Prime Minister Mia Mottley will be flying out to Washington this evening.
Minister of Housing, Lands and Rural Development, George Payne, will perform the functions of Prime Minister while Mottley is out of the island.
During an address to the Barbados Hotel and Tourism (BHTA) earlier today at Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, Mottley revealed that the trip was not on her agenda when she woke up this morning.
She said those meetings in Washington DC will “make sure that we can continue apace in a manner in which I am pleased with”.
A release from the Government Information Service later said that the Prime Minister will lead a three-member delegation for talks with Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, in Washington.
During the meeting, Mottley addressed issues affecting the tourism sector and reiterated they would have to bear some of the pain in the measures introduced in Monday’s Mini-Budget, which are aimed at protecting the value of the Barbados dollar and the Barbadian way of life.
She spoke on the state of the sewage and garbage collection issue affecting the country, the need for a response on Chikungunya and Zika which has turned away some travellers and touched on changes to the operations of both the air and sea ports.
In response to a question from the audience, Mottley said the would also relook the concessions which were granted to some hoteliers as there needed to be a level playing in the sector.
The Prime Minister said she met with the Town Planning Department for four hours on Tuesday. There will be a series of public consultations from June 27 to July 29 as Government prepares to update an unnamed piece of legislation from 1965.
The members of the delegation who are leaving the island this evening with Prime Minister Mottley are: Chief Economic Counsellor to the Minister of Finance, Economic Affairs and Investment, Ambassador Dr Clyde Mascoll; Director of Finance and Economic Affairs, Ian Carrington; and Governor of the Central Bank, Cleviston Haynes. (SAT/BGIS)
