Relax ban!

The Sunday ban for small businesses should be relaxed.

In a recent press release by the Democratic Labour Party, Ryan Walters, spokesperson on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, expressed that since Barbados has reached its goal of a positivity rate of 25 COVID-19 cases in 100 000 over the last two weeks, businesses should now be allowed to operate on Sundays with the appropriate protocols in place.

“Micro and small businesses are the ones that are suffering the most as this closure is causing vendors, landscapers, car valets, hair dressers, barbers, nail technicians and many more to lose out on opportunities to earn much needed income. One day for a micro or small business owner not to earn can be a difference between utilities being terminated or not being able to feed a family,” he said.

“Barbados is in a recession, spending is down and unemployment is at its highest ever in our history; the government should not be unnecessarily depriving the sector of getting back on its feet.

“The Minister of Entrepreneurship and Small Business has been using words and much talk to convince the people of Barbados that the government is in tune with the plight of the small man. While their words have way surpassed their actions, this is a prime opportunity for the Government to show that it has some level of compassion and empathy for the sector and the impact that the state of the economy is having on micro and small businesses.”

The statement also spoke to alerting the Minister that the reality was that $500 after a year of lockdowns, restrictions and losses was nothing to rejoice about; particularly when support comfortably exceeded $1 million dollars per business for entities in the BEST programme, who had assets and liquidity that enabled them to secure their own financing.

Walters noted that small and micro businesses kept the economic wheels rolling, and the treatment meted out to them by Government could be described, at best, as shabby.

He stressed that the DLP was once again pleading with the Government to show it cared through people focused policy decisions.