Address by Mr. Alex McDonald at October 22nd Press Conference
Good morning members of the press, fellow sector heads, directors of the BPSA, independent directors of the BPSA, Madame CEO of the BPSA, and other invited participants. Thank you all for coming out today to meet with us.
Members of the press and through you fellow Barbadians, the BPSA has over its history, at all times remained committed to its purpose - that is, to represent the interests of the private sector, through full and frank commentary, active and tangible support and an ongoing stance of engagement with our social partners. In the time since our last formal press conference earlier this year, we have commented widely on a range of social and economic issues, we have engaged our members and the wider public through formal meetings, town hall Sessions and drop-in gatherings all aimed at raising awareness, seeking solutions and providing insights.
The last town hall meeting for this year, is scheduled for November and will be targeted to look at growth strategies for Barbados. We thank Republic Bank of Barbados for their ongoing support for this initiative. Through the challenging period of the last four years, the constant message of the BPSA has been that Barbados must come first in all that we do; and that our heads, hearts and hands should all turn towards that noble goal, the goal of putting Barbados back on track, this way we know that the benefits of whatever we do will accrue to us all in the long run. History has taught us that individually we are weaker than when we put our collective intellect and energy to the use of the nation. The underlying theme that we have therefore espoused, revolves around building consensus, creating an environment for collaboration and by engaging in relevant, deep, continuous and meaningful communication at the level of the social partnership and beyond.
We are therefore not satisfied that as presently executed, we are fully utilizing all of the vast talent that is available in Barbados at this time. So where is Barbados as we see it? What we do know is that from whatever angle you look at it, Barbados is in an extremely difficult position. Years of negative or flat growth, negative investment grades and a series of tough fiscal measures has taken the wind out of the sails of our confidence as a people. This sagging confidence has resulted in an atmosphere of gloominess and uncertainty, in both private sector businesses and the population at large. As a people we have settled into a pattern of enduring and hoping for better days.
The news yesterday from the Central Bank of Barbados, in our opinion, has not provided any reason to feel encouraged that we are on the path to recovery. While there may be some green shoots appearing, the Banks’ report did not disclose them properly. The trend that we have seen recently of the media not being allowed to interrogate the issues in situ has not allowed for the required clarity and transparency to be given there and then in times like this, the Barbadian private sector deserves absolute clarity as to what the position is. In the last 24 hours since the report we have heard all kinds of fanciful and not so fanciful stories revolving around: “what the Governor meant by what he said”.
There are still too many questions that are unanswered and there is too much speculation. We need clarity, for instance:
1. What measures are being contemplated to cover the 174M shortfall in revenues?
2. What about the 0.1% tourist value added number in light of higher arrivals? Is this
number satisfactory what can we be doing better?
3. What is contributing to rise international reserves we have seen a spike in March
2014 that appears to be atypical of this period.
4. What is driving our FDI inflows to 399M what can we do to sustain this?
5. What is driving the increase in net public sector debt up from 67% to 75% and what are the plans to grapple with this?
What we can say is that as it relates to a private sector lead national growth strategy for the future, is that the private sector needs to be much more engaged by Government on what is required to generate this growth, as it appears the past facts do not support the future projections. In the immediate past the private sector has operated in an environment of suppressed demand, high taxation and increasing pressure on cash reserves to merely keep afloat. This environment will not encourage growth.
The BPSA is not in the space to attack institutions, we are in fact, here to support and uplift the institutions that have made Barbados great. We find ourselves, challenged, however, to support institutions that seem reluctant to engage with us on a meaningful level. On that basis we call for the members of our civil, governmental, labour and NGO society to better join together to begin the process of providing clarity and transparency into the story behind what's going in in Barbados. The current asymmetrical retaining of information and data cannot be sustainable.
In closing, you will recently have heard the private sector being vilified as being parasites in our economy. While we acknowledge that as an ecosystem, we can be more entrepreneurial and less introspective, we feel that comments like this coming for respected leaders in our community are unfortunate and do not reflect what we know to be the reality on the ground. Thankfully we have been assured by senior members of the Barbados Government that these comments are not to be taken as a reflection of the position of the Barbados Government. This assurance speaks to what we know to be the positive stance that we need to have if Barbados is to survive and indeed thrive.
Finally our call is to encourage engagement, there are many Barbadians in the private sector who have ideas and resources who can help and indeed who want to help but are outside of the current monologue. Frequent meaningful, deep and transparent communication is the start of returning confidence to our people. The time has long past where we are satisfied with top down infrequent and opaque engagements. Barbados needs all of us on board to guarantee our collective success.
Thank you.
Details
| Resource Type | Presentations |
| Date Posted | October 29 2014 |
| File Type | |
| Download Count | 1219 |
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