by DONNA SEALY THE DEMOCRATIC LABOUR PARTY (DLP) administration has to come up with a package of "sparkling new initiatives" to help save jobs and protect homes and businesses. Former Prime Minister Owen Arthur has also said that it needs to come up with alternative measures to stabilise and stimulate the country's $9 billion economy. Speaking to a packed hall last night at Alma Parris Secondary School in Major Walk, St Peter, that spilled on to the outside, Arthur said Barbadians could not suffer "four years of economic hardship", decline, and stagnation that former Central Bank governor Winston Cox stated in a report would happen between 2008 and 2011 when "real growth" resumed. "If I was the Minister of Finance and somebody was to bring a report of this nature to me telling me that there was a possibility that my country may be facing four years of economic stagnation and decline . . . loss of jobs on a massive scale, deferment of social programmes, inability of people to pay their mortgages . . . people struggling once again to send school their children, hardship on the land . . . that is what four years of economic decline means. Arthur said any such report needed to be taken seriously and the whole country mobilised. "We cannot allow this to happen and we have to bring new policies for new times," he added. The former Minister of Finance charged that Government had "outsourced the economic leadership" and called on Prime Minister David Thompson to pay attention to what was going on with the economy. Arthur also said that if outgoing United States president George W. Bush and the Chinese leader could devise packages to assist their respective countries, then so could Thompson. He suggested Government draw down on the $2.7 billion foreign reserves the BLP left behind without putting the country in peril and borrow an additional $200 million from the Inter-American Development Bank which was willing to lend. Arthur also told the party loyalists who came out to hear his presentation that Barbadians were a resilient people and had survived the economic crises of 1991 and 2001. He said the Thompson administration had "done well" during its first year in office because it had used BLP policies and would continue to do well if it "discards its manifesto and continue to use ours", he said to applause. The DLP was elected to office a year ago when it defeated the BLP in the general election of January 15. Arthur, who is MP for St Peter, also spoke of the tax reforms his administration had come up with to help various sectors.
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