observation about Thorne’s pose while asking if the party was desperate to use people who have said they don’t want anything more to do with the party.
“I not going to bother with a lot of words because the truth is that it is a lot of nothing because he can’t afford to do half the things that he doing in here.
“Well, I say to you tonight, look at it here because at the end of the day, you ain’t missing nothing,” the Prime Minister said.
In relation to comparisons made between the BLP manifesto pledges and the Jamaica Labour Party’s, Mottley said there was no relationship at the political level but she “gets on with Prime Minister Holness and his cabinet”. The BLP’s sister party was the People’s National Party, she stated, while accusing Thorne of having the JLP advising him. ( AC)
