Sir Frank Alleyne against across the board cut

An across the board cut would be more of a hindrance than a help to Barbados at this time.

 

Delivering a lecture entitled, ‘Challenges of Fiscal Consolidation in Small Island Developing States’ at the Democratic Labour Party on Friday, Chairman of the Financial Services Commission Sir Frank Alleyne said that while cutting public expenditure is necessary to reduce the deficit, he is vehemently opposed to any move of a cut across all sectors.

 

“It is dangerous! If the minister said, ‘Five per cent, we will cut across the board or ten per cent’, it is a dangerous move. There are certain things which are sacred cows and you should not cut them,” he disclosed, noting that health services, education and training, infrastructural development and the social safety net should be the last areas to be cut.

 

“I am eternally opposed to a five per cent cut across the board. Some people will get a death sentence from that. The people who cannot pay to go for medical services, the undertaker would have to take them, so there are certain sensitive areas you do not touch,” he stressed. 

 

Sir Frank also stated that going forward performance-related pay must become the order of the day for both the public and private sector.

 

“The biggest problem we face in Barbados today, I do not care how much government focuses on consolidation, is Barbadians do not commit to work and the government and private sector must put in place mechanisms for measuring performance and for rewarding performance. It must be performance-related pay,” the economist insisted.

 

In addition, he insisted that there be open talks between management and employees.

 

“Management needs to take into consideration and into their confidence the views of the employee. These are not the days when the workers are mules of burden… It is important that the government and the private sector come together and deal with the problem. Bring in your Human Resource specialists and so on and bring the workers’ representatives into it too and get everyone to sit down and identify what it is that is causing the disconnect between management and the workers and deal with it because the most important resource we have in Barbados are our people,” he added. (JMB)