BRIDGETOWN, Barbados

OPPOSITION leader Mia Mottley Wednesday warned Barbadians to brace themselves for more economic hardship as she dismissed the measures outlined 24 hours earlier by Finance Minister Chris Sinckler to rescue an ailing economy.

“We have a set of choices that have been put before us… Barbados is at stake,” she told legislators as she responded to the budget presentation of the Freundel Stuart government.

She described the fiscal package as nothing more than a set of “lucky dip measures that are not connected and will not remedy current economic ills.

“It wasn’t only in the removal of fees, the ultimate betrayal of not just his party but of his country, but it was also in the inability to appreciate that his measures constitute a lucky dip of measures designed to achieve one thing, the unlocking of US$50 million in the first instance from the IDB (Inter American Development Bank) but without a coherent strategy to reposition a country and to lift up households and productive sectors that have ceased working in a way in which we have accustomed to see them work”.

Mottley said that the initiatives will drive Barbadians back into poverty, pauperise the middle class and, worst — put wealth in the hands of the few.

“So what is before us, Sir, is a choice and a choice that will see the marginalisation of thousands of people within the public service who tonight do not know which way to turn and how to turn because the minister has not even given them the comfort of telling them what he intends for them…other than it will not be business as usual or income as usual,” she said.

She said the government outlined no policy to assist small businesses as well as “vendors who will suffer from the contraction of the disposable income that will definitely result from the increase of taxation by over a BDS$150 million (One Barbados dollar =US$0.50 cents) not to mention the fees by stealth that will come.”

Mottley said the Stuart government, re-elected to office in February, was hiding behind the excuse of the global recession and throwing its hands up in the air, while taking the easiest path out.

“When we look at the Caribbean, the country that will grow the least in 2013 in the entire Caribbean region, Mr Speaker, is Barbados. So that they can find no company, as much as we know that they like to feel that misery loves company they can find no company in the recession with our major trading partners regionally and internationally.

“We hide behind this government as if we now are powerless and innocent victims and rob this country of its spirit to fight,” she said, warning that this path will undermine the country.

The Opposition leader was also critical of the government to introduce measures that would introduce the payment of tuition fees for nationals seeking to study at the University of the West Indies (UWI).

Sinckler said that effective 2014, Barbadian students pursuing studies at the university’s three campuses will be required to pay their own tuition fees, while the government continues to fund economic costs.

He said the tuition fees range from BDS$5, 625 to BDS$65,000 and that the new policy would reduce the transfer to UWI by an estimated BDS$42 million a year.

“The government of Barbados recognises that access to education at all levels has been a key factor in the success of Barbados as a society and an economy,” Sinckler said, adding that the government “remains committed to, and fully supportive of, the continued growth and development of UWI Cave Hill and increased access to tertiary education for Barbadians”.

But Mottley said that “education has done more for us as a country than bauxite has done for Jamaica. Education has done more for us as a country than oil in gas for Trinidad, education has done more for us as a country than gold and diamonds has done for Guyana, and I make bold to say so to the people of this country tonight because one of the reasons that we across parties have celebrated the fact that Barbados, in the human development index, is regarded as leading developing country in the world is because of the continuous investment in our people.

“I am saying to you, sir, that this region, the Caribbean region, has the lowest tertiary education enrolment. We have a tertiary education deficit. Instead of seeing an expansion of students across the university system we would be at risk now of seeing a reduction from Barbados”.

She said in the late-1990s both Jamaica and Trinidad had done what Barbados is now doing, but that Port of Spain reversed that decision “because of the experience that too many children from working-class backgrounds …no longer could be seen applying to the University at St Augustine. St Augustine today is the biggest campus with 21,000 students.”

She said that a Barbados Labour Party (BLP) government would reverse the decision to charge tuition fees to university students.

“And further, that we will so manage our economic and fiscal affairs that it will not be a problem as we did for 14 years when we reversed the last decision of the Democratic Labour Party to charge fees in this country, so this is not the first time.”

Mottley was also critical of the decision to cut the reverse tax credit and to introduce a fiscal consolidation tax.

“Sir, this tax places a burden on people who generate jobs. If a household has somebody gardening for them three days a week, they are likely to tell the man come once or don’t come at all,” she said, speaking of the multiplier effect that would have on the society.

The debate continues on Thursday.

–CMC