Celebrating 50 years of success

Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Freundel Stuart admits that Barbados has not been perfect and has not always got it right, but he is adamant that any objective evaluation of the country’s journey over the last 50 years, would have to concede that it has been successful.

 

He made the comments recently while addressing the 9th Annual Errol Barrow Memorial Dinner held at Markham Convention Centre, Toronto Canada, hosted by the DLP Barbados (Canada) Inc, as he spoke to several of the country’s achievements – a reliable social security system, a strong education system and universal health care provision.

 

With that in mind, he contended that while independence must be celebrated, it was never intended to be an end in itself and so he suggested there is more for Barbados to do and achieve going forward.

 

“Independence is always a means towards an end, the end to Independence of course is that we revolutionise our economy and transform our society, and that Barbados has done over the last 50 years… In 1966 when we moved into independence we were a one crop sugar economy in Barbados, we were producing 175 000 tonnes of sugar in 1966. In fact, the year after, 1967, we were producing 204 000 tonnes of sugar. Fifty years later we are struggling to produce 10 000 tonnes of sugar, so fundamentally our economy has been transformed from a sugar economy to a service-based economy lead by tourism and by international business and financial services, and a large number of those tourists come from right here in Canada,” he said.

 

He made the point while noting that Canada is also the source for much of the business as it relates to Barbados’ international and financial services sector. He noted that outside of the United Kingdom and the United States, Barbados is the third largest beneficiary of 

investment from Canada.

 

Stuart’s comments came as he again raised the questions he posed to Barbadians at the launch of the 50th anniversary celebration and asked the audience to ponder on them. Those questions, he said are – what are those features of Barbadian life that we have lost that we need to try and reclaim; what are those features of Barbadian life that we have not lost that we have to try and retain and; what are those features of Barbadian life that we have not lost, but we need to try and discard as soon as possible because they are doing us no good.

 

“There are some old virtues that as a nation, as a country, we have had, that the onset of modernisation has put us in a position where we have turned our backs on them. That community mindedness, that close good neighbourliness for which Barbados was so well known, as a result of a lot of the material development and so on that has taken place around us, and this happens in most societies, we’ve become a more impersonal society than at the time when we lived in close communities in an agricultural economy,” he said.

 

Prime Minister Stuart maintained that Barbados has to get back to “some form of community mindedness” that prevails all of the society and that makes us feel once again that we are our brother’s keeper. His comments came as he also pledged continued investment in the country’s most valuable resources – its human capital.

 

“We have built our reputation on education, and we must continue to invest in the education of our people. Education is a source of empowerment,it has been a source of empowerment for Barbadians and that will continue, So from the nursery stage between ages three and five, to the primary stage ages five to 11-plus, through the secondary stage from 11-plus to 18, unto the tertiary stage from age 18 until whenever, we have been investing heavily in education,” he added. (JRT)