UNDER CONTROL

THERE is nothing to be gained by a devaluation of the Barbados dollar.

This reminder is coming from Prime Minister the Honourable Mia Amor Mottley, who, while speaking during a press conference at her Bay Street, St. Michael, Government Office, yesterday, said that the motive of her Barbados Labour Party (BLP) administration is to stop the dollar from being devalued.

“Remember that I said from the outset that all we are doing is to save our quality of life and to save the value of our dollar. With every succeeding day, I am confident that we will get there, and that is why I said relax, we got this one.

“I don’t believe in being boastful, but trust me, what we have done thus far has impressed people that we are a serious Government, that we know what we are about, that we are not putting our people on the front-line of adjustment, but we are asking our people to lift weight.

“But equally, we are serious about bringing the Barbados Government and the way in which Barbados does business into the 21st century. And that in so doing, that will bring about a level of competitiveness which is the platform for growth,” she said.

Prime Minister Mottley said she is confident that if Barbados remains disciplined and focused on what is needed to be focused on, the country can get out of the burdensome economic hole it is currently in.

She affirmed that there is nothing to be gained from the devaluation of the Barbados dollar, as Barbados scarcely has natural resources to export.

“We don’t have any goods that are exported that will become cheaper. And in terms of our tourism, our tourism is not price competitive in that way. Our tourism is competitive in terms of quality… The only thing we get from a devaluation, and this has been our medicine, is a hard lash for bad behaviour. And we have had a lot of fiscal bad behaviour for the last decade.

“The [former] government went on a spending spree and we don’t see the results of where it went. We left debt at six billion dollars, debt today is at 15 or so billion dollars. Where has the nine billion dollars gone? We can probably build a sewage plant on the South Coast for one per cent of that billion dollars,” she said.

When asked whether there was the possibility that job cuts would be a part of her Government’s austerity measures to get Barbados out of the economic crisis it has found itself in, Prime Minister Mottley said she does not know, while stressing that if there is any at all, it would be the last resort.

“We don’t know. I said on Monday that we are going into Phase 2 and Phase 3. For me to tell you that up front would be to tell you a lie. What we are going to have is a discussion across the country as to what the options are. There has to be expenditure reform. There has to be greater efficiency in terms of how we spend money. Part of it is also being with the reality of what we have inherited… But even if there is a need for any form of job cuts, we have said that we will seek to work with those persons,” she said. (AH)