Spending plan: Government vows more for COVID, eGovt

Government on Thursday vowed to plough significant resources to protect Barbadians during the COVID-19 pandemic.

But the 2021/2022 Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure, to be revealed on Monday, will also be aimed at ramping up Government’s digitalization drive and on capital works, said Prime Minister Mia Mottley.

She declared: “The approach taken by the Government with the Estimates was driven by one; our desire to continue to protect the vulnerable and those who are not capable of supporting themselves and for the first time since Independence those numbers expanded in a way that we would never had  anticipated at any point since Independence. We are still there for you through the different provisions in the Estimates in large measure.”

In giving a sneak peek of the Estimates, the PM revealed that Government would continue to focus its spending on capital work projects and on digitization.

She explained: “We recognize that with the implosion of the private economy that Government is the only entity in the country with sufficient girth to help keep activity going at a pace, such that we can help keep people earning and people being able to have access to jobs and that is why a lot of the activity is capital works, one-off activity, as opposed to recurring spending.

“That was a mistake we made in 2008/2009 when we put our emphasis on jobs that were simply recurring spending rather than treating to the issue of getting projects done, whether the projects are housing or roads or repairs, or the one-off expenditure that we are carrying because of COVID that has increased significantly the amount of money that the Ministry of Health and the Government has had to spend.

“And the third area of course relates to continuing to remove the obstacles and continuing to do those things that will enhance our competitiveness. In this year we expect to complete the digital ID project, we also expect to be able to complete a number of other areas of activity that will allow for far greater digitization within the economy and to that extent I expect that business will continue to become easier to be conducted in this country.

“We expect that whether it is liquor licences or other forms of registration, passports, immigration etc, that within the next three or four months we will be able to be in a position to roll out a number of those. And the big one we are hoping for eventually which would have helped us tremendously at this time is the provision of being able to transfer digitally funds to persons so that we can reduce the use of cash.”
(RB)