Gov’t defends its beautification programme saying it gives hundreds of young people the opportunity to be entrepreneurs

Government has no intention to downsize or discontinue a national clean-up programme criticised for “sending the wrong message” to the country’s youth and being used as a tool for “political exploitation”.

The programme which emerged from last year’s ashfall cleanup after the eruption of the La Soufriere volcano, has become a fixture on the government’s wage bill, employing up to 720 people, mostly young men at approximately $100 per day.

It involves the beautification of the country by cutting grass, weeding and planting trees across the length and breadth of the island.

In the draft estimates for 2022/2023 the initiative has been listed as a sub-programme under the Preservation and Conservation of the Terrestrial and Marine Environment programme within the Ministry of the Environment, National Beautification and the Blue Economy.

Over the coming financial year, the national clean-up programme will receive funding to the tune of $7,036,662 which is considerably less than the revised estimate of $16,728,900 recorded last year. Forward estimates suggest this is likely to increase to $11 million over the two upcoming financial years.

“As far as I know as minister, there is no plan to stop those workers or sequester them,” Minister of the Environment, National Beautification and the Blue Economy, Adrian Forde told Barbados TODAY.

“Further than that, I think we are trying to expand what they are doing by giving them the opportunity to be entrepreneurs, giving them the opportunity to have a tangible stake, letting them form clusters and groups so that they can cater for any contract that is put out to tender,” he added.

Former Opposition Leader Bishop Joseph Atherley raised the issue on numerous occasions during his election campaign last month as leader of the Alliance Party for Progress. On Tuesday, he acknowledged the importance of the work being done, but maintained his concern about the use of such schemes to achieve political gains.

“There are those who will have to be employed to do it. My concern was then and still is now, that in Barbados, the kind of system of politics that we practice, uses situations like that for exploitation of people for political ends, so that you have multiple numbers employed in a context where essentially all they are doing is cleaning roads and sweeping the road,” said Atherley.

“It means that you have swollen employment numbers to do it, because each of those numbers would represent votes. My concern in a broader and perhaps even more major way, is that any government elected to bring meaningful changes in the lives of people, should not desire at all to settle for giving people that and making that the best offering that we can give to people.

“We should not inculcate in them the idea that this is the only thing that they are good for and that this is the best that the system can offer them,” Atherley added.

Director of the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute for Social and Economic Studies, Professor Don Marshall also has concerns about the initiative. While he agrees that such “crash” programmes are necessary from time to time, he believes the structure of the programme could undermine the social and economic order.

“I saw someone in the newspaper the other day saying that a policeman with some o’levels and training walks in at $2700 a month and a guy that doesn’t have to do that kind of training can earn $100 a day cleaning up the road and so on,” said Marshall in a recent interview.

“That produces all kinds of cultural incoherences and resentment and we don’t want that discourse to take shape in Barbados, where a fellow doesn’t have to spend time in school and doesn’t have to work hard at his or her vocation. All they have to do is just know an MP or know the Government in power and get $100 a day. That is not the Barbados that we want to see being built,” he added.

But Minister Forde, defending the programme, contended that the workers are more than simply young men cleaning the streets. Instead, he said they are micro businessmen on the frontlines of the country’s fight against climate change. He explained that the youngsters are allocated a specific area of the country’s landscape to work on, supervised by trained personnel and paid when the job is done.

“That sounds like folly jumping up and down and you would expect something better from some person who is supposed to be a lecturer at the university,” Forde said in response to Professor Marshall’s assertion.

“I believe that if you are talking mitigation, if you are talking climate resistance, if you are talking beautification, if you are talking eco systems management, there is no better job right now in Barbados, there is no more important job in Barbados than what these youngsters are doing.

“When they are clearing the drainage and the drainage systems on our roads, it is stopping the flooding that would destroy our homes. The importance of that must never be underestimated,” he declared.

The minister argued that clearing the gutters, removing invasive flora and planting trees, are among the most important jobs on the market and their pay is merely a reflection of this. In each case, Forde said the contractors choose their own hours of operation and are working with the Ministry of Energy, Small Business and Entrepreneurship to develop their business acumen.

“We are trying to get these youngsters that you are seeing on the streets, into small businesses that become vibrant and that could do the work that is expected in terms of beautifying this country,” said Forde. kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb