OWEN ARTHUR is a sorry Prime Minister. According to Democratic Labour Party candidate for St James Central, George Hutson, Arthur has had to say sorry to the people of Barbados so often for the failures of his Government, he could only describe him as a "sorry Prime Minister". Speaking at a DLP mass public meeting at Half Moon Fort, St Lucy, on Sunday night, Hutson said Barbadians were bearing too heavy a tax burden, with the 15 per cent Value Added Tax (VAT) and contributions to the National Insurance Scheme leaving too many families with very little to live on at the end of each week. "VAT is a tax on the poor working class," he said, adding that a DLP administration would take immediate steps to ease these burdens. If the current Government would stop wasting public funds, he told the crowd outside the business establishment of St Lucy MP Denis Kellman, it would be able to address the concerns of the poor and working class. He said the BLP had squandered a lot of money on ventures like Gems of Barbados, a project that had been heavily criticised by former Opposition Leader Clyde Mascoll, but on which he was now silent since joining the Owen Arthur Cabinet. "And the only advice people like Kerrie Symmonds [to whom he lost in the last general elections] can give is to tell poor people like carpenters . . . to go overseas and look for work," Hutson added. "This is an example of a Government that does not care." He said while the squandermania continued, agriculture was in a mess, tourism was flat "and people on the South Coast are telling me they are not seeing the tourists". (RM)
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