Sewage crisis underlines need for Environmental Impact Assessment

The current sewage crisis has highlighted the need for an Environmental Impact Assessment to be conducted on the planned Hyatt hotel.

This was the firm stance taken by Opposition Member of Parliament for St. Michael North Ronald Toppin during his contribution to the debate on the Appropriation Bill 2018 in the Lower House on Thursday evening.

“I would trust that having now had the situation where sewage is rampant on the South Coast and it seems that it has started to filter down here in the Bridgetown area, that the Prime Minister would recognise now even if he didn’t recognise before, the need for an Environmental Impact Assessment in relation to the Hyatt hotel on Bay Street, because that will add so much sewage to Bridgetown, that it will be foolhardy to decide that you are going to proceed now without recognising that you have to do a study as to what the impact would be on it,” he stated.

“I am not going to say that it cannot go ahead as a project, but you have to do it the right way and in a way that would not cause further grief or further pain to Barbadians,” he continued.

Speaking on the island’s continuing fiscal deficit, Toppin accused the Finance Minister of being “fiscally irresponsible”, saying that advice had been given that had not been taken.

“Having been told that you need to rationalise the statutory boards, you cannot decide as the minister of finance then did to add more, but that is what he did, on recommendations of the Minister of Tourism. The Minister of Finance decided that he would take the Barbados Tourism Authority – one board – and cut it down the middle, form two entities, duplicate posts…BTMI and BTPA – totally unnecessary! So at a time when you were told you have to rein in and to watch your expenditure levels, this minister of finance with fiscal irresponsibility decided to add a statutory board to a fleet of statutory boards,” Toppin said. (JMB)