THE top brass of the Democratic Labour Party is of the belief that the way forward for Barbados should be paved by small business and agriculture as opposed to tourism alone. These were among several topics touched on over the weekend when they hosted a virtual panel discussion titled ‘COVID-19 Time To Reset’.
With the viral infection at the forefront of everyone’s minds once again after the recent spike in cases locally, Party President Verla De Peiza opened Sunday evening’s discussion by citing her delivery of the Errol Barrow Memorial Lecture last year where she stated that Barbados needed to take stock and consider whether or not we needed to go in a different direction. Noting that in essence Barbados needed to be moving forward more quickly into the 21st century, De Peiza said that the COVID-19 pandemic was more than enough evidence for us to look at diversification.
“We were afforded that opportunity to take a pause. We were afforded the opportunity to investigate all that was occurring in relation to our different sectors – education, business, tourism; everything. COVID gave us that opportunity. And our lockdown also pointed us in certain directions. In particular, that we needed to have more than tourism to rely on. That we needed to have a more comprehensive portfolio of revenue earning. That we needed to have our people more involved in our society. That our education system needed to be brought forward into the 21st century,” she said going on to mention that now was the time for us to be engaged in the regrouping and retooling of our industries and our people, but was not satisfied that we were.
With many across the length and breadth of Barbados asking the question, ‘If not tourism, then what?’, First Vice President Ryan Walters said that during these tough times, the small business sector was left to fend for themselves and that was just the sector that needed to be boosted.
“Why are we not focussing on expanding businesses, moving them into franchises, moving them into bigger plants, having them create their own products by improving manufacturing. Helping them to outsource and create more entrepreneurs instead of employees so other persons can grow their business and have a domino effect in this country. The concept of other industries outside of tourism has to be surrounded around the concept of supporting small business and supporting entrepreneurship so that it is able to grow,” he said.
With reference drawn to the now-waning sugar cane industry, Second Vice President Andre Worrell stated that it was high time that agriculture was given its due share of the investments.
“We need to go beyond the sugar cane production and also see persons getting involved in agriculture in other areas. I am disappointed with the current administration’s focus on agriculture because at the time when the hotel sector was in a tailspin, they still responded by throwing millions of dollars at the hotel sector when all of the information coming out of the tourism industry is basically saying that the hotel sector may very not be viable until about 2024. We need to stop treating agriculture like the outside child and start putting it at the table so it would have a place just like tourism and start throwing money at agriculture, so that it can become viable in Barbados. There are a lot of persons in Barbados who are interested in agriculture,” he said. (MP)