The combined efforts of key areas across the private and public sectors, in collaboration with the construction sector, are pivotal to assisting with economic recovery.
Minister of State in the Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training, Sandra Husbands, shared this view recently, as she addressed the Employer Engagement Breakfast Meeting for the Barbados Construction Gateway Training Initiative (BCGTI) Cycle 2, at the Radisson Aquatica Resort, Aquatic Gap, St. Michael.
Stressing that financial services are needed to assist the construction services, which benefit the country’s social services, Ms. Husbands explained the importance of this in boosting the island’s economy.
“You’re going to be able to support all your retail businesses. You’re going to be able to support construction services; you want to be able to improve what you are getting in terms of your taxes that you can spend on social services. So, we decided that financial services were going to be important to us, but we decided to add two other things. We knew there was a need in construction, and that construction has the power to help lift this economy, and this is the reason why the government took resources and said, we are going to put it into housing construction.
“This is why we have the target of those 10,000 houses because we know that it would unlock the economy, start a round of spending right through the economy, create a set of jobs in the economy, and it would help us to lift the country. That’s why it was important,” she added.
Mrs. Husbands told the audience that total partnership was the way forward. “We have to build a wall; we have to build a country. We have to build a republic. And in order for us to do that, it is going to require partnership – partnership of government, of labour, of businesses and enterprises, families, churches, and community groups. All of us have to pull together, otherwise, none of us will be able to prosper in the country.”
Based on feedback given by key organisations, Minister Husbands confirmed that to further assist employers and stakeholders within the BCGTI programme additional training was required to help with the overall development of participants and in their chosen discipline. The scope of training will include a motivational programme, and classes in financial literacy, digital literacy, English and Mathematics.
She stated that although Barbados experienced infrastructural problems within schools, roads, housing, the airport, health facilities, and issues with skills within the labour force in the public and the private sectors, the government was compelled to formalise plans to restructure specific areas in the country.
The Minister added that, as a country, borrowing is necessary for future economic development, which allows the government to inject money into critical sectors. She described the process as giving the economy that “jig that could rise up, and grow and develop”, thereby creating the jobs, income and gross domestic product needed for the country to progress.
Ms. Husbands further explained that the government has had to find the “easiest and nearest possibilities” for economic transformation, where it had to “find places where you can put money to make more money”, which allows it to take care of social problems and issues.
She referred to a visit to Washington State (west of Seattle, Tacoma) in the United States, where representatives were exposed to the strategy involved in building economic opportunity. She explained that the process was “simple” but worked because of established partnerships between government, the private sector, and education.
“The three work together hand in hand. Every year they plan what are the priorities for our state? What are the areas we want to build capacity in? And then each partner identifies what their role will be, in order to make that plan work…
“Every time someone got up to speak, whether it was someone in business, whether it was someone from the government, whether it was somebody from the university, people did not talk about what the other people needed to do. They were talking about what they were prepared to do and how much progress they had made in investing and planting into their national plan, and so they have a situation up there where they have created more jobs than they have people, and we can do that,” she said.
While adding that the government was doing its part, she commended the employers and businesses represented for the contributions made towards the economy and the ongoing work of the nation, through the BCGTI.
Minister Husbands declared: “All of us, we have a vested interest in making the necessary input into this economy to help us get from where we are, and what is it that we need to do? The Bible says to us, ‘you can’t reap unless you sow’, so all of us have to do the planting now which is what the government is doing, but the government needs you to plant as well, and that is why we are asking you to partner with us, make a sacrifice, if necessary, to help us build up a cadre of persons that can earn a living in the construction sector.”