Senator Jonathan Reid plans to make the Ministry of Innovation, Industry, Science and Technology the “premier service ministry” driving innovation, creating job opportunities and exploiting the island’s technological abilities for economic growth.
In his maiden speech in the Senate during debate on the Appropriations Bill, 2025 recently, the minister, who was recently appointed, said over the next five years, the ministry “has to be the catalyst to creating 2 500 new high-quality jobs for young Barbadians” and for growing the economy into a multibillion-dollar economy.
He disclosed that he was “directly responsible for creating 500 new jobs” in his previous post as Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister.
“I am happy to say, at my last count, the number was nearly 700. We must and will build out the future economy of Barbados and we must and will uplift the national scientific and technology-built capacity of this country,” he said, adding he envisioned it as “the ministry of the future” and the “ministry of possibilities”.
“We are the bridge that connects today to tomorrow. We are the engine to shape and build an equitable, prosperous, modern and values-driven Barbados,” Reid said as he went on to outline key aspects of his plan of action.
He said the initial work of his ministry would be done from March to September when the focus would be on becoming “a ministry that embodies positive collaboration and efficient delivery”. This groundwork was necessary for the cohesion which he hoped to achieve in the various departments.
He said the intention was to have his ministry become “the Government’s premier service ministry, competent and collaborative”, and signalled that its core agencies would be “deeply resourced and upscaled in importance to drive the work they do further”.
The senator also outlined ideas for job creation initiatives, the expansion of business in various areas of technology, and projects to create manufacturing and export opportunities as part of his master plan.
However, he said he believed the country needed to overcome certain attitudes still evident “as a direct result of the vile system of plantation slavery”, such as insularity, racism, xenophobia and “a complex of lack” which “has slowed us down in our target of economic diversification and growth”.
Reid added that his intention was “to build out a knowledge economy that converts the incredible capacity of Barbadians into knowledge products and knowledge services that the world would purchase at the highest value”.
Digitisation will be a key factor in achieving this, he pointed out, noting that the Government had “hundreds and perhaps thousands of processes that in many ways bear no relevance”.
He added there was an opportunity to drive a level of innovation that Barbados had not experienced before and this was a large part of his mission.
