BLP QEH legacy: refurbished 11 rooms on the A Ward, started the expansion of the Surgical and Medical Intensive Care Units, completed plans for the expansion of the SICU by 12 beds, acquired equipment for a modern cardiovascular suite, received the report of a task force on providing comprehensive cardiovascular services, and established a new angiographic suite.
The roar of approval of the mammoth crowd at last Sunday’s Sayes Court meeting, on hearing Owen Arthur’s public commitment that the BLP will fix the CLICO problem so shamelessly avoided by the DLP Government, would have been matched by a collective sigh of relief by the many thousands of suffering policyholders, investors and their family and friends welcoming the good news.
Now for the first time in many months, these victims could begin to get some of the comfortable sleep that Prime Minister Freundel Stuart boasts he enjoys.
For the CLICO casualties and the wider public clearly remember the several assurances given by the DLP leadership that the insurance company (with which they had very close connections) was sound and well managed, as well as the administration’s promises that they would get all of their money back after the conglomerate collapsed. Having had people believe and trust the Dems, the Government has since repeatedly tried to abandon its responsibility to those upon whom hard times had fallen because of CLICO.
The public has been disgusted by the spectacle of Stuart consistently trying to camouflage his feeble leadership by the superficiality of chunks of classic literary quotations in the pathetic belief that this could substitute for the sound, decisive and visionary leadership he has consistently failed to provide. And CLICO had become a symbol of his abject failure.
The stark contrast between Arthur and Stuart and their parties was most strikingly demonstrated at Sayes Court as the Opposition Leader reminded the country of why in 14 years as Prime Minister he was highly regarded and trusted as a leader who confronted and fixed problems whether they involved the Shiprider Agreement, OECD, unemployment, foreign reserves, poverty, HIV/AIDS or high taxation.
At Sayes Court Arthur displayed the same positive leadership characteristics with CLICO, by firstly repeating his call for Government to set aside a day for the House of Assembly to fashion a bipartisan solution, even pledging the BLP’s support for any necessary associated loan.
He then vowed clear that should the DLP fail to rescue those endangered by CLICO, the “first order” of a new BLP Government would be to fix the problem. Trademarking this commitment with the same level of confidence in his team’s abilities that in 1994 made them take on the challenge of creating 30 000 jobs, surpassing the target and putting money in people’s pockets for 14 years.
With the BLP’s long-standing record of fixing problems, most recently coming to Government in 1976 and 1994, Barbadians are justified in their confidence that we can do so once again and restore hope and prosperity to our nation.
• Beresford Leon Padmore is a pseudonym for the Barbados Labour Party.
