BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC—Opposition Leader Ralph Thorne has dismissed Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s 2024 national budget presentation on Monday, warning Barbadians to prepare for “extreme hardship and poverty.”
“Growth does not exist in Barbados,” he said, warning that the middle class is being driven into poverty.
“…extreme hardship and poverty portend for this country,” Thorne said.
“What the people in this country feel is the extreme heat of an economy that is performing poorly, of an economy in which inflation is rampant, an economy in which inflation is further impoverishing the poor, marginalizing and bringing the middle class back into poverty that they would have experienced before their social elevation,” he said.
In a nearly five-hour rebuttal of the fiscal package, Thorne, who earlier this year left the ruling Barbados Labour Party (BLP) to join the main opposition Democratic Labour Party (DLP), tore into the package, which deals with the country’s debt, foreign reserves, and revenue-earning measures over the next 12 months.
“We are in an environment where this government is now employing the most significant number of consultants ever in the history of political administration…and that may be a vain, glorious government, but it causes the suffering of thousands of Barbadians who could have been employed with the same monies that support those few who live luxurious and opulent lives, at the expense of the people this government sent home last year; and many of them have not recovered without National Insurance.
“They wanted the money, they needed the money, but they also wanted some respect. Is it too much for them?” Thorne said, painting a picture of doom and gloom in various productive sectors.
He said the Mottley administration had last year sent home an estimated 3,000 workers, who were later paid BDS$500 (one BDS$ = US$0.50 cents) per week to clean up the island after the freak storm and the ashfall from the La Soufriere Volcano in neighboring St Vincent.
Thorne also dismissed the statement by Prime Minister Mottley that Barbados had recorded 11 consecutive quarters of economic growth and was on the verge of a 12th, telling legislators that the dismissed weekly-paid employees could have been rehired without necessarily troubling the state coffers.
He told Parliament that the government had paid “a little-known” company—public debt management consultants White Oak—an estimated BDS$54 million to undertake a “simple” restructuring of the economy in 2019 and is giving BDS$30,000 per month to the newest chief executive officer of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
He said the HOPE Housing Project’s new finance consultant receives BDS$14 000 when the consultant has a full-time job in St Lucia.
He said the “squandermania” of taxpayers’ money could have been used to re-employ dismissed workers. He also noted the allocation in this year’s Estimates of BDS$188 million for the Prime Minister’s Office to travel on overseas trips with little returns.
He appealed to Mottley to cut the allocation to her office in half and help the retrenched employees to be rehired.
Addressing the Home Ownership Providing Energy (HOPE) housing project, Thorne expressed fears that employees of the National Housing Corporation (NHC) will be sent home, claiming that the government was in the process of dismantling the NHC and handing its more than 50 years of outstanding service to Barbadians over to a private entity “masquerading” as a public enterprise.
He told legislators that with the US$60 million already paid to the project, only 131 homes have so far been built after two-and-a-half years when by now, about 5,000 ought to have been completed based on the government’s annual goal.
During his rebuttal, Thorne also referred to reported declines in non-sugar agricultural production, investment, real economic growth, and international business while cautioning the government to push for diversification and urgently stop its dependence on tourism.
He also outlined 15 features that disincentivize local and foreign investment, including excess debt, high inflation, corruption, and rampant crime.
The newly appointed Opposition Leader also listed nine economic weaknesses: a high trade deficit, an overtaxed economy, high levels of unearned foreign reserves received through borrowing, and low labor force participation, particularly by women.
He said political partisanship prevents others from speaking out against the country’s leadership.
“Last year, I spoke to the marginalized of this country. My location here is related to my conscience. This year, I’m saying the same thing…with greater political freedom this time. The truth I told last year is an enduring truth this year. It is well with my soul.”
Thorne said he urged the government to be transparent and honest with the people, conduct its business with integrity, and halt the “detestable practice” of individual reward.
He said the government remains deaf to the groundswell of opposition to its policies and actions.
“The reality is that there is much suffering among the people of this country. I am not only speaking of the poor people but also middle-class people who are afraid to open the light bill, and when they reach the cash register in the supermarket, they get nervous,” he said.
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