‘Meeting will be held in full glare of public’

While not saying whether the previously scheduled date of the full Social Partnership meeting will be moved up, Prime Minister Freundel Stuart has stated that it will be done “in the full glare of the public”.

“Whenever that meeting is held it is not going to be held in secret. It is going to be a nationally televised meeting where Barbadians can hear what the government is about, what the private sectors are about, both the labour movement and the private sector,” he assured.

The meeting is scheduled for August 18th, but members of the Opposition insisted that the date be brought up, especially in light of Monday’s march where 20 000 members of the unions and the private sector showed their solidarity in demanding consultation with the government on the economic woes affecting the island.

“The meeting requested, I have promised it. It is going to take place! But as I said, it is going to take place in the full glare of the public. I will communicate as I said in my reply to the head of the Private Sector Association, I would communicate to him and the other social partners when that meeting is to take place, but I know this, it is not going to take place in secret. It is going to take place in the full glare of the public so that Barbados can see where it is where we are going,” Stuart insisted.

The Prime Minister also assured the public that the rule of law was intact in the island and that the government continued to be committed to the best interest of this country.

“All of the theatrics that has come from the other side … can do nothing to deflect the government from its course of trying to make Barbados a better place for the labour movement, for the private sector and for every household in Barbados and to that commitment the government remains profoundly attached and nothing can deflect us from this course,” Stuart added.

As he joined the debate on the motion brought by the Opposition on a matter of public importance, he claimed that there has been “a Niagara of falsehoods making the rounds in Barbados in respect of the government and other members of the Social Partnership”. (JMB)