Tuesday, May 26, 20092009 Barbados Budget

2009 Budget Address Barbados

Mr. Speaker, I rise to present this Financial Statement in the year of Our Lord 2009 cognizant that acute challenges face our country and confront the world. To paraphrase Charles Dickens, these times are, “the best of times, the worst of times; the age of wisdom, the age of foolishness; the epoch of belief, the epoch of incredulity; the season of light, the season of darkness; the spring of hope, the winter of despair…” I take comfort from the fact that the vast majority of Barbadians, judging from the tone and focus of their submissions, suggestions and counseling, are fully aware and appreciative of the nature of my task, created in large measure by circumstances not of our making.

Political friends and foes alike agree that, just as was the case in 1986 and even more so in 1991, this Democratic Labour Party has been dealt, financially-speaking, a ‘bad hand’. We have also inherited a multiplicity of national ills and a veritable cauldron of economic and social problems of a national, regional and international character.

Ninety per cent of our citizens and residents alive today would not have experienced a global economic downturn of the scope and magnitude of that which currently engulfs the world and which has placed small, open, vulnerable economies such as Barbados in a proverbial tailspin.

Economies in our Caribbean region are foundering in a morass of declining values and markets for their exports, tight fiscal positions and weak administrative capability for implementing national and regional decisions.

Nationally, we devised an attractive political, social and economic agenda in 2008 which tackles the main domestic challenges but is very much influenced by a hostile external environment.

There are no sure-footed policies that can be pursued, simply because we are walking an uncharted path; not having a reliable concept of how long or how severe the international economic and financial upheaval will last.

We have chosen as a government to pursue a road less traveled as we seek to bring some creativity and ingenuity to our task. Our policies will not find favour with everyone – some for narrow political reasons - others because their natural stance in times of difficulty is merely blame allocation.

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