The Mia Mottley administration has been challenged to live up to its campaign promise of transparency and explain the massive cleanup campaign that followed the eruption of St Vincent’s La Soufriere volcano. Price tag: $22,153,875.
Opposition Leader Bishop Joseph Atherley on Thursday told Government to stop hiding behind a robust public relations machinery and provide details in the form of a breakdown of the spending.
He was joined by Democratic Labour Party leader Verla DePeiza who labelled the spent funds an “ashfall windfall”.
Lawmakers on Tuesday approved the supplementary financing from the Ministry of Finance of $13,278,978 to the Ministry of Transport, Works and Water Resources that hired hundreds of workers to remove the ash from roads and buildings.
While opposition politicians are demanding a more detailed breakdown of the $13 million, they said they are befuddled by a further $9 million allocated to 17 other ministries to carry out the same type of work.
The extra spending includes more than $3.5 million to the Ministry of Education, $1 million to the Ministry of Tourism, $528,955 to the Prime MInister’s Office, $495,836 to the Attorney General and $464,294 to the Ministry of International Business.
When contacted on Thursday, Finance Minister Ryan Straughn indicated that he was already on a call, simultaneously preparing for Thursday’s weekly meeting of Cabinet and would try to respond. He had not returned the call up to the time of publication.
Bishop Atherley called on the ministers entrusted with the additional money to account for how it was spent.
“I don’t know why that would have been,” he said. “If you are saying to me that some of the cleanup work occasioned by the ashfall would have been entered into by these ministries themselves and the properties for which they are responsible, then I have to ask if the monies requested by public works and transport did not incorporate those works as well.”
“In the case of the Ministry of Tourism, the airport may have needed some cleanup work and stuff subsequent to the ashfall, but would not the monies voted to public works have paid for the labour that did that up there? The same would relate to the Ministry of Industry and International Business. One would have to get some further information as to how the Prime Minister’s office incurred a debt of about half-million dollars.”
Despite giving a brief report to Parliament on Tuesday, said Bishop Atherley, Minister of Transport, Works and Maintenance Ian Gooding-Edghill also ought to account for his ministry spending as even the monies spent over on labour alone for cleaning the streets were well millions short of the $13 million figure.
He added that since the 2008-2018 DLP administration which was riddled with accusations of economic mismanagement, the electorate has been demanding transparency, which the Labour Party has so far been unable to deliver.
“I am not satisfied that there is the kind of enhanced level of transparency as would have been expected by a people who voted for the Barbados Labour Party 30-nil,” said Bishop Atherley.
“I think that the Barbados Labour Party has made sure that they have controlled the messages through their influence in the media, their abuse of the use of the CBC [Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation] in particular and the serious communication and public relations programmes that they have mounted. A lot of that I put down to optics and public relations, the whole business of the creation of a public affairs unit when you have GIS [Government Information Service].
“I think that this Government has told people what they wanted to hear, not necessarily what people need to know.”
DLP president DePeiza declared that the entire ashfall issue is badly “lacking in specifics”.
“I call it the ashfall windfall,” DePeiza told Barbados TODAY. “Twenty-two million dollars to clean up ash in Barbados, but we are not told how this money was spent. We know that there was a lot of ash and a concerted clean up effort and we appreciate the effort because we can see the results.
“What the Government needs to do is explain to the people of Barbados how it cost $22 million. That really is the critical factor… don’t just tell us that the Prime Minister’s Office required $528,000, don’t just tell us that the Ministry of Tourism required $1.1 million. Don’t just tell us these figures. Explain to us how they were broken down. This was the transparency that the people of Barbados insisted that they wanted and that they must now insist that they get. What types of works? Who were the contractors? How much was paid out? We need to know.”
Bishop Atherley noted that with the impact of Hurricane Else sure to result in further Government spending, the need for transparency is extremely high.
He added that transparent now ought to extend to numerous other issues like the stalled Four Seasons project, the Harrison Cave handover, an ongoing bailout of the Hilton Barbados Resort and numerous other projects. (KS)
