Nothing more than a distraction from Government’s failing policies, was how Leader of the Opposition Ralph Thorne described Minister Ryan Straughn’s contribution in the House of Assembly yesterday.
Thorne accused Straughn of throwing in the Ponzi scheme in a disappointing presentation from a technocrat in economics adding that when he appealed to Barbadians to put the “schemes and scams behind”, it was a sanctimonious intervention.
The House of Assembly was debating the Resolution: Barbados Fiscal Framework 2024-2025 to 2026-2027 and 2025 -2026 to 2027-2028. The Public Finance Management Act requires the Ministry of Finance, Economic Affairs and Investment to prepare a Fiscal Framework for the mentioned period, reviewing the performance of the previous financial year against the fiscal objectives; present a macro-economic outlook and to set out the fiscal objectives for the medium term to be considered by Cabinet.
Thorne said the Minister was supposed to come to the House and deliver on the state of the economy but at the centre of his delivery was the reference to Ponzi schemes as though that was the greatest national economic issue confronting the country.
“What this country will not put behind it, is the mismanagement and the poor management of this economy. What we will not put behind us, is the fact that this economy is on the road to failure, and it is on the road to failure because Government’s economic policies are inadequate for prudent management of any economy, including this one,” the Member for Christ Church South stated.
He said that Barbados should hear soon that most of its Caribbean neighbours are experiencing real growth since the benchmark occasion of the COVID-19 pandemic, while Straughn speaks about making the growth that we are “seeing in the economy real”.
“The overwhelming majority of Barbadians are not economists, but we are still entitled to ask . . . how is it that we may be seeing growth, but it is not real? That’s why I say he seems to have abandoned his technocratic training,” Thorne stated of Straughn, an economist.
He questioned how have the Ponzi schemes affected the Government’s ability to manage this economy or the lack of access that the majority of people have to the Government’s generosity.
“This presentation . . . ought to have nothing to do with the presence of any Ponzi scheme whether present or past. This presentation this morning, apart from being disappointing, is sanctimonious. We’re not interested in those. That is not at the heart of this Government’s failure,” Thorne said.
Straughn, he said, was to have presented a statement meant to give Barbadians some hope that the Government was attending seriously to the economy.
“The question of Ponzi schemes becomes prioritised over social programmes and the reason [Straughn] could not speak to social programmes or refuse to speak to social programmes, is because they’re largely inadequate, and even if they are present, there’s nothing much to report on them,” he stated as he referenced the recent football tournament, the Prime’s Minister Cup.
The Minister’s technique of avoidance left him in an awkward position when he started to speak of the social virtue of education, said Thorne.
He said the Minister’s presentation fell short of the lengthy speech he was expecting to hear dissecting the economic policy and telling Barbadians why they should continue to have confidence in Government.
What he got was an anecdotal approach with references to a grandmother, brick and mortar, schemes and scams and the high point, advising every Barbadian to buy a barrel rum, stated Thorne.
“When we thought that he was going to associate that advice with the season he deviated from that expected,” the Opposition Leader said.
As a result, the Opposition’s responsibility became to tell Barbadians what was in the document and contrast it against their everyday reality.
In it, it is stated the Barbadian economy weathered a global pandemic, natural disasters and high global inflationary pressures through transitory public financial support, and that has been said for the last six years, pointed out Thorne.
He called for concessions to be given to the small business owners the same way that millions of dollars have been given to the wealthy villa owner renovating his property. Rum shop owners in Dover, Christ Church, My Lord’s Hill or Brittons Hill in St Michael should also benefit from concession, Thorne stated.
“Why is concessions reserved for the wealthy?” he asked.
Thorne also asked repeatedly about the cost of the prime minister’s travel and the payment to consultants.
