Cut CBC, SOEs – Inniss

With efforts to reform several state-owned enterprises (SOEs)underway, the former Minister of Industry, International Business, Commerce and Small Business Development insisted that taxpayers’ money should not be spent in ownership of a radio and television station.

“Should the government of Barbados still be owning, controlling and spending vast sums of money operating a media house? I don’t think so. I think the government’s role is to provide an enabling environment and a regulatory environment for the media, but do we need to own buildings and equipment to compete with the private sector media houses? I don’t think that is necessary today,” he said.

Agreeing with the current administration’s move to reform many of its SOEs to create much-needed fiscal space, he said while some of these should be restructured, others should be let go.

“Some of them quite frankly, as far as I’m concerned, can go. This is a view I held when I was in government and one that I still hold today,” said Inniss who returned to the island on Friday night after completing a prison term in the US for fraud and money laundering.

The former high-profile Democratic Labour Party (DLP) member however refused to specifically identify which SOEs should be placed on the chopping block.

Speaking with Barbados TODAY in an interview at his Husbands Heights home over the weekend, he suggested that if the government wanted to maintain the public service at its current size, productivity would have to increase.

Admitting all governments have been challenged with SOEs, Inniss stated that with several of these providing an important service to the community and employing numerous citizens, the current government did not have “an easy task” ahead of it.