Barrow: UDP ready to rescue economy
They have done an excellent job of exposing the weakness of Government’s financial management…but tonight the Opposition United Democratic Party will put forth its own version of how to set things right. In a format that they call a town meeting, UDP leaders will meet the public tonight at seven at St. Mary’s Hall in Belize City. This morning Party Leader Dean Barrow told me what to expect.
Dean Barrow, Leader of Opposition
?We feel that the Belizean people need to hear from the Opposition at a time like this, which is clearly one of national crisis. We feel as well we need to hear from them and that?s why we thought instead of a public meeting in a traditional fashion, we would try to do an interactive town meeting. That?s really the thinking behind the call to arms that we issued.?
Janelle Chanona
?So are you encouraging people to come out with their list of ideas, recommendations, just comments??
Dean Barrow, Leader of Opposition
?Absolutely, we will–the first part of the programme will be dedicated to presentations that our team will make. We will divide the presentations into three areas. We will first talk about how we got to where we are and then secondly, we will try to identify with precision the symptoms of the crisis. Then thirdly, we will present proposals as to how we think we can get out of the crisis and after that we will invite the audience to ask questions about what we would have presented, but also to make their own suggestions that we will try to record so that we might thereafter, revisit our original proposals, feeding into them some of the inputs we hope to get from the public tonight.”
But is the UDP ready to govern? And if they are, would they really want to inherit this mess?
Dean Barrow, Leader of Opposition
?It?s a fair question and there are those who have said to us that we should not want to take on the burden and said so seriously. But we are a mass political party. We are the constitutional Opposition. I think that it is our duty to, in fact, be prepared to offer alternatives and to be ready to swing into action should the opportunity and the occasion arise. So the short answer to the question is we are ready, willing and we think able to take on the job of, as it were, captaining a rescue mission for the country. We are not so foolish as to think that it would by any means be easy, but we are perfectly convinced that it would certainly be easier for us than it is for the present Government. We think that at bottom, it is all about credibility. It is all about who would have the ability to galvanise the people first of all, to unlock new resources and to restore a climate, an atmosphere of confidence.?
?I don?t think that one can over emphasize the need in times of crisis for leadership in which people can have confidence and I don?t think that one can over emphasize that in the current circumstances and given that kind of history, the Prime Minister cannot command that sort of confidence. It is clear then to us that the starting point of our call for things to be done differently and the starting point of our proposals as to the way forward must be the resignation of the Prime Minister.?
Barrow cited the experience of 1984 when the first ever UDP administration inherited a government under the grip of an IMF standby arrangement. According to the party leader, they guided the nation back to economic health then and are prepared to do it again.
