DLP: We want an update

The Democratic Labour Party is making a call for the current administration to step forward and given an update on the status of recent loan received from the Inter-American Development Bank.

This call came from 1st Vice President and Shadow Spokesperson on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Ryan Walters  in a recent press release.

Walters believes that the current administration needs to give an update on the status of the loan and communicate how small businesses could receive access to it.

He noted that the Government has borrowed almost one billion dollars over the last year and out of that only gave $250 and $500 cheques to small business people.

He is of the view that this was is not good enough for a sector that makes up roughly 92 per cent of the businesses in Barbados and accounted for approximately 46 per cent of employment in the private sector.

“I appreciate that taxi men got similar stipends at some point and moratoriums were offered to the Trust Loan and Fund Access clients, however, that is a far cry away from a stimulus to push the sector forward and create opportunities for micro and small businesses to operate and create employment opportunities. Furthermore, on April 20 this year, the Prime Minister of Barbados signed on an up to BDS $60 million dollar loan from the Inter-American Development Bank to support Micro, Small, and Medium-Sized Enter-prises (MSME) under the Global Credit Program for Safeguarding the Productive Sectors and Employment.,” he said.

“It is our understanding that it was intended that the loans will be administered through registered financial institutions in Barbados, and once approved, will be guaranteed by the Central Bank of Barbados. Yet, we have heard nothing from the Minister of Small Business and Entrepreneurship. 

“The government’s failure to invest in Micro and Small businesses confirms that the small man does not matter to this Barbados Labour Party (BLP) administration. Don’t matter how they try to swing it; the government has failed to promote and support small businesses and entrepreneurship especially at a time when all indicators pointed to its necessity.”

Walters noted that the fact that government continued to increase the cost of doing business by allowing fuel prices to rise to extraordinary levels without intervention, unfairly closing village shops, not permitting vendors to ply their trade and potentially criminalising some of our micro-business owners over alleged miscommunications around protocol was also a clear indication to him that government has failed to promote and support small businesses and entrepreneurship especially at a time when all indicators pointed to its necessity. (CLJB)