Last week Friday we interviewed the president of Chamber of Commerce Nikita Usher about the phasing out of the EPZ legislation. We used the opportunity to ask him about the statements the Prime Minister attributed to the Chamber in his October 29th Press Conference. Here's what the PM said and what Usher told us in response:...
Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"The Chamber of Commerce just sent me a letter about the need to do something or perhaps I should say another letter. To do something about the wage bill, about pensions - I don't know if the implication to me in fact there ought to be retrenchment and there ought to be some claw back of the magnificent salaries that we are paying to our teachers and public officers and pensioners as well must be made to feel the sting of an exercise that according to them is absolutely necessary."
Nikita Usher, President - BCCI
"I don't like to get into a back and forth with the prime minister and myself, but we have a response letter that is going off to the prime minister in a few. The Chamber has always advocated for a cut down of your expenses. In business we know that for us to make money, there are two ways of looking at it; how do we improve our revenue, your income or how do you reduce your cost. Our letters are basically been saying since there is not much more we can do from a revenue standpoint, except if you continue to tax. Then let's start to focus now on the expense side. The expense side includes all of government expenses. At no point did we mentioned the word "retrenchment." However, we've been very cautious in saying one of the major areas that you need to look at is your pension bill. So I think to be fair and we will do it again as we go into the budget period again, we will also send back to the government to show where we feel as a private sector group that there can be some cutting of the hairdo, shaving down to look at seriously how do we address the expenditures of government in an effort to try and bring that deficit lower."
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