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??Prime Minister Freundel Stuart, looks at the local fare on display at the Baylands Bridges Fair, yesterday, at the NUPW headquarters in St. Michael. (U.Gaskin/BGIS)??

There are plans to strengthen Constituency Councils in Barbados.

This was disclosed by Prime Minister Freundel Stuart as he spoke to members of the media following the opening of a community fair at the National Union of Public Workers Headquarters yesterday.

He said: "The Constituency Councils, as far as I am concerned, have been off to a flying start. Of course, I know that they have not all functioned perfectly. But, let’s be very frank, if you say that an organisation or institution that is just a year or two old is weak, my answer is, so too was I when I was a child. Things have to be given a chance to grow- you creep before you walk. And, the Constituency Councils have been steadily building themselves and establishing their credibility in the society."

He indicated that establishing the councils was a way of connecting people to the decision making process. "And, I have been heartened by what I have been seeing coming out of some of the Councils. All of them have not been functioning in the same way and all of them have not been as public in the advertisement of their activities and pursuing their own ways of impacting on the society: But generally, I think that they have made the kind of impact that we have wanted them to make. Therefore, the plan, of course is to strengthen them," he added.

Mr. Stuart mentioned that in the last three decades or thereabouts, Barbados had witnessed a dismantling of some of its communities and the country had become "a lot less personable than we’ve known historically". He lauded the concept of the fair as an attempt at community building, and said he was refreshed by the thought that "people were trying to get things back together".

cathy.lashley@barbados.gov.bb

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