From left: Senator Rawdon Adams, CEO, Bitt greeting Mia Amor Mottley, Prime Minster of Barbados, while Alden McLaughlin, Premier of the Cayman Islands, looks on at the Central Bank Meets Blockchain conference at Hilton Barbados yesterday.
Training boost
A comprehensive training of Barbadians will soon be under way.
This was revealed by Prime Minister of Barbados, the Hon. Mia Amor Mottley, during her address at the BITT Central Bank Meets Blockchain Conference 2018 at the Hilton Barbados yesterday.
The Prime Minister indicated, “We are committed to mobilising our training levy and as of January we hope that a portion that is now going to the unemployment benefit fund will be split in half, that comes from a healthy severance payment fund and we hope that our social partners will work with us in this way, so we can commit $30 million a year for the next four years for the most comprehensive retraining of Barbadian workers and professionals that Barbados has ever seen. On the other side of the exercise, we must be globally fit for purpose and the No. 1 choice for most.”
Mottley contended, “Having spent the last three-and-a-half months on stopping the bleeding, we move to the next stage which is the beginning of the transformation. The training will be done parallel, but the deconstruction and reconstruction starts now, whether it is the land registry, whether it is health, whether it is the multipurpose National ID Card, which has been long talked about etc .. This country will now march boldly into the 21st … leap frogging who we must leap frog in order to be globally fit for purpose at the end of the next four years, and I trust this should not take four years.
In the last three-and-half months I have been singularly focused on the task of stabilisation. The government which we inherited required this and no transformation can take place when there is still bleeding. One week and three days after our meeting with the IMF I believe that we can begin the process of transformation. Transformation is an essential component of the Barbados Economic Recovery and it is critical to move Barbados back to that position where we can provide services to the world.”
The Prime Minister highlighted, “One of the most critical tools of transformation is technology… I have stated we have to deconstruct to reconstruct. We have met with the Social Partnership. In recent times we came up with the simple phrase, retool, empower, retrain and enfranchise….” (NB)