Barbados Prime Minister Freundel Stuart is in New York meeting with prospective investors and having discussions with Barbadians living in the United States.
Last Sunday night he told hundreds of Bajans in Brooklyn that the private sector had admirably linked arms with government by not laying off more people, thus holding much of the economic strain caused by the economic crisis.
The Nation newspaper reported that Stuart said, “We have had to take some decisions in Barbados in light of the economic challenges which the country has been facing, to decide what we thought best for the country in the context of this very daring and this very dangerous crisis.”
The prime minister was speaking at the annual “cocktail sip” given by the Friends of Barbados (DLP) Association, the Democratic Labour Party’s branch in the United States.
He assured the New York-based Bajans that his government will not lay off workers.
Stuart pointed out however, that it would carry a price tag, “because all of the money that comes into government, all the revenue government earns from taxation and from all the other sources from which government gets its revenue, 36 percent of government revenue is spent on wages and salaries.”
Stuart is hopeful for an improvement in the state of the economy in the near future.
