Opposition Senator Ryan Walters has taken Government to task for its financial management, charging it “is making more money in taxes than any other government has in the history of this country” while many areas of neglect remain in the country.
Responding as the Senate debated the Appropriations Bill, 2025 recently, Walters challenged the Government “not to talk to itself, but to ask the people today if their lives or livelihoods have improved”, despite Government’s heavy coffers filled with millions of dollars acquired through taxation and other types of revenue. He suggested the level of taxation on working-class Barbadians was burdensome.
Contending the people of Barbados had “shared the burden but there is no bounty”, Walters said Government had “a total of $36.9 billion at its disposal since coming to office in 2018” and was also “on record of stating that they have borrowed a total of $8.4 billion since coming to office”.
However, the Opposition DLP Senator spoke about the lack of improvement in the state of some of the roads and schools, which he said were in a bad state of disrepair, as well as polyclinics which also needed attention, and the state of affairs at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
“The Government is making more money in taxes than any other government has in the history of this country. This Government is extracting around $800 million more a year in tax revenue and that does not include the $1.1 billion it now has to borrow to finance its expenditure for the coming year,” Walters said.
He suggested some of the money ought to be spent on improving the lot of the poor and the homeless, citing the growing number of homeless people sleeping at night on benches in Queen’s Park, as examples of that need, adding: “and that is on the cusp of giving an organisation that is supposed to deal with homelessness one million dollars in two years”.
He also questioned the frequency of travel by Prime Minister Mia Mottley.
“They would seek to justify a Prime Minister that says to Barbados that she governs or leads, that she has taken 93 trips since 2018.
“Of those 94 months, the airport was closed because of COVID, you could not fly,” Walters said.
He urged the Government Senators to “do the maths and they would see if this travel is logical; if it makes sense that almost every three weeks the Prime Minister has to make a trip and the justification is that it is travel with benefits”.
