SHADOW Minister of Industry, Commerce & International Business Kerrie Symmonds says it is the Barbados Labour Party’s understanding that the Fair Trading Commission has made its decision on the sale of the Barbados National Terminal Co Ltd (BNTCL).
In a statement issued yesterday to the media, Symmonds, the Member of Parliament for St. James Central said: “The sale of that entity, like the imminent sale of the Barbados Hilton, constitutes the gasping for air on the part of a dying administration. At best the sale of these entities may equate to about two to three weeks foreign exchange reserves cover. Though this will give a little elbow room for the Minister of Finance, it will not remove the problems we face.”
Symmonds said Barbados’ current fiscal position is dire and will not be transformed by this administration’s selling off “our most valuable family silver.”
“We need to have long ago implemented a serious regime of financial discipline and to have stood by it. At this late stage, beyond a regime of financial discipline, Barbados also now desperately needs an opportunity for all of us as stakeholders to have a chance to say whether we have confidence in the several failed attempts by the Minister of Finance to turn the financial situation around.”
“Equally, and by extension, the country also needs the opportunity for a breath of assurance that can only come from virtue of an electoral exercise at the national level, and the reposing of fresh confidence in a new administration,” he opined.