Submitted by Crusoe

Sandals Butch Stewart

The Barbados Today digital newspaper has reported that Butch Stewart stated that Barbadians are too entitled.

This is a remarkable statement from a hotel magnate whose company has received forty years of tax free concessions from Government, when small hoteliers get nothing.

Entitled much?

For a government to maintain services, it must seek revenues. By allowing one company to be exempt of all taxation, much revenue for services is lost.

Is the problem lost revenue, or excess services? Many countries, especially in Europe, provide excellent social services and are able to function well.

The problem is not the social services.

As for Stewart’s own operations, at a time when Barbados is in urgent need of foreign exchange injections, can we ask whether room revenue from international sources, all of it, is banked in Barbados? Many companies, through their corporate structure and international banking arrangements, have revenues banked in say, Panama, sending only funds for operating expenses to the location of the operations.

Therefore, significant foreign exchange flow loss results, for the source of operations.

One wonders what is the process for Stewart’s operations? Are your revenues all banked in Barbados, Mr. Stewart?

This revenue business is all the more critical, when international jurisdictions such as Canada are penalizing companies for sending operations cashflows out of foreign jurisdictions.

Are we adhering to international standards, by allowing those companies that profit from Barbados’s economy, to do so?