Leader of the Opposition’s Business in the Lower House, Santia Bradshaw, is insistent that the discussion in Parliament turn to improving the country’s economic standing.
Speaking briefly during Tuesday’s debate on the Minimum Wage Bill, 2016, she stressed that while the Barbados Labour Party would support the legislation, the fact that many businesses across the island were currently at stake meant that talks should now surround such issues.
“It is very difficult for a Barbados Labour Party to comprehend how we can have a debate on this legislation, without addressing the issues that are affecting Barbadians across this land, and this is not a BLP issue or concern alone. We cannot speak to minimum wages when in this country, businesses are unable to keep their machinery moving, where people are unable to keep people employed, where even the MP from St. James South said that the people in big and small businesses cannot get their refunds. So we cannot sit here and pretend that it is business as usual,” she said.
Questioning what the island’s financial position was, she said Barbadians were concerned due to the continuous downgrades from various rating agencies, and therefore called for the Prime Minister or Minister of Finance to break their silence and speak to whether the Barbadian dollar was going to be devalued.
“We wish to hear from the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister what is the position of the financial state of this country. We cannot talk about languishing projects in Barbados; we cannot talk about making sure that the National Social Responsibility Levy of the two per cent should be reversed for international business, if it is that we cannot deal with the fact that we cannot employ people if we do not have certainty in the way we do business,” Bradshaw added. (JMB)