What does Senior Minister William Duguid mean when he declared this week that Barbados “has experienced significant and disconnected suburban growth…combined with the doubling number of cars, has resulted in peak hour gridlock and increasing levels of congestion almost everywhere on the island”. He went on to PROMISE that the government “expect to develop a national transportation mobility plan that will guide future investment. We will propose transportation strategies at the island scale”.
What the hell!
What immediately came to mind after reading was – cart before the horse and the chant Mini Bus Hustle by Winston Farrell.
Isn’t one of government’s priorities to plan development in the country it is charged to govern in order to avoid the chaos Duguid highlighted in his address to the Barbados Town Planning Society’s (BTPS)? If there is one example the value of orderly planning of a country’s development it must be Singapore? The fact Senior Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Dr. William Duguid with responsibility for infrastructural projects was unembarrassed in his public observation should make all sensible Barbadians pause.
For almost 50 years successive governments have refused to effectively regulate the private transportation sector. As a result the sector now strives in a sub culture that threatens to supplant mainstream. Full in the knowledge how we have crafted the current state, Duguid would have us believe his government has the wherewithal to execute a national transportation plan? This must be what it feels like to be apathetic, cynical with a deep distrust of government.
Barbados has earned the unenviable reputation as being afflicted with implementation deficit. Senior Minister William Duguid will have to buck the historical trend to win over this cynical blogmaster.
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