Minister Weir lambastes Opposition leader

MEMBER of Parliament for St. Philip South, Indar Weir, lambasted
Opposition leader Bishop Joseph Atherley for suggesting that the
Barbados Optional Savings Scheme (BOSS) is a pay cut.

In fact, he believes that Bishop Atherley should apologise to the
public for his “misleading” statements, which he described as “nothing
short of poor rakey politics”.

Weir joined the debate yesterday afternoon on the BOSS Bill 2020,
which was introduced by Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley yesterday
morning, stressing that there is no need to turn a discussion into a
wages and salaries cut debate. He said the scheme seeks to anchor
Barbadians into a reality that they have options with excess
disposable income.

“That is the reality of it. This is the debate. This is not a debate
about depriving anyone. For you to tell educated Barbadians that they
are being forced into a salary or wages cut is to my mind absurd to
say the least.

“I want to hone in on the point that Barbadians should now wake up and
look and see, according to good Barbadian parlance, “who got dey
back”, because if I got your back there ain’t no way I am going to
mislead you into believing that you are better off taking your money
and putting it elsewhere, or opting out of an opportunity to gain five
per cent on your savings when you are losing money every month in the
banking system.

“What manner of man would want to tell Barbadians ‘I got your back’,
but would then seek to mislead them and disguise them into believing
that they are being taken advantage of. It is absurd and one that the
country deserves an apology for.

“I can’t understand how we seek first of all, to deal with the huge
volumes of Barbadians who have become unemployed not because of this
government, not because of business people, simply because of a
pandemic. And that while the numbers will continue to climb unless we
act responsibly and make sure that we take control of the situation
just like we did during the times that we had to introduce measures to
mitigate the spread, then how do you say to Barbadians your salary is
being cut?

“There is no salary cut Mr. Deputy Speaker. No Barbadians being forced
into this. And the simple notes that we have on the BOSS programme
speak clearly to options available. You want it, you take it. You
don’t want it, you get your full salary in cash. Well how that can be
a salary cut? And so my constituents and your constituents must now
listen to a bunch of confusion over a matter that has been so simply
put in place for all reasonable thinking persons to look at and
understand.”

He said the BOSS programme comes at a time when Barbadians have no
hope in the banking system and said this is where the Opposition
leaders should have focused his attention.

“Show me anyone in Barbados right now that can go to a bank with large
sums of money and get five per cent interest. I stood in this
Honourable Chamber already in 2018 and castigated the banks for the
huge amount of charges that the people of Barbados have to pay to keep
their money in the safety of the bank’s vaults. So if we are going to
have an Opposition voice, that voice should be about this. Why is it
that we can’t get five per cent savings in the banking system? So that
if I tell people don’t trust the government, you can go to the bank.
We don’t have that kind of conversation anymore. This is the reason
why this party got 30 seats in the last election.”

Weir lamented that there is a level of vulnerability in the country as
a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. “So that when you can tell people
who I personally interact with, who I personally understand the
struggle that they go through when they were not prepared... many of
them don’t have any savings to fall back on. I have tonnes of Whatsapp
messages coming to me from people asking for help to pay their bills,
to pay their mortgage.

“People are extremely vulnerable during this period simply because
they never planned for it. The BOSS programme now gives people a
chance in Barbados to rather than take excess disposable income, go to
a shop and buy a “long neck”…or to use your money for gambling or
other things where you are not guaranteed a rate of return, but that
you can now have an opportunity to earn five per cent on every single
bond that you receive under the BOSS programme, somebody is going to
look at me and tell me that Barbadians should not accept a cut in your
salary?” he queried, adding that this is a misunderstanding of what is
being presented by government.

 “...Go to your constituencies and look at the amount of people who
don’t have savings right now, who would have been happy to be able to
fall back to that buffer and say I don’t necessarily need you because
I can help myself. We don’t have that. And so that a responsible
government, with the vision of a responsible leader, sought to make
sure that as we come out of this over the next four years, that is
what the four years is all about, Barbadians would have something to
fall back on. It is not going to happen in a year, it is not going to
happen in two years, it will take time,” he stressed, reiterating that
the BOSS programme is optional.