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Sons and Daughters of Barbados, Fellow
Barbadians, Citizens, Residents and Friends:
To my
enduring gratitude, you have given me two terms in our nation’s
highest elected office.
I now
seek your mandate for a third.
Whatever
might have been my private aspirations and intentions, and
my perspectives on tenure in political office, the challenges
of the times dictate that I again offer myself for office
in your service.
I do this willingly.
At this
time of global turmoil, trauma and escalating threat of terror,
the obligation falls to every Barbadian to commit to every
contribution that can serve the common good and propel our
nation’s cause
It was
generally felt that the catastrophic events of September 11,
2001, had changed the world forever.
Not even
that sombre reality, however, could have prepared us for the
raging storm that surrounded and will be sequel to the war
in Iraq. Vital links between powerful nations have been tested
and the passions of untold millions around the globe ignited,
making the world now frighteningly combustible.
The challenging
times that currently confront us allow no place for the whimsical,
the timid or the tentative.
Barbados
must be confident.
Barbados
must be brave.
Barbados
must be bolder than we have ever dared to be at any time in
our history.
Survival
in an increasingly harsh international environment demands
no less.
Success
in that environment demands considerably more.
Small
and faltering steps will not serve us on the daunting road
that lies ahead.
Nothing
less than a quantum leap will assure Barbados a future so
secure that every Bajan will be a winner.
During
the next five years, the most complex, challenging and far
reaching changes ever, will have to be made to the Barbados
economy.
Beginning
in 2005, Barbados will have to function as part of a single
Caribbean market and economy.
In that
same year, a Free Trade Area of the Americas is scheduled
to come into being, launching a totally new relationship between
all of the economies of the Western Hemisphere.
Negotiations
to create a new economic cooperation agreement with Europe
are scheduled to be completed by 2007, ushering in an entirely
new economic and financial framework with the European Union.
A new
set of negotiations, which will affect our manufacturing services
and agricultural sectors under the auspices of the WTO, is
set to be concluded by and implemented after 2005.
We also
have very good reason to expect that the revolution in information
and communication technology, which has so dramatically transformed
the way business is organised and conducted, and
which has done so much to make the entire world function as
one global economic village, will gather
pace and intensity.
In every
instance, powerful forces will be geared to the dismantling
of the means by which Barbados
has provided protection for our industries, will expose us
to having to compete on equal terms with much more advanced
economies in the same liberalised markets, and will require
that we master
the use of modern technology.
We will
have to ready ourselves to function as part of the global
economy, on terms that bear no resemblance to those which
have conditioned our relationship with our regional and global
economic partners in the past, and in circumstances where
no one owes us a living.
Yet,
this new situation presents Barbados with exciting and unprecedented
economic opportunities.
Participation
in the Caribbean Single Market and the Free Trade Areas of
the Americas will enable
us, for the time being, to be able to plan our economic development
free of the limitations historically imposed on us by geography,
small population and market size.
The effects
of technological change and the opening of virtually unlimited
markets for services resent Barbados with significant opportunities
for becoming a premier producer of high quality services as
never before, a country rich in human capital and resources.
Our nation
comes to this juncture of global development as one of the
world’s successful middle income countries.
We rank
high and out of all proportion to our size in the universally
accepted Human Development
Indices.
We lead
the developing world in the scale and sustainability of our
economic development and our economy has demonstrated an extraordinary
capacity to respond to external economic shocks.
This
did not come about by accident.
The Barbados
Labour Party Government has carefully nurtured and developed
our human resources and our social capital.
We have
built our economic progress on a tradition of strong and sound
macroeconomic policies and management strategies that have
shaped a climate of investor and consumer confidence, and
that have driven Barbados’ sustained economic growth.
Above
all, over the course of the past two terms, we carefully and
progressively introduced new strategies, new polices, new
programmes to prepare us for this defining and transforming
moment in our national development.
We have
carefully and deliberately created a new legal framework within
which a new modern, competitive economy will emerge and function.
- Tourism
Development
- Consumer
Protection
- Consumer
Guarantees
- Fair
Trading
- Telecommunications
Reform
- Insolvency
Legislation
- Small
Business Development
- Special
Development Areas
- Electronic
Commerce
- eGovernment
- Intellectual
Property protection
- Competition
Policy
- Trade
Liberalisation
- Utility
Regulation
- International
Business
- Securities
Market
- Financial
Institutions
- Pension
Reform
- Social
Security
- Caribbean
Single Market and Economy
- Direct
and Indirect Tax Regime
All of
this has been the subject of major, radical new legislative
initiatives since 1998, to reposition and transform our economy.
We have
devised new means to afford new forms of support and protection
to our enterprises, especially in the manufacturing and agricultural
sectors.
We have
created, for each productive sector, new financial arrangements
by which funds can be secured to carry out the restructuring
and modernisation required to deal with contemporary challenges.
