OPPOSITION Leader Mia Mottley has chided Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler for not addressing the sugar industry during his Budget presentation.
During her nearly three hour presentation in the Lower House yesterday, Mottley said officials from the sugar industry have expressed concern that promises are continuously being made by the Government.
“You can’t determine you are going to send subsidies to people at a time when they can no longer plant. Agriculture is time sensitive, you have to plant at a
certain time of the year.
“How can you be building a $500 million factory with a sugar industry that earned less than ten million in 2015, according to the 2015 Social and Economic Report?” Mottley queried.
“If it is that you are making a case for it because you are generating electricity at a price that is within reach of what makes sense for [Barbados] Light and Power to do this, say so. But you haven’t even said so,”she lamented.
“In the meantime, we have problems with the cane industry. There are people who now, to deal with the Ratoon Stunting Disease, have to do certain things. They don’t have the time, the money or the confidence.”
The Opposition Leader said she wanted to place on record that the BLP believes that a sugar and grass industry must be kept alive in Barbados, with the view of keeping the countryside ecologically
viable.
“We believe that we have a lot to gain, by producing Barbados molasses for Barbados rum, to expand our production there. And the notion of keeping happy with an 80 million industry is nonsense when the rum comes from this country and we stand to get the greatest benefit from it globally because of the value added and our historical association with it. Yet he [Minister Sinckler] tells you about growth, ...but no platform to show what you are putting that growth on,”she said. (JH)
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