The Mia Mottley administration is in the process of forming different compacts with the private sector in which Government will step in to provide assistance and industry operators will agree to certain measures, the Prime Minister has told the Barbados Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI).
Mottley said special agreements would be developed between Government and the transport industry, manufacturers of school uniforms and agriculture.
She said her administration was prepared to make resources available “to be a bridge to the private sector to keep its head above water during these difficult times”.
Speaking to the chamber’s business forum and luncheon on Wednesday, the PM said: “There must be a series of compacts similar to what we have put in place with the tourism [sector] – the Barbados Employment and Sustainable Transformation (BEST) programme. . . without the BEST programme there would have been a number of bankruptcies in the tourism sector.
“We are now hoping to complete a number of compacts. One [is] with the public service vehicles and the public transportation sector. All our compact is is that you need to see progress but we need to see action too.”
Taxi fares, which have remained the same for about 12 years, are to be increased, said Mottley, adding that “at the same time there must be a mechanism for the independent determination as to what the fare is and that is not based only on a few routes being placed on a card at the airport”.
“A compact means it cannot be just about the increase in fares, it has to be about fairness, it has to be about safety, it has to be about transforming the sector into electronic vehicles and maybe even hydrogen in the future,” said Mottley.
Government officials have been meeting with several makers of school uniforms “over the last few weeks”, said Mottley. “The bottom line is that we have a need equally for a compact with the garment industry,” she said.
In early September, after it was disclosed that students would not return to the physical classroom, manufacturers and retailers of school uniforms expressed concern that they had been left with millions of dollars in school attire.
Stating that her administration was conscious of the impact the pandemic has had on the cashflow of companies that usually benefit from the sale of school uniforms, Mottley said: “It is against that backdrop that once again the Government will play a role of bridging, and we have agreed that we will buy 70 per cent of the uniforms that are available in the country and that once school resumes, I hope by early in the new year once we can get the vaccination numbers up, that we are then in a position to sell on those uniforms.”
Though not giving details on how Government would go about procuring the 70 per cent of uniforms available on the island, Mottley said after making that purchase, Government will then resell them at a 15 per cent discount once schools reopen.
“If you think we are going to do that without extracting a commitment from them (garment manufacturers and retailers) to transform their industry you got the wrong body here,” she said. “The compact, therefore, must be ‘how are you going to retool your industry, use computer-aided designs, work with the BIDC (Export Barbados) to create a cluster so that persons can micro lease on equipment that they may not have the capital to buy themselves and partner with fashion designers.
“We have also, as part of the compact, given them the assurance that we will deal with the public sector uniforms, but you got to make sure you meet us also on issues of quality and timeliness and affordability.”
Mottley, who is scheduled to meet with food producers and importers here on Friday, said she would also be putting forward a compact at that time.
“Barbados cannot be the only location for farmers in Barbados to be producing,” the Prime Minister told the business group. “This government has worked too hard to settle the Brokopondo agreement with Suriname and to bring the President of Guyana here who reconfirmed to the private sector their commitment not only to making available land for production and farming but also opportunities with respect to food security and us planning it out together.”
The Brokopondo Programme for Co-operation 2018-2021 is an agricultural trade agreement between Bridgetown and Paramaribo.
Mottley did not give any indication of what possible requirements would be in the compact with agriculture.
She said she would also seek to put a similar agreement in place with furniture manufacturers. (MM)
