A private-public partnership is needed to fulfill Government’s ambitious goal of building 10 000 houses over the next five years.Minister of Housing, Lands and Maintenance Dwight Sutherland said this was why the Mia Mottley-led administration has been creating an enabling environment for the private sector to build more than half those houses.Speaking to the media following Wednesday’s tour of Ridge Meadows in Christ Church where B.J Investments Limited has been providing homeownership opportunities for 565 Barbados families, Sutherland stressed that Government was on a mission with its housing revolution.Noting that 1 400 houses will be built by the end of the financial year through the private-public partnerships, the Minister explained that in addition to the houses at Ridge Meadows, B.J Investments was designing another 400-unit affordable income community at Lancaster, St James.
President of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) Dr Ronnie Yearwood is calling on the Government to give public servants a pay increase in the New Year, as he accused the Mia Mottley-led administration of failing to address the needs of the working class.He said with Barbadians struggling to cope with the rising cost of living that seems to be spiralling out of control, a five to seven per cent pay rise would be fitting and would not break the bank.“Everything has gone up. People need more money in their hands. The reality is, folks are struggling to make ends meet and they need extra cash to survive. I think we have just come off the back of Independence and I believe we are entering the Christmas season and I think it is time that we can seriously call for an increase in wages,” he told Barbados TODAY during a DLP event in St Lucy on Friday.“Now this is something that I believe the Government has to do given the cost of living crisis, given the rise in inflation and given the fac
A senior Government minister is coming to the defence of the Barbados Light and Power Company (BLPC) which has been under scrutiny and heavy criticism in recent weeks as it made a case for a rate increase.Stopping short of calling critics ungrateful, Minister of Energy Kerrie Symmonds chided those who passed judgement on the utility company without acknowledging its good deeds and its critical role in helping Government make Barbados 100 per cent reliant on renewable energy sources by 2030.In fact, he told an energy forum on Wednesday that similar to giving residents an ease during the height of the dreaded COVID-19 pandemic, the power company has been pardoning the Government, in some cases.“I feel I have a duty from this place to say on behalf of that much-beleaguered and maligned entity in Barbados, that obviously it is not an institution that is perfect. I am not here to make a case for the Light & Power in terms of its perfection, but it is indispensable to the process,” S
After all the ‘pomp and pageantry’ in Parliament last Friday the issues pertaining to the Auditor General’s Report have still not been addressed.That’s according to president of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) Dr Ronnie Yearwood, who has again called on the Mia Mottley-led administration to come clean and account for some of the damning information revealed in the most recent report.During debate in Parliament last week several ministers including Senior Minister Kerrie Symmonds and Minister in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs Ryan Straughn, along with backbencher Marsha Caddle, staunchly defended Government and insisted that the Auditor General’s Report did not point to any wrongdoing.However, Dr Yearwood told Barbados TODAY that some serious allegations highlighted in the report needed to be explained.
Minister of Energy and Business Development Kerrie Symmonds has taken President of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) Dr Ronnie Yearwood to task for trying to “stir up a furor and incite panic and strife” over the latest Auditor General’s Report.Symmonds, who was leading the debate on the Electric Light and Power (Amendment) Bill in the Lower House on Friday, accused the DLP leader of trying to “clutch at every straw he can find in an effort to make himself relevant and hopefully for him to save what is a leaderless institution characterised only by infighting, from extinction”.“There is a context to the artificial political posturing that we have to look at. It begins, unfortunately, with the cathedral of lawlessness that the Democratic Labour Party has allowed itself to become. The renewable energy sector is not the only victim. As recently as this morning, some of my colleagues and I were commenting on this furor that is being whipped up,” said Symmonds.