Bradshaw: Vendors overlooked in favour of outsiders

The Democratic Labour Party cannot pave the way for outsiders and in the process, forget its own.

 

This word of caution was issued by St. Michael South East Member of Parliament, Santia Bradshaw as she made her contribution to the Budget debate in the House of Assembly this week. It was from the floor of Parliament that Bradshaw called on Government to address the plight of numerous local vendors who are striving against many roadblocks to make a living.

 

 “In this Budget, attention is being placed on diversifying the yachting sector and while I accept that we need to look at other avenues and other income streams… most Barbadians have said to me in the last twenty-four hours, what about the vendors? ...Because vendors in this society are constantly being harassed for licences,” Bradshaw said.

 

“There’s a system in place for licences. We recognise that there is a problem with obtaining the licenses or even producing the licences and I say to the Honourable Minister and the Government, you need to fix the problem. If we can fix it for persons coming from outside, we need to fix it for the people who live and reside in Barbados as well” she added.

 

“It cannot be one set of rules in Barbados to make it simpler for persons to do business, but that the average Barbadian is confronted with a situation where every time you see Christmas rolling around or Crop Over, you see large numbers of vendors being harassed on the streets of this country, who are simply trying to ply their trade (given that) a number of them no doubt have fallen prey to being laid off by this administration as well,” Bradshaw commented. (RSM)