Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley’s address to the Nation on matters of national importance.

Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley’s address to the Nation on matters of national importance.

Posted by Barbados Government Information Service on Saturday, April 11, 2020
Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley’s address to the nation – April 11, 2020. (PMO)

Barbados will not retreat or surrender to challenges posed by COVID-19.

In fact, Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley, told the country last night that this was a time to retrain, retool, refurbish and renew the way business in the country is done in preparation for a post COVID-19 environment.

Speaking during an hour-long address to the nation, the Prime Minister said she had told members of her Cabinet that they needed to highlight three or four things that were novel or innovative and would allow the country to be “fitter” at the end of the present situation.

“In other words, let us not waste, this time. This is a time for us to retrain; this is a time for us to retool; this is a time for us to refurbish.  If we have access to the money; this is a time for us to renew, and there’s no better time … than the background of Easter to begin to deal with this message of renewal and repurposing,” the Prime Minister stated.

She outlined that those ministries, under whose purview the delivery of goods fall, needed to work out how they would operate in a COVID-19 environment.

Through such thinking, Ms. Mottley said, there were going to be some long term legacies of the digital economy.  

“More and more, people are going to choose to do curb side pick-up continuously for their groceries; more and more people are going to work, and to deal with electronic transactions or digital transactions for the payment of bills. So that every cloud has a silver lining,” the Prime Minister suggested.

But, she added, Government had to be clear about what it wanted.  She said every Minister was encouraged to identify three or four things, including making the doing of business easier to carry the country forward, recognizing that some things may have to be placed on the back burner.

julia.rawlins-bentham@barbados.gov.bb

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