Cummins defends Gov’t spending

The Leader of Government Business in the Senate has defended the administration’s increased spending, saying it is linked directly to the country’s development path and the level of services its citizens enjoy.

Leading off debate in the Upper Chamber on the Appropriation Bill, 2024, Senator Lisa Cummins said there must be a conversation on how the government spends the money it pulls in rather than on “cheap” unsubstantiated claims initiated by the Opposition.

She said those who claim that the administration is fueling an unsustainable debt situation need to look back at the period early in the new government’s term when the economic situation had to be “fixed” by the Barbados Labour Party (BLP).

“This government has wrestled to the ground the fiscal indiscipline of the previous government, both at central government level and in state-owned enterprises (SOEs), to the extent where we have decreasing transfers from Central Government to the SOEs,” said the Minister of Energy and Business Development.

Senator Cummins adopted a theme of “What goes in, comes out” as she outlined how the government apportions its expenditure for the benefit of its citizens.

She recalled growing up in a country where her working-class mother did not have to worry about paying to send her to primary or secondary school, nor did she have to be encumbered by paying for her university education at “the point of receipt”.

“I understand that a part of my heritage… successive governments have always seen, is that our education trajectory positions us for a development pathway that we have set ourselves on,” Cummins told the Senate.

She explained that what the government collects in tax revenue comes back out to fund education, healthcare and climatic adaptation and mitigation among other areas: “We have, in these Estimates, begun the process of looking at what goes in, in order to make sure we can capture what comes back out. What goes in by way of revenue by taxation or raising debt, is what comes back out.… What comes back out is for transport and works and to ensure we have roads we can drive on. What goes in is a direct correlation with what comes out.”

Senator Cummins said there has to be a conversation about the relationship between taxation and debt, what we can access from our government and what we have become accustomed to as Barbadians.

“Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country,” the minister said, referencing the well-known quote by former United States President John F Kennedy.

She stressed the importance of Barbadians understanding how taxation and debt relate to how they live, adding that access to free healthcare is an entitlement which many associate almost as a “right”.

“Those services that we are accustomed to have a cost, and those things correlate to what goes in,” Senator Cummins said. “And this country is having a conversation, under this government, about what goes in by way of revenues, what revenues we raise and what debts we are assuming and how they benefit people or our development trajectory.”

(SP)