New St Andrew candidate gets Payne’s nod

The Barbados Labour Party (BLP) candidate for St Andrew says he has the full backing of his predecessor, George Payne, a long-serving parliamentarian, whose support for Prime Minister Mia Mottley has, from time to time, been in question.

On Wednesday evening, Dr Romel Springer revealed that he was nominated and ratified by the constituency branch, confirming reports from BLP General Secretary, Dr Jerome Walcott.

“Mr Payne fully endorsed me… I enjoy his full endorsement. He promised that he would canvas with me, he would work with me, he would work for me and he would do all he can to ensure that I regain this seat for St Andrew for the BLP,” Dr Springer told Barbados TODAY as he canvassed the constituency.

Repeated efforts by Barbados TODAY to reach George Payne were unsuccessful

Dr Springer, a former university lecturer, who will face-off against Democratic Labour Party (DLP) candidate Oldwin Skeete, believes his chances are good, based on years of work in the constituency and the positive feedback from residents.

“When I move around the constituency, I get a sense that people are comfortable with my representation, and people are comfortable with the efforts that I have made in the past to ensure that their lives are improved,” said Dr Springer.

“We would have had an extremely difficult past two years. In the early stages of COVID when people were afraid, they did not understand the virus and they were very afraid. I was out there working and ensuring that people got the things that they needed. I was on the ground,” the political hopeful declared.

According to Dr Springer, his representation in the communities only intensified during the La Soufriere volcanic eruptions in St Vincent and the Grenadines, the destructive freak storm in June and the impact of Hurricane Elsa just days later.

The political hopeful has also noted the assistance provided to residents, particularly farmers with animals, during a series of vexing water outages.

“I was working closely with this community through all of the various crises that we have gone through in St Andrew and I would hope that the people of St Andrew would remember these things when they go out to vote,” said Dr Springer.

The aspiring politician says he will be seeking to retool and empower the community as he continues to transform the constituency into a hub for the acquisition of vocational skills and sporting excellence.

“I would have reintroduced into the community some empowerment workshops where a number of persons would have received trust loans. But prior to receiving those trust loans, those persons would have engaged in a number of sessions in financial literacy and other aspects of entrepreneurship, to give them the necessary knowledge on the things that you need to be a successful entrepreneur,” said Dr Springer.

kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb