UPP will deliver

Barbadians are demanding a change and United Progressive Party (UPP) Candidate for St. Michael South Central David Gill is promising just that.

Addressing the media moments after making his deposit to the Treasury, he said that there was a concern that representatives from both the Barbados Labour Party and Democratic Labour Party were interchangeable.

He highlighted that this would give the UPP, which is facing its first election “a very good chance.”

Gill chided both traditional parties for not addressing many of the issues affecting the island.

“For example, right now neither of the parties is addressing head on the foreign exchange problem. We spend too much foreign exchange on food,” he noted, while detailing that a UPP government would from week one, call together representatives from the Central Bank, commercial banks and food importers to reduce this bill.

“We are going to say ‘cut this food bill by five percent in month one and thereafter one and a half percent for the next ten months, so you get about ten percent at the end of the year. They are not telling the car importers, whose bill is $300 million, the same thing – five percent, one and a half for the next,” he said.

Cutting government’s petroleum import bill is also on the UPP’s list of objectives, as well as reducing the size of the Cabinet.

“Why should we have a minister for every mile Barbados has. You may call them Junior Ministers or Senior Ministers but that is a joke with only $2,000 difference in salary per month. So if you were to do that and revert to at least 14 ministers, you can save at least $5 million a month and in a year $60 million and in the lifespan of a Parliament that is $300 million and that is more than enough money to look after helping young farmers, landless farmers, and youth who are unskilled,” he added. (JMB)