Arthur wants new recovery plan for Barbados

Former prime Minister Owen Arthur is calling on the private and public sectors, as well as the labour movement, to help produce a new economic plan for Bar-bados, saying the mid-term programme crafted by the present government has failed to bring relief to Barbadians.

"Barbados needs to have a recovery programme set out clearly drawing from the best minds in this country ...," Arthur said at a public meeting.

He has been working on similar economic programmes for St Kitts and Nevis and Grenada focusing on debt management.

"We can do it," he told supporters, reminding them that Barbados found itself in the same situation in 1994.

"I can tell you this," he said, "once you tap the ingenuity of the people of this country, once you call on them to do what they can do in an effort to have this country succeed they will. The people of Barbados want Barbados to succeed."

He said the free bus passes for school children, which was announced by the David Thompson administration, the development of constituency councils and the summer camps which were subsidised "cannot and will not turn around the economy".

Arthur was also critical of the government over its handling of the CLICO and British American Insurance matter following the financial problems plaguing their parent company, CL Financial, in Trinidad and Tobago.

He said in contrast, the governments of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States had put in place strategies to deal with the collapse of the insurance companies.

"The governments have also launched a medical insurance fund, which will allow people with existing claims to get their benefit. They are on the point of establishing a new insurance company to take over CLICO," he said.

- CMC