Submitted by Neil a. Holder, Political Leader of Barbados Integrity Movement
Dear Barbadians,
We are exceptionally pleased with the ruling of the Fair Trading Corporation (FTC) in its decision NOT to support the sale of our National Asset the BNTCL at this time in its current form.
The Barbados Integrity Movement (BIM) sees this ruling as small victory in our monumental task of bringing integrity to governance and the delivery of prudent and transparent stewardship when given the mandate to make decisions on behalf of the people of Barbados.
Suffice to say that the Barbados Integrity Movement (BIM) has from inception called for the rejection of this transaction after its careful review of the documentation provided by the FTC which was prepared by the SOL Group for issuance to the Barbadian public for review where BIM has cited that this “Deal of the Century” would be extremely detrimental to our country!
We are happy that the concerns eventually highlighted by the FTC were in tandem with those raised by BIM in its petition and subsequent utterances in the media over a protracted period.
Since all of those concerns have already been vented and are now in the public domain, BIM proposes the following as the strategy forward:
- That All Barbadians be granted permission by the Minister of Finance to establish US Dollar (USD) Accounts in Barbados at the bank/financial institution of their choice.
- That these accounts will be interest bearing “Tax Free” accounts.
- Barbadians be granted the freedom to bring into the country any amount of foreign currency (particularly USD) from a legitimate banking institution once all KYC and AML regulations are met!
- That an Initial Public Offering (IPO) be put out for USD shares in the BNTCL whereas USD$100 Million can be raised through average Barbadians who may be interested in having shares in the ownership of the profitable BNTCL.
- The share capital of the BNTCL be evaluated based upon the present day value of the organisation taking into consideration the profitability.
- Issue an allocated sum of shares to be equally purchased in USD between the two petroleum products providers SOL and RUBIS.
- Issue an allocated sum of shares to be purchased by the Cooperative movement in Barbados.
In this regard, we feel that the aforementioned approach is fair and equitable to all parties.
National assets such as the BNTCL which has the potential to harm our foreign reserves and create unsavoury monopolies, unfair competition and potential loss of revenue to the Government of Barbados should Never be considered for sale!
The Barbados Integrity Movement (BIM) will not permit now or in the future a sale of the BNTCL to be approved unless the aforementioned conditions are met and Barbadians of all stations in life can own a piece of any such entity.
We wish all Barbados a HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!
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