Atherley identifies three major problems

Before Barbados looks to formulate any planning and development policy it must first find a solution to its three crises.

That is the word from Opposition Leader Joseph Atherley, who has maintained that the island is dealing with water, garbage and sewage crises.

Speaking during debate in Parliament this afternoon on the Planning and Development Bill 2019, Atherley said these issues had to be dealt with hastily before any major initiatives could be considered.

“We have a water supply and access crisis in Barbados. When on Christmas people in the eastern parts of Barbados can’t get water for basic needs and when we have tanks which are crashing to the ground for whatever reason, whether it is sabotage or the age of the tanks itself and when we have companies coming to take up tanks which have been installed…we have a crisis,” the Opposition Leader maintained.

“And it is converging with a sanitation and sewage crisis. When you travel through urban Barbados there are some areas where sewage is escaping into the streets, into the atmosphere and it has to be attended to.

“This is big trouble and we can’t talk about planning policy when these things are happening. I say these things not because I sit down in here, but because I am a Barbadian and because they have implications for the national image, but even more importantly they have implications for the national health if the water supply, scarce as it is, is compromised by sewage or garbage because of our inadequacies in that regard,” he maintained.

While he admitted that the three issues were not Government’s fault, Atherley said the problems could not be ignored.

“There are threats to our physical development, threats to our environmental development. When the water resources are threatened, folks’ security is threatened,” Atherley said.

He said the recent decision by Minister of the Environment and National Beautification Trevor Prescod to invite the media to the Bridgetown Port to view the arrival of two garbage trucks pointed to a crisis.