Accusing the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) of practising “grievance politics”, Government Senator Gregory Nicholls said having the headquarters of the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) in Barbados, would unlock millions in foreign investment.
Nicholls said the DLP looked for all of the grievances, put them before the public and whipped them into a frenzy rather than bringing the facts, one of the major differences when compared to the Barbados Labour Party.
He told the Senate during debate on the Appropriation Bill, 2025 recently there was no place for that and outlined the benefits expected to be derived after Government vested the 5.11 acres site of the Old General Hospital at Jemmott’s Lane for the financial entity.
“They’re building $180 million in facilities, they’re headquartering the Afreximbank in Barbados and we have a headquarters agreement with them,” Nicholls said, adding the DLP was trying to give the impression “that somebody come to take the Barbadian land” and Government “get trick”.
“This bank is currently on the trajectory to move to $2.5 billion in economic trade activity in the region. Barbados is the headquarters for that. This facility, sir, will be a flagship for offices, a technology incubation hub. When you talk about not diversifying the Barbadian economy, you have a multi-billion dollar financial institution coming to bring a technology incubation hub in Barbados, a trade centre and they’re looking at Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America in the world in which we now heard the president suspend all US aid to these places – friends of all satellites of none.”
The attorney said Afreximbank had already heavily invested in other Caribbean nations.
“This investment in Barbados is reinventing the infamous Middle Passage in a way that we have never thought before; the economic relationship between Africa and Caribbean and the rest of the world,” Nicholls told the Senate.
He said Afreximbank financed a $200 million hospital in Grenada, $150 million in road infrastructure in The Bahamas and $1 billion in a local content financing facility for Guyana’s oil and pipelines.
“This is a relationship of equal partners that are interested in the advancement and the development of Caribbean people. They are partnering sir, with all of the governors of the central bank right now with a payment system for the Caribbean so that we don’t have to be paying one another for goods and services in US currency, in foreign coin, that we can be able to trade with one another without interfering with your balance of payments,” Nicholls said.
“They’re bringing in technical capacity to facilitate the establishment of a Caribbeaneximbank because they have done it and that is what is coming to Barbados.”
Nicholls said it reminded him of the furore creating around “cadavers” and “importing Dracula” when attempts were made to bring the medical school here, but it had since transformed southern Grenada and was a major driver of their economy.
