DLP playing “fast and loose” with information, says Mottley

In a stinging rebuke of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) leadership, Prime Minister Mia Mottley has accused its president of “playing big people politics” and lacking character and principle.

Mottley, who was addressing the final spot meeting in St George North on Tuesday night, ahead of Wednesday by-election in that constituency, used the occasion to rubbish recent allegations by DLP President Verla De Peiza and called on her to apologise to the people of Barbados and “redeem” herself in public life.

DePeiza on Monday night, sought to suggest that Government had “dished out” millions of dollars for what she said was a private/public sector project at the Grantley Adams International Airport (GAIA) “at a time when people are juggling whether to pay their bills or feed their children”.

Pointing to a specific picture in a Barbados TODAY exclusive report, which clearly stated that businessman Mark Maloney was the owner of the new Fix Based Operation and $3 million M Jet facility at the GAIA, De Peiza said she was “sent the article” ahead of her going on the platform.

“Are these the kinds of projects that you endorse at a time when unemployment is at an all-time high and people are desperate for work? Do you spend your time catering to a one per cent who may not be taxpayers in this country when our people are suffering on a daily basis?” De Peiza queried.

However, Mottley, who reached in a bag for what she said was a 35-page document, showed that a lease agreement for the facility was signed by the then Freundel Stuart led DLP administration on November 1, 2016 giving Maloney’s Hanger Services Inc. permission for the investment.

Richard Sealy was the Minister of Tourism at the time with responsibility for the GAIA.

Mottley said had De Peiza done a fact-check she would have known that the lease agreement deal was done by her own party.

“Tell me which part of this lease was done by the BLP elected on May 24, 2018,” said Mottley, who claimed that a string of documents and letters from several years before led to the lease.

Mottley accused De Peiza of making “trigger-happy comments” that were far from the truth.

“What kind of leader would you have to protect you in this country if they can go and act fast and loose on information that somebody come and whisper to them?” said Mottley.

Acknowledging that the BLP was not perfect, Mottley said it did not pretend to be.

“What we are, are people who are motivated by purpose and by character and by principles,” she said.

“Little did we know that the level of desperation that has now become the hallmark of the DLP of 2020, is such that they would try to foist confusion, fabricate allegations without a tissue of truth to support them. But what is more is the attitude that they have displayed in dealing with these matters,” said Mottley, who again sought to clear the air on issues relating to the dump in St George.

She insisted, “There has to be a point when character and leadership matter and that we have to raise our game.”

She said the DLP possessed “the pattern of trigger-happy behaviour, the pattern of being fast and loose with the facts, the pattern of believing that leadership does not carry with it responsibility – responsibility to be truthful, responsibility to check your facts and responsibility to reflect character”.

Stating that her administration had nothing to hide, Mottley said it was time people changed the way they looked at development in Barbados, while disclosing that she had given permission for an expansion of the project.

“The same company asked for an expansion of lease for additional area to rent in order to be able to do a parking apron and we said to them, ‘you can lease it but you have to build the apron yourself’,” the Prime Minister disclosed.

“They will now lease an expanded area next to what they got, not because we are playing fast and loose but because in the interest of the country we are taking decisions that will allow jobs to be created for ordinary Barbadians who are not working in this country.

“I am not going to hide from that, but when you come and say we took taxpayers’ money, millions of dollars, and put it in a project when you know it is not true or you have failed to take the time to find out if it is true, then I say you are not fit for leadership in this country anytime or anyhow,” said Mottley .