President of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) Dr Ronnie Yearwood is accusing the Government of not doing enough to ease Barbadians’ suffering under rising cost of living, despite having the financial space to do more.
Yearwood, who was speaking yesterday on Starcom’s Down to Brasstacks radio call-in programme, contended that given the fact that Barbados’ taxation system is percentage based, Government stands to make more money than anticipated due to the rising prices. He is therefore of the view that Government has the wherewithal to implement deeper social measures that would ease the pockets of citizens.
Acknowledging that Government would need to crunch the numbers to determine just how much wiggle room they had, he urged Barbadians to demand a plan for how this “windfall” will be used to ease their pain.
“Government revenues have obviously gone up during the cost of living crisis. So therefore, Government is actually provided with a little wiggle room and some flexibility in terms of providing an ease for people. The determination of just how much that ease should be would have to be made by looking at the numbers,” said Yearwood. (CLM)
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