Licorish Village, Pt 2 - Sen. Wilfred Abrahams "Branded as squatters"
Channel: bajanreporter
Date: 2017-03-19

Opposition Barbados Labour Party (BLP) Senator Wilfred Abrahams has accused the ruling Democratic Labour Party (DLP) of aiding in the underdevelopment of the St Michael East constituency.

"The Government has turned a blind eye to the people of this constituency. It has branded a lot of the people in this constituency squatters and it has ignored them," Abrahams said Saturday during a BLP walk-through.

Abrahams expressed shock and outrage at the unpaved roads, garbage pile-up and poor drainage that residents of Licorish Village have to live with.

Accusing the DLP of gross mismanagement during its nine years in office, Senator Abrahams said "the responsibility for governance and for the uplifting of the people in Barbados rests solely and squarely on this Democratic Labour Party Government. How can they be talking flippantly about the next five years when they have done nothing for the last nine years for the people out here?"

Abrahams singled out Minister of the Environment and Drainage, Dr Denis Lowe for the majority of the blame for the deteriorating environmental conditions in the country.

"Minister Lowe has a lot to answer for to the public of Barbados with respect to their living conditions and with respect to the degradation of the environment in Barbados. The environment has gone downhill . . . The Minister of the Environment has proved himself not just incompetent but indifferent to the plight of people," Abrahams said.

Following Lowe's accusation last week that members of his constituency posted defamatory signs on his residence, Abrahams argued that the Minister of Environment has shown his disregard for his constituents and the people of Barbados.

"That is not a Minister who is caring for his people, that is somebody who is indifferent to what he says, indifferent to what he does, indifferent to the people of his constituency and how they are impacted and he is indifferent to the people of Barbados and how his failure as a minister has impacted upon them," Abraham said.

As it relates to rectifying the environmental problems plaguing Barbados, the BLP representative for St Michael East, Trevor Prescod, said the 2008 Owen Arthur-led  BLP Government left the plans for a Canadian-sponsored reverse osmosis plant.

Prescod accused the DLP Government of abandoning the project which was to be funded by the Canadian government to the tune of Bds$80 million.