Uniform manufacturers to benefit from Government subsidy

After nearly two years of reduced sales and wasted inventory, the uniform sales and manufacturing industry will soon receive a much needed subsidy from Government.

Minister in the Ministry of Finance Ryan Straughn, speaking in Parliament on Friday, revealed that $4,406,713 is being allocated to subsidize uniform manufacturers who, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, have not been able to sell most of their stock because children were not in the classroom.

“The online provision of schools, certainly, and given the Delta wave this summer, has meant that those manufacturers of not just uniforms generally, but in this instance as it relates to school uniforms, have had a significant dent in relation to their sales. Therefore, the monies being provisioned here really is just to offset some of the cost as it related to the inventory they have been carrying now pretty much for two years,” he said.

Straughn further explained that the local garment-making industry will also receive renewed focus as the Government hopes to revive the sector, and expand on its profitably, outside of making uniforms, in the future.

“Government is committed to working through the BIDC [Barbados Investment and Development Corporation] as well as other supporting agencies with the garment sector and with the Ministry of Agriculture, to be able to get new investment into this particular space because we believe that this is still a respectable place of work, an industry that ordinary Barbadians can play a part in.”

He added: “To the extent that training for seamstresses and tailors and the like, I believe, is worthy of us being able to jumpstart – COVID certainly was not kind to the process – and therefore it is our judgment that being able to support these manufacturers in this way at this time, though very limited, will allow us to be able to get them over the line, so to speak, that they are still sufficiently viable entities at the end of this process.”

Meantime, Minister of Education, Technological and Vocational Training, Santia Bradshaw revealed in Parliament that the Coleridge and Parry School, which received significant damage from Hurricane Elsa in July, will undergo an extensive repair campaign soon, geared at returning the campus back to a proper state, fit to be used for learning.

The hurricane caused damage to the roof structure of blocks L and S, the covered walkway at the school, as well as the canteen area.

“We also had a request from the principal and the Board to also have the engineers take a look at library roof and also some other areas on the school plant which had been in dire need of repair,” Bradshaw explained.

Total cost of the repairs is estimated to be $1.633 million and work should take five months to be completed.

Plans are already being in place to accommodate students when in-person classes begin in 2022 after the Ministry of Health gives the go-ahead to education officials.
(SB)