Most of the recommendations of the economic working group which was formed two years ago by the late Prime Minister David Thompson have not been implemented.
This was revealed by chairman emeritus of Ernst & Young, Peter Boos, who was also a member of the group.
He was speaking yesterday at the start of the Barbados National Entrepreneurship Summit at Hilton Barbados.
In October 2008, Thompson announced that the group which was headed by former governor of the Central Bank of Barbados, Winston Cox would be charged with devising a strategy for Barbados to handle its economy going forward, in light of the global financial crisis and possible recession.
Boos noted that this was an urgent matter and the group made its recommendations within a month as requested.
“What’s happened?
Not a lot. Most of the recommendations are sitting in a to-do file somewhere,” he said.
The chairman of the Barbados Entrepreneurship Foundation said Barbados needs to discard its wait-and-see attitude.
“We must overcome this apathy and this manifested indifference to the challenges we face.
We need a kind of a revolution here. The world is not waiting on us and certainly does not owe us a living,” he said.
Boos said Barbados’ economy was very fragile at present and is not performing at the level it could and must.
Pretending otherwise is dangerous and will retard our progress to the future we all want,” he said.
Boos added that we need to have a sense of urgency about our current economic profile and performance.
“We have already lost critical time due to unforeseen circumstances.
“ We must immediately confront head on and openly the challenges we all know need to be addressed to enable us to reach the highest level that we can,” he added. (NB)
Here, Ben Arrindell, president of the Barbados Private Sector Association, got up close and personal with participants in the Business Facilitation discussion forum at the Barbados National Entrepreneurship Summit at Hilton Barbados. Some of the country’s leading business people and international facilitators are attending the summit which concludes today.
