Herbert: Less talk, more action required

“We know what to do, but we fail on implementing.”

 

President of the Barbados Private Sector Association Charles Herbert made this clear as he spoke at the meeting for the full Social Partnership held on Monday.

 

Saying that persons often accused such meetings of being “a talk shop”, he insisted that it was critical that not only are solutions found to the issues confronting the country, but also that a strategy is devised for implementing these.

 

In his first address to the social partnership since taking up his mantle, Herbert agreed with Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler’s priorities listed in the budget; including foreign exchange reserves, the fiscal deficit and the ease of doing business; all three of which were on the agenda for yesterday’s event.

 

“We see these as the three key items that need our collaboration and we need to bring about meaningful change as quickly as we can for the interest of our country. We have often been accused that today’s meeting is just a talk shop and that we come and chat and we do not get anything done. I am hoping that today we can identify the priority action items which are most important for our country, that we can develop a strategy for developing the solutions and a strategy for implementing the solutions,” he stated.

 

Telling those gathered at the Lloyd Erskine Sanford Centre that the island was still going through challenges, he insisted that the meeting must be collaborative and consensus driven.

 

“We intend to be here today, not to throw stones at government but to work with you to try and reach solutions and make things better. Our presentations will not be political – in that our goal is not to endorse or to change a government, the people’s representatives. Our hope is for consensus and that we will create ideas on how we should implement the consensus that we reach,” Herbert stressed. (JMB)