IF BARBADIANS WANT evidence that the Democratic Labour Party Government has no clue as to how it will get the country out of the current economic difficulties, they should read page 113 of the Barbados Economic And Social Report of 2009, says former Prime Minister Owen Arthur.
Arthur gave that advice on Sunday night as he addressed the Barbados Labour Party’s St Andrew branch at the Ermie Bourne Centre at Hillaby, St Andrew, noting that the document laid recently in Parliament by Minister of Economic Affairs Dr David Estwick, was an indictment on the Government.
The section to which Arthur referred dealt with Constituency Councils and he said that at a time when the country wanted direction, Government continued to demonstrate that it had a skewed focus. Barbadians, he added, had to wake up and speak out on how millions of dollars of their taxes were being used, especially in areas that would have no impact on turning around the country’s fortunes.
Arthur listed a number of areas of Government expenditure that included: town hall meetings; debushing; gift-giving and Christmas hampers; walk-through of constituencies; fun days; panel discussions; and 3k runs. He expressed consternation that Constituency Councils had been set up to oversee programmes which parliamentarians and other social agencies as a normal course of activity were expected to do.
He said a situation existed where people could not get their income tax returns, business firms were crumbling, Barbados could not attract foreign investment, there was no clear recovery or development plan, and the “sum total” of what Government could bring to Barbadians was “the introduction of Constituency Councils”.
“These are not the answers to Barbados’ economic problems,” he stressed.
Arthur said he was outraged at how Government was wasting the country’s tax dollars and that Barbadians needed to judge the David Thompson administration on how it was spending their money.
He advised that if Government wanted to turn the country around it should revert to the policies and programmes that it found in 2008, which had brought annual growth to the country, but which had been abandoned. (WG)
