Ungrateful!

THE Barbados Labour Party’s absence from the House of Assembly during the final speech of their past leader, Owen Arthur, has been frowned upon by a member of the Freundel Stuart Administration.

During last Friday’s session of the Estimates Debate 2018, Arthur, the former Prime Minister of Barbados from 1994 to 2008, announced his exit from politics after over 30 years of service.

Resigning as a member of the BLP in 2014, he retained his parliamentary seat in the constituency of St. Peter and remained in Parliament as an Independent Member.

Leader of Opposition Business and Member of Parliament for St. Michael South East, Santia Bradshaw, sought to explain that one of the reasons for their absence was Minister of Finance, Christopher Sinckler’s failure during the wrap-up of the debate on the Appropriation Bill, to answer any of the questions posed by them.

Minister of Transport and Works, and MP for St. Philip North, Michael Lashley, pointed to the Opposition’s actions while speaking at the recently held Democratic Labour Party (DLP) joint branch meeting. He described the BLP parliamentarians as “ungrateful”, as he noted their failure to pay tribute to Arthur.

“He made some of them Ministers and not one of them came back in there and paid tribute to their former leader. Not one came and said, ‘We thank you, former Prime Minister, for giving us the opportunity to serve in your Cabinet,’” he expressed to supporters gathered at the Deighton Griffith Secondary School.

“How ungrateful… that a man who pulled that Party together, who they utilised as a man who made a connect with the working class… He was supposed to be the man who went in the trenches to build the image of the Barbados Labour Party that focused on the working class and to touch and seal the working class.

“…This is how they treat a man who put his life out for the Barbados Labour Party,” Lashley added. (TL)