Privatise them!

YET another call for the privatisation of some state-owned enterprises in Barbados.

This latest call has come from George Connolly, a local business executive, who was commenting on an increasing role for the private sector to stimulate the economy, just as their counterparts in Jamaica are doing.

He believed that the time is ripe for the Barbados government to exit a number of economic areas and allow the local private sector to take charge and grow the local economy.

Connolly, who has recently returned to Barbados from Jamaica,  singled out the state-owned Barbados Agricultural Marke-ting and Development Corporation (BADMC) as an agency which government should privatise and allow the private sector to run it.

Questioning why the Government through the BADMC should be involved in the sale of onions, Connolly maintained that a better job can be done by private sector owners. Furthermore, there are a number of services which the government presently offers that can be done by the private sector, Connolly told The Barbados Advocate.

He believed that other opportunities can be created in such areas as education, health care, and garbage collection.

“Those are the areas I think government should take a step back and the private sector should step up,” said Connolly. He maintained that the Government has to facilitate to make sure that these opportunities become available and are profitable.

Connolly believes that the access to capital is necessary for the private sector to be more aggressive and to go forward. He noted that the Executive Director of the Barbados Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI), Lisa Gale, had spoken about Barbados being a young democracy.

“But being a young democracy is one thing, having access to capital to drive commercial ventures, is another thing. So if we have an aggressive and active private sector, that can take a lot of the pressure off the Government,” he reasoned.

Connolly said that he had been working in Jamaica for the last three years with a conglomerate. “One of the things I have seen the private sector in Jamaica doing is that it has become more aggressive in an attempt to help grow the island’s economy,” he stated. (JB)