Critique of Government Budget by Opposition Leader Ralph Thorne Highlights Concerns of Crime, Economic Hardship, and Corruption

Opposition Leader Ralph Thorne has delivered a blistering critique of the government’s Budget, branding it a “report card” on emerging ‘tyranny’ and accusing the Mia Mottley administration of presiding over a “political apocalypse” marked by crime, economic hardship and corruption.

Anchoring his response to Monday’s maiden speech by Minister in the Ministry of Finance Ryan Straughn on six horsemen of “our political apocalypse”, each beginning with the letter C, Thorne unleashed a scathing attack on both the Budget and the government’s management of the country and economy.

The opposition leader identified crime as “the most dangerous and omnipresent of those horsemen that are marauding across what used to be this fair democracy, now a tyranny in the making.”

Cost of living, a culture of moral decay, constitutional malaise, a crisis of competence in government and corruption in this administration were the other “scourges” he listed.

Outfitted in a black suit, dark blue tie and light blue shirt with a carnation corsage on his left breast, the political leader of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) said the Budget was a bad report presented by a good economist, whose government must take responsibility for the “scourges” adversely affecting the lives of ordinary Barbadians.

“These scourges,” Thorne told the House of Assembly, “all conspire to distort our concepts and precepts of what is good government and what is good governance. Those scourges are conspiring to ruin this society. There is a disquiet across this country, there is a groundswell of discontent across this country; and if the government made itself familiar with this groundswell, with that discontent across this country, this government may come to the realisation that all is not well.”

“There are individual lives that are being destroyed. These may be the worst of times. I heard a lot about this lost decade, but this is feeling like the last decade. It has never been like this where men and women are afraid to leave home at night.”

“This Budget comes at a time in our history at what appears to be tyrannical rule, and therefore the Budget must reflect that tyrannical rule. Quite often in life when we cannot make sense of the events around us, we create a myth. And we create that myth to ward off the fear and uncertainty that we feel when we do not understand the events around us, even the political events around us,” Thorne declared.

He also singled out agriculture for special criticism, contending that Barbados is on a path towards economic suicide as a result of agriculture accounting for only three per cent of gross domestic product (GDP).