Overhaul’ in Govt’s 2020 wish list

An overhaul of the nation’s welfare system is among the Government’s New Year’s resolutions as part of a bid to restructure the society, Prime Minister Mia Mottley has disclosed. 

The “social restructuring” drive is also to include new approaches to fighting poverty, various forms of abuse, non-communicable diseases and a range of other social ills, Mottley said while digressing during a signing ceremony with the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) on Monday.

Mottley acknowledged that amid excitement in some circles about the country’s economic progress, some segments of the society simply couldn’t relate.

“We are conscious that beyond the opportunity for growth at the individual level, there are certain reasons why people cannot take advantage of the economic opportunities within a society,” she told a packed room at her Ilaro Court official residence.

Even as many celebrated the recent credit rating upgrade from Standard and Poor’s (S&P) and negotiations which led to a debt restructuring deal with external creditors, respected economists and opposition politicians have expressed concern that working class citizens are yet to experience real evidence of an improving economy.

Economist Jeremy Stephen has cautioned that while the ratings boost would go a long way in improving investor confidence, there was no indication that Barbadians should expect ease in the financial burdens they have been asked to bear. Democratic Labour Party president, Verla DePeiza in her critique of the upgrade, declared that citizens were paying an unnecessarily high social cost for perceived economic gains.

The Prime Minister stressed that Government would soon be embarking upon a deeper study of the social factors which result in poverty and which have failed to improve the wellbeing of some even in times of prosperity.

Mottley observed: “Those social reasons range from being victims of all types of abuse, including physical or verbal abuse, to chronic non-communicable diseases that are regrettably not just affecting older people, but younger people in our communities as well.

“It relates to the inability to modernise our welfare system, which is still based on a Victorian approach that is service centred rather than being people-centred, looking at moving families from a point of dependence to a point of independence, and ultimately to a point of giving back to people.

“All of this requires significant restructuring if we are going turn the corner.”

Mottley suggested that even past administrations which led the country in boom times found difficulty getting to the bottom of the social reasons for poverty.

She said: “We did well, but we were not able to go into the bowels of our society and remove the social constraints that are reflecting on why people are not moving out of the bowels of poverty.

“If you would recall when we started this journey, we made a few key points, one of which was that if we are going to save the dollar, it could not be at the expense of labour only, and hitherto, every major economic adjustment since independence was carried by labour.

“We felt strongly that this has to be a shared burden between labour and capital and between international and domestic actor.” kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb