POOR work attitudes and problems with getting a higher education can significantly hurt the growth prospects of Barbados’ business and financial sector.
Former Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Owen Arthur issued this warning yesterday at the Barbados International Business Association (BIBA) luncheon at Savannah Hotel, Hastings, Christ Church.
Arthur said the just-published Global Competitiveness Report for 2010 cited “the poor work ethic in the national labour force as the most problematic factor” for doing business here.
“We must not allow this country to fail because of our deficiency in maintaining an attribute that used to be commonplace, but now is becoming scarce,” he said.
This has to be “the mantra that must resonate from every platform, every pulpit, every boardroom, in every home, in every community centre, in every place of employment, and must be heard jointly from the captains of industry and the leaders of labour”, Arthur told the gathering that included business leaders and diplomats.
He also charged that Barbados was in danger of reducing the competitive advantage it gained by offering to international business “a pool of competent people from which to recruit”.
This was because of factors including the “abandonment” of the plan to create a University College of Barbados and expected cuts in the financial allocation to the University of the West Indies (UWI), he argued.
According to Arthur, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago were making substantial investments in domestic university level institutions to rapidly expand output, especially in areas where the UWI was deficient.
“By contrast, Barbados proposes to go into retreat,” he complained.
“We still have a deficit in our ability to provide places at the tertiary level. But the plan to close that deficit by the creation of a University College of Barbados has been abandoned.
“To compound that, the Medium Term Plans outlined by Government propose caps and cuts in the allocation to the UWI.
“We have to find the means and the will to resist this short-term fiscal adjustment which will lead to medium-term strategic disaster,” Arthur said. (TY)
