Former Prime Minister Owen Arthur was the man of the moment for these exuberant supporters before he entered Parliament to hear Opposition Leader Mia Mottley's Budget Reply yesterday. (Picture by Sandy Pitt.)

BARBADIANS HAVE BEEN placed at the "front line of adjustment", says Opposition Leader Mia Mottley.

The political leader of the Barbados Labour Party said during her reply to the Financial Statement and Budgetary Proposals presented by Prime Minister David Thompson on Monday, that Government had failed to make the right choices that would help the people.

Mottley told the House of Assembly the Democratic Labour Party Government had a "moral duty" to shield Barbadians from the onslaught of increases.

"There are times, as happened in 9/11 (after September 11, 2001), when you have to make a conscious decision to increase the level of debt to protect the people of this country. It is easier, as we showed, to bring back down debt in two to three years than it is to deal with the social dislocation from unemployment that is there for three or four months.

"All of us know that any bout of protracted unemployment in Barbados, where a person is out of a job for three months, four months, five months, the house is in jeopardy whether it is rent or mortgage unless they were lucky enough to be living in a debt-free house," Mottley said.

She added it was not desirable to have a situation that existed in the early 1990s and "it was easier to make a decision to bring back down debt".

"If you can therefore finance public goods that will lead to the earning of foreign exchange in tourism, manufacturing and agriculture. If you can finance public goods that will lead to the provision of jobs through education and through health, then I believe you have a moral duty to finance public goods that shield Barbadians from the kind of misery that goes with their risk of losing their jobs and their inability to feed and properly take care of themselves because of the cost of living," Mottley said.

She also said there was nothing included in the Budget for the middle class, and as a result they were "smelling hell".

"They have a fixed income, their expenditure is rising, if they have children they have to deal with the children's welfare needs. If they have cars they have to buy the gas or diesel. They got now to find the increased money to license or tax the car, and if they were hoping they could live as many young Barbadians choose to do on $150 or $100 a week in order to make a sacrifice to buy a car, or to make a sacrifice to make a trip or do other things they were doing before, they have now to change that," Mottley said.

She said she feared for the future of young Barbadians who were facing increases in a number of areas.

(DS)