Prime Minister and BLP Leader, Mia Amor Mottley, making a point during the meeting.
Government is making good on its promise to provide jobs for Barbadians during this difficult period as COVID-19 affects the island.
Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley gave this assurance while addressing the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) Mass Meeting at the Sheffield Pasture, Lower Estate on Sunday night.
She reported to the constituents of St. George North that work will commence this week on a new Senior Citizens Village at Boarded Hall by the private sector. As a result, up to 300 people are expected to be employed throughout the major construction project.
In addition, Harlequin Hotel which halted construction a few years ago in Hastings, Christ Church will soon resume, however, this time around with Barbadian investors.
“That project will start in the next two months or so, we have been told by the developers who have already received Town and Country Planning permission.”
Besides jobs coming in the area of construction in the private sector, Prime Minister Mottley highlighted that work will be available through various government projects which are pushing ahead.
For instance, the hiring of Monitors in primary schools to assist in ensuring that children practise physical distancing during breaks and lunch hour, as well as before and after school; and the hiring of about 500 persons to assist the National Assistance Board (NAB) to care for the elderly across communities. Also, several projects implemented by the Ministry of Transport, Works and Maintenance (MTWM) and Barbados Water Authority (BWA) will create jobs.
“Work is about to start on Highway 1 to put all of the water mains and the cables underground… Also, the project from Vineyard up to St. John, there will be roads digging – men working again.
“We also have the wells and water courses that have to be cleaned and if we don’t clean them, it will result in flooding. And you can see that for the first time you have a government in this country that every time the rain sets up, we are singularly focused on removing the burden of flooding from communities in this country. The people in Murphy Pasture and Chapman Lane know that we are doing a major rehabilitation, and all of that work will require jobs.
“Those are jobs being created by your Government to ease the burden of COVID for many of you who have been made unemployed in this country,” Mottley further stressed. (TL)