Broken promises
Opposition Leader Mia Mottley addressing Sunday’s mass meeting at St Patrick’s, Christ Church. (Picture by Sharon Harding.)
THE GREAT BETRAYAL.
That’s how Opposition Leader Mia Mottley has described David Thompson’s two-year tenure as Prime Minister thus far.
Speaking at a mass meeting at St Patrick’s, Christ Church, on Sunday night, Mottley said Thompson’s Democratic Labour Party (DLP) manifesto and promises to the Barbadian populace amounted to a social contract which the Government had broken at every turn.
She said Barbadians voted for the Government on the strength of promises that included: Duty free cars for police, nurses and teachers; VAT off electricity; 2 000 lots at $2.50 per square foot; a special interest-free fund for public servants, among others.
The Barbados Labour Party (BLP) leader said since the DLP Government came into power, it had directed its energies in one direction.
She said Thompson was practising a politics of “families first”, where the only people benefiting from what little his administration was doing, were close friends of the party.
Mottley said the greatest promises were made to Barbados’ public sector and it was to them that the greatest betrayal was now being meted out.
She said the Thompson Government had inherited a resilient economy with $2.5 milllion in reserves and unemployment at 6.7 per cent.
She added former Prime Minister Owen Arthur had warned Thompson of the “storm clouds” on the horizon and the need for careful management of a situation that was not yet a crisis. But, she said, the DLP paid no heed to Arthur’s warning.
Mottley said Thompson’s way of dealing with the economic crisis was to add further burden to Barbadians in the form of increased taxation, including land tax.
She said people who owned houses under the value of $150 000 previously paid no land tax. Thompson, she charged, had presided over a situation where there was an increase in land evaluation and those category of people were now paying taxes again.
She said small shop owners now had to pay an additional $650 to keep their businesses open legally, thanks to the broken promises of the Government.
Mottley stressed it was ridiculous to attempt to tax one’s way out of a recession.
“All you would do is take money out of people’s pockets and you would cause the economy to go further into recession; jobs would be lost; you would not control prices; and the revenue of Government would be affected because Government relies mainly on Value Added Tax and corporation taxes and needs people to spend in order to carry out its programmes,” she said.
Mottley urged Barbadians, especially public servants, to take their minds back to the early 1990s when the DLP cut their wages and salaries. She said they were in the “firing line” then, and were in it once again.
She said history would show that public servants had endured wages stagnation under the DLP in 1992, 1993, and 1994. Conversely, she noted, under the BLP, public workers had enjoyed wage increases every year with the exception of one year.
She added that in that one year when the increase was not commensurate with inflation, Barbadians were granted a cost of living allowance. She said the BLP had never left people to the ravages of inflation. (WG) (Nation News)