APP leader wants Gov’t to provide details on promised projects

Former Opposition Leader Bishop Joseph Atherley wants more clarity about the capital works projects announced by Prime Minister Mia Mottley during her Budget speech earlier this month.

He questioned the feasibility of the projects, given the country’s small workforce and the prevailing financial constraints, while addressing a meeting of his Alliance Party for Progress (APP) on Sunday.

Saying the Mottley administration continued to boast about several projects but gave no clear indication on how they would be financed or other details, the APP leader said:

“A lot of them have to do with tourism – so this hotel is going to go up there, and Sam Lord’s is going to start back and finish by this month, and Hyatt is going to come on stream. They are promising employment for Barbadians through this means, but they are not clear.

“It will build a new Geriatric Hospital, it will do some additions to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital across the street, and they are saying they will do these things. You have to ask yourselves ‘where is the money going to come from, when will these things be done and how many jobs will really be generated?’ Do we have the capacity in terms of a labour force if the private sector really gets going with these capital projects? Do we have the adequate labour force to do it?” he questioned.

While praising the national clean-up programme that currently has a predominately young workforce tasked with keeping the island’s roadways clean, Atherley emphasised the need for Government to be clearer on the future transitionary process into the construction sector which was promised to those workers but which has not yet borne fruit.

“What construction work, where is it? You can’t fool people all of the time, not with the same story. A lot of the people I see out there earning an honest dollar working in the sun cleaning the roads . . . I salute them and I am glad that they have the opportunity for work, but . . . I believe – and I have to say so – a lot of those jobs were intended to ensure that when an election date came, those votes would go to the Barbados Labour Party.
(SB)