B’dos to secure LIAT shareholder benefits

Barbados will soon reap greater benefits for being the main shareholder of regional airline LIAT.

Saying that there were already several LIAT offices operating out of the island, Barbados’ Minister of Tourism and International Transport, Richard Sealy, revealed that the Barbados government would be looking to increase the presence of the airline here.

 Barbados’ Minister of Tourism and International
Transport, Richard Sealy, speaking to media.

“We anticipate that there will be increased activity at this particular airport relating to LIAT; an airline that Barbados is the largest shareholder of. The truth is we need the Category One (status), so that we can appropriately handle the LIAT situation,” he stated.

He stressed that the island could not continue to bear the major brunt of the burden in carrying the airline for the region without reaping more benefits.

“We anticipate that given the fact that the Barbadian taxpayers are being asked to shoulder the majority of the burden where LIAT is concerned, it is only natural that as you heard only recently, that it is being put on a firmer sounder economic footing, that there are decisions that will have to be taken with respect LIAT that will result in an increase in activity at this airport as far as LIAT is concerned. We cannot ask the children of Barbados to walk around with the majority of that debt over their head and yet we do not enjoy commensurate benefits,” he continued.

“I am very happy to hear that Prime Minister (Baldwin) Spencer does not have to lay off anybody in Antigua and doesn’t plan to lay off anyone, but if he can make that brag certainly we are not going to simply take all the burden for the entire Caribbean without getting some of the benefit. There is plenty of space here at the Grantley Adams International Airport,” Sealy pointed out. (JMB)