Barbadians want Government to operate in their “best interest” and think more before they give away “our property” at a time when “all is not well”.
So said Opposition Senator Ryan Walters, one of the two Democratic Labour Party Senators in the Senate, who chided the Government for its plan to vest 2.037 hectares (5.11 acres) of state lands at Jemmotts Lane, St Michael, in the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) for the construction of a trade centre, hotel and offices, free of cost.
His comments were made Wednesday afternoon during debate on a land resolution which will the see the former site of the old General Hospital and more recently the Ministry of Health and other health adjacent services, being used.
“ . . . Realistically, I don’t believe that the Government should vest the lands in African Export-Import Bank, and I think that a lot of Bajans are concerned. And it’s not that they don’t want the investment of the $300 million, I think it is really just a situation where, I think, they want the Government to do what is in their best interest.
“And it begs the question that while we chase investment and I just use the word chase loosely, and we’ve seen it in different scenarios, in concessions for hotels . . . in the thrust for renewable energy . . . . We’ve seen a lot of thrust for investment that is supposed to help Barbados and help Barbadians and Bajans are concerned that they’re not seeing that help.
“ . . . . So I think that the genuine question that Barbadians have from their hearts is, can we afford to give it away? Are we in a position now in this country that we are able to give away the lands of our forefathers, our lands?
Walters said the debt of Barbados was concerning.
“We are in a situation we just finished Appropriation Bill debate, and we’re down $1.1 billion in debt, and we’ll be down $1.4 billion in debt before that and we went through COVID, went through the freak storm, we hear these situations. We live it every day. We have seen the conditions of our hospital and the challenges that successive Governments even have had to face to try to [rectify] these problems.
“We see the conditions of our schools, see the conditions of our roads, we see the conditions of some of our neighbours. We know this kind of livelihoods that they have to endure. We talk about all of these everyday things, so why do we have in such a way to compensate large persons or large corporations with giving away our property, and I think that’s where the consideration is for Barbados. It ends there,” said Walters.
He told the Senate it was not a case where the people were “ungrateful” and neither was he about the opportunities and investments but “all is not well and this Government must not behave as though all is well”.
Government Senator, the Reverend Charles Morris, said Barbados being “a hub for things was nothing new” adding he was tired with all the “heritage talk”.
He said he recognised that “every time there is a developmental stance taken by the Government; it seems as though it is rejected by a certain element in this country.
“We are talking every time now, we tend to build something, it is about heritage, heritage, heritage. If we built something on a piece of land, do we take away its heritage? We want to sit down and do what? Look at the sea and laugh when that same piece of land could be generating income?
“And why is it that it’s only certain pieces of land that we talk about as heritage. I’m getting tired, sir, of this heritage thing. So, leave Holetown. Leave where it is. Let the old buildings stop there. Grow trees from between them. That is our heritage, so what are we supposed to do? Just leave it there?” Morris asked. (GBM)
