Wages for Workers Cleaning Sargassum Seaweed Beaches from $43.3 Million Ministry Allocation

Workers who cleaned the beaches of Sargassum Seaweed will receive wages out of the $43.3 million received by the Ministry of Environment and National Beautification.

Recently during continuing debate on the 2024-2025 Estimates, in the House of Assembly, Minister Adrian “Medic” Forde said a little over $1 million would go to payment of fees to the independent contractors for the period October and November of last year and for February and March this year.

The sum of $17.4 million would go towards the Business Interruption Benefit Disbursement that was paid to fisherfolk and for outstanding invoices incurred for hurricane repair and recovery efforts. It also included the purchase of moors for the new boats and for the repairs undertaken to the breakwater in the Bridgetown Fisheries Complex.

He noted that the clean-up of the Marina, the Boatyard and minor repairs after Hurricane Beryl to the Berinda Cox and Paynes Bay markets required $146 000, while $24 million was required to facilitate the payment for additional garbage trucks.

“I’m sure that persons have seen those garbage trucks operating on our roads as we seek to improve our garbage collection,” he stated.

Workers under the Gullies Project for the period October and November 2024 and February and March of this year would be allocated the sum of $539 461, while $800 000 is required to support the InterAmerican Development Bank Funding Project for strengthening institutional and technical capacity for Barbados to meet the transparency requirements of the Paris Agreement.

Minister of Agriculture Indar Weir. FILE

Minister of Agriculture Indar Weir, in breaking down the $26.5m allocated to the sector, said it involved the upkeep of the wells across the agricultural fields, the prevention of washaways of hedgerows onto the streets and the Khus Khus grass programme of $2 million, which also helped to control cow itch.

Weir said there was also the cost of the storage tanks, which was “an Albatross still around our necks”. He said $2.1 million was set aside for paying for those tanks which were set up in the Bridgetown Port during the last administration and “we continue to carry the cost for them”.

The sugar harvest, which started on Tuesday last week, benefited from a climate mitigation subsidy, support for haulage and for good husbandry on the farms, so “the remainder of the supplementary goes towards supporting the sugar industry and making sure that we continue to produce enough molasses for [the] rum industry and sugar for domestic consumption,” he said.