BARBADOS: Opposition slams government for lack of interest in off shore oil sector

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – The main opposition Barbados Labour Party (BLP) Wednesday condemned the David Thompson administration for not vigorously pursuing an off shore energy programme.

The Opposition spokesman on energy, Liz Thompson, dismissed statements by Prime Minister Thompson that Barbadians were deceived by the former government into believing that there were large and easily accessible oil reserves.

Thompson, speaking at a recent function to announce a new country agreement with the Inter American Development Bank, (IDB) said  that “one  of the things that I think  Barbadians may have been  misled about, was the extremely overly enthusiastic  viewpoint that there was some vast, easily accessible  store of oil”.

But, Thompson, who served as energy minister in the last government said that the Owen Arthur administration “never indicated that the oil was immediately accessible.