by WADE GIBBONS

Prime Minister David Thompson says Opposition Leader Mia Mottley's preoccupation with becoming Prime Minister of Barbados at any cost, has rendered her the perpetual harbinger of bad news.

And he has warned Barbadians to be very wary of her constant predictions of gloom and doom via the media, saying they do not reflect a true picture of the future for the country.

Speaking Sunday night at a St James Central constituency branch meeting at Good Shepherd Primary School, Thompson said it was not a rosy economic picture that prevailed, but stressed it was not the gloom and doom that Mottley was painting.

He said due to what the Democratic Labour Party had previously experienced as a Government, they had some knowledge as to how to manage the crisis in the best interests of Barbadians.

He said Mottley had spoken last week with such joy that Air Canada was suspending flights to Barbados.

Yet not only the Ministry of Tourism and the Barbados Tourism Authority had denied this, but Air Canada itself had indicated that this was not true.

He noted British Airways increased flights into Barbados to ten per week out of a market that was facing challenges, West Jet and Jet Blue had started flights into Barbados, but no congratulations were forthcoming from Mottley.

He added that the same methodologies the former Barbados Labour Party (BLP) Government used to arrive at unemployment figures, showed that unemployment was now at ten per cent.

Yet Mottley was questioning the figures and suggesting they were at 15 per cent.

"All of a sudden because unemployment is not where they think it should be, they are saying we have a problem with the unemployment statistics. They should be at 15 per cent and not ten; the inflation should be much higher; cost of living should be much higher; something is suddenly wrong with those statistics in Barbados. What is the intent and the desire of the Leader of the Opposition?

Does she want to see unemployment at 15 per cent? Is that what she would really like for the citizens of Barbados?" he asked.

Thompson said Mottley was constantly in the media preaching that CLICO was about to collapse.

Yet, he added, not a single person had lost a job since the company faced crisis.

He said Barbados was the only country in the Caribbean where the state's strategy had worked to protect policyholders and employees, and to ensure the company remained viable.

He said he would not comment on the "fiasco" over the leadership of the BLP since he did not want to go on record as agreeing in principle with what former Prime Minister Owen Arthur had said.