- The
Agricultural Development Fund
- The
Tourism Development Fund
- The
Small Hotels Fund
- The
Industrial Employment and Investment
- Fund
- Fund
Access
- Enterprise
Growth Fund
- Innovation
Fund
- Urban
and Rural Enterprises Funds
We have
directed enormous new investment to building a new physical
infrastructure, to connecting to the information wave, to
transforming our education and training facilities and to
democratising the use and effects of modern productivity enhancing
technology throughout the entire society.
We have
provided technical assistance and financial support to build
institutional capacity in our private sector organisations
and the labour movement, to enable them to better gear their
constituents to participate effectively in a globalised economy.
By these
and other means, we have established the platform from which
we can launch Barbados to the next level of economic accomplishment.
We will
further diversify our economy through intense focus on a new
sector, “The Creative Economy.”
This
will mobilise, for economic reward, the creative capacities
of our country’s artists, artistes, artisans and other
generators of intellectual property will be a significant
contributor in reaffirming identity and self worth in all
Barbadians even as it presents unprecedented economic opportunity
to those who epitomize the term, :100% Bajan.
Parallel
with the economic framework, we here present other strategies
to embrace and empower every Barbadian. All that the Barbados
Labour Party has delivered to date, all that we propose, subserve
our fundamental mission, to make life better for everyone.
In this
context, I take the licence to adapt to my principal personal
purpose, the declaration made by Nobel Laureate, Maya Angelou,
the African- American poet:
“All
my conscious life and energies have been devoted to the most
noble cause in the world: the liberation of the Barbadian
mind and spirit, beginning with my own.”
Central
to this purpose is my conviction that every Barbadian should
be accorded every opportunity to live in human dignity.
This
means that no longer should any Barbadian be imprisoned in
poverty; it means that excellence in education, well paying
and secure jobs, the highest quality health care, peace and
safety in comfortable homes of their own, and security and
attention in their golden years, should be the right of all
Barbadians.
To meet
these goals, Barbados needs leadership of the calibre that
led our country’s rapid recovery
from the economic shambles, massive job loss, public servants
pay cuts, widespread destitution and deep national distress
of the Thompson/ Sandiford regime.
Now,
more than ever, Barbados needs the productive partnership
between the Barbadian people and the BLP that so effectively
protected our population from the devastating global aftershock
of the terrorist attacks on America.
Now,
more than ever, Barbados needs a unified nation, building
one another together to overcome the obstacles to growth and
prosperity that are directly ahead, as well as those yet unknown
that are likely to be placed in our path.
Now,
more than ever, Barbados needs the national consensus and
cohesion that propelled our nation forward during the trying
times of the last four years.
The majority
you gave to the BLP in 1999 ensured that the nation’s
business was never in gridlock.
We were
therefore able to achieve considerably more for a greater
number of Barbadians of all circumstances, in every parish,
without regard to political affinities.
Barbados
was the winner, decisively so.
We never
exercised the power you vested in the BLP with anything but
sensitivity, never with anything but great circumspection,
never with anything but genuine humility.
When
put to the test when stakeholders voiced concerns, we did
not press for passage of Employment Rights legislation.
Nor did
we proceed with constitutional transition to a Republic when
Barbadians reacted with alarm
at the confrontation between the President and the Prime Minister
in a neighbouring CARICOM Republic.
Never
was the odium of arrogance a concomitant to the decisive majority
you entrusted to us in 1999.
We exercised
salutary restraint in every area of governance and we took
every major legislative initiative to the Barbadian people
before its introduction to Parliament.
You can
therefore trust us with another majority sufficiently large
to enable us to fulfill our pledge to make every Bajan a winner.
To implement
our Agenda for Barbados for the next five years, the Barbados
Labour Party offers a team of candidates that is the right
blend for the task of governing in these uniquely challenging
times.
I ask
that you give them your support.
In setting
out a detailed blueprint for transforming the Barbadian society
and stimulating individual and corporate enterprise, this
Agenda goes where no election manifesto in this country has
ever gone..
As you
will see, no group is left out, no one left behind, as we
continue the work for equitable
distribution of Barbados’ resources.
This
country’s economic performance since 1994 has opened
up new opportunity and has encouraged rising expectations
and new aspirations for all Barbadians.
We want
all boats to continue to rise on the wave of prosperity that
brought Barbados out of the ‘nineties into a new century
and a new millennium in a strong position to be an acknowledged
leader among all nations, beyond the constraints of geography
and population size.
Undaunted
by the challenges that confront us, prepared to seize the
opportunities that surround us as well as those that are ahead,
fully confident of our capabilities and the worth of the Barbadian
people, we set out in this Manifesto, the BLP Agenda to move
Barbados from a middle income to a FIRST WORLD economy,
in which, without regard to social circumstance, every Bajan
will be a winner.
Barbados
must not settle for bronze.
Barbados must not settle for silver.
Barbados must go for the Gold!
I am
confident that you will find this Agenda worthy of your ringing
endorsement.
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