DLP more than capable, says Stuart

Prime Minister Freundel Stuart is dismissing suggestions from critics that the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) is not up to the task of running the country for another five years.
He was speaking to the media yesterday morning on the outside of the Treasury, currently located in the National Housing Corporation building on Country Road, after he had paid his deposit to contest the St. Michael South seat for the DLP. Describing such suggestions as “poppycock, nonsense, balderdash, rubbish”, Stuart said the DLP has done the country proud over the last 10 years, governing in the most challenging decade the western world has seen since the Great Depression, and he maintained that not only have they kept Barbados stable, but they have ensured that the basic amenities which Barbadians have become accustomed to, have remained available.

“Yes, because of the challenging environment in which we have had to operate, we have had to ask the population to hold hands with us and to just practise some forbearance, particularly in the area of salary increases for workers. But that is nothing new because the same thing for the same reasons has been happening in the United Kingdom,” he said.

Admitting that the economy “took a beating” due to the challenges encountered by the country’s principal trading partners, he said Barbados is now past the worst in that respect, with the economy growing, though not at the rate they currently desire. His comments came as he explained that Barbados is not alone in that regard, as many countries face challenges of sluggish growth.

“We have ensured that the quality of life and the standard of living of the population remain unaffected by the challenging environment in which we have to operate, and we will be saying a lot more about this during the campaign. For example, we had to determine during that challenging decade that we had to restructure the economy of Barbados… this government took the bold step in the direction of restructuring the economy so that it rests on more secure foundations than was the case when we came to office,” PM Stuart stated.
The St. Michael South incumbent made the point as he noted that for the first time since the 1970s, new sectors, accompanied by the requisite legislative frameworks, have been introduced to the local economy, including the cultural industries and the renewable energy sectors. Such, he said, created new opportunities for persons to be employed.

“We’ve also introduced an offshore medical education sector in Barbados. We have about seven or so offshore medical schools here – about four active – but they are earning foreign exchange for the country, and of course because they are here, students and their teachers and others have to rent properties and so on,” he said.

His comments came as he reflected on the offshore medical education sector in Grenada, which he said made a substantial contribution to the gross domestic product of that country, and he said it has the potential to do the same for Barbados. He went further, contending that the country’s various assets, including social stability, a well trained labour force and strong information and communication technology infrastructure, makes Barbados is an “ideal environment” for offshore medical education as well as offshore business in general.

“We have been doing the donkey work necessary to put the economy of Barbados on a more secure, a more solid, a more reliable footing than has been provided by tourism and international business and financial services by themselves. Sugar is not contributing to the gross domestic product what it used to contribute in the past, manufacturing has not been doing that either and we have been diversifying the economy of Barbados by creating new sectors,” he said. (JRT)