So, is the Government considering a sale of shares in the utility companies to meet budget shortfalls? Last week, we heard reports all the way in Barbados that the Barrow Administration was shopping around to foreign investors for the purchase of a package of shares from BTL, BEL and BWSL.
We asked the Prime Minister about it, and he confirmed that indeed, it was an idea being looked at, but he said that his Government has scrapped that. Here's how he explained why:
Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"We are looking at offering some shares, the sale of some shares, in BEL and BTL to SSB. We did go beyond that and we toyed with a larger offering to the public. I had said, maybe two independent speeches ago, that, certainly in BEL, I would like to see 10% offered to the small man. We did toy with that idea and efforts have been made to talk, not just to the small man, but to institutional investors- the banks, the insurance companies. But while it is something that has been contemplated, it is not going to be proceeded with. I think we are going to limit ourselves merely to the sale of the additional shareholding to SSB. Nobody can have any quarrel with that. But if we went beyond that and it turned out that we could not limit further sales to the small man- when you sell to SSB in effect you are selling to the small man- if it turned out we could not limit ourselves to the small man there would be no way of stopping the institutional investors, with whom we've been talking, from purchasing. It is my sense that the public and certainly those in my party, with whom I've discussed the idea, would not like that."
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