Prime Minister David Thompson on his way into the Lower Chamber for the first session after annual summer recess. (Picture by Charles Grant)

by TREVOR YEARWOOD

GOVERNMENT WON'T BE borrowing to subsidise energy costs.

Prime Minister David Thompson made this plain yesterday when the House of Assembly resumed sitting after a two-month recess.

"It would be highly irresponsible of me as Minister of Finance of this country to go and borrow money to finance present consumption," Thompson said.

He was responding to a call from Leader of the Opposition, Mia Mottley, to ask FirstCaribbean, Barbados National Bank or another bank to help him raise the funds.

She was referring to a $33.6 million debt the Barbados National Oil Company Limited (BNOCL) incurred subsidising fuel oil to the Barbados Light & Power Company Limited. This was an effort to stabilise electricity prices against the backdrop of rising international oil prices.

Thompson said such borrowing would merely defer the cost of consumption to future generations of Barbadians.

"I would rather take that money and invest it in trying to save jobs in this economy," he stated.

"I would rather take that money and try and invest it in new accommodation for Government. I would rather take it and try to boost our social programmes, including the transport system, including our education system."

Thompson and Mottley spoke on a resolution seeking to transfer $80 million from the Consolidated Fund so Government could use it to finance projects including the BNOCL energy subsidy programme, a $30 million subsidy to the Barbados Transport Board, and road improvement.

Mottley said there had to be a way of financing the BNOCL debt other than by "asking ordinary poor Barbadians and producers to carry that debt".

However, Thompson told opposition parliamentarian Dr William Duguid, who also made a call for the oil price decreases to be passed on to Barbadians, that he was "watching too much television".

What the CNN (Cable News Network) showed as oil prices was not necessarily the price at which Barbados bought its oil, he pointed out.

St Lucy MP Denis Kellman and the representative for St Philip West, David Estwick, also advised caution on borrowing for consumption.

"To continue to borrow for consumption would be a major danger," Estwick said.

He told parliamentarians Government had to avoid taking "reckless measures" which would put entities like BNOCL and the economy "on the rocks".

Kellman rejected the idea of Government borrowing to meet daily expenses.

"If we were to go and get a long-term loan to finance the oil company, all we would be doing is financing short-term expenditure with a long-term loan, and that is what you call economic madness, and that is what will wreck an economy," he said.

With the expenditure being recurrent, "you are dealing with a bottomless pit", he warned.