Newly appointed government senator and Cabinet member Jonathan Reid has declared that he has hit the ground running and is wasting no time in setting out an ambitious technology agenda for the country.
Addressing the Senate on Tuesday, the innovation, science and technology minister outlined a five-year plan aimed at job creation, economic expansion, and modernising government operations.
“I have set myself, my ministry, my teammates, my partners, a bold challenge,” Senator Reid declared. “Over the next five years, the Ministry of Innovation, Industry, Science, and Technology has to be the catalyst for creating 2 500 new high-quality jobs for Barbadians and to grow the economy into a $20 billion-plus economy.”
Senator Reid, who was previously the chief of staff to the prime minister, emphasised the importance of making his ministry a cornerstone of national development. He envisions it as the administration’s “premier service ministry” and one that is “competent and collaborative” with well-resourced agencies leading the charge.
A key pillar of his strategy is accelerating Barbados’ digital transformation. Reid lamented the country’s continued reliance on paper-based records and vowed to prioritise ramping up digitisation efforts.
“We live in a digital world with analogue systems,” he said. “So many paper-based records that need to be digitised. We’ve started to do some work in this regard, and that needs to be completely turbocharged. We set a bold mandate of creating a new division that focuses on digitisation and does that at scale, and in a position that will put us in a space where we become a data-driven country.”
Reid recalled a recent conversation with Haydn Rhynd, CEO of the Barbados National Standards Institution (BNSI), where he laid down a challenge to elevate the ministry’s operations to international benchmarks.
He said: “If you say you want to be a world-class industry, the world-class is a standard, world-class has a measure. I said to [Rhynd]: ‘What is the highest standard of operations?” ISO 9001 – I said okay. If the goal is to have an ISO 9001 country, you need an ISO 9001 government. Before we get there, why don’t we have an ISO 9001 ministry? So I gave him a challenge and his team, of preparing a plan where the ministry becomes an ISO 9001 certified ministry in everything it does.
“Response to services, quality of advice, product delivery, infrastructure management, the whole nine yards. We create the blueprint under which world-class looks like for a government, and then we share with other colleagues and then we share with the country. He does not have much time, I gave him 100 days.”
The new senator strongly defended the government’s decision to grant land to the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) in Jemmotts Lane, on the site of the old general hospital.
Senator Reid, responding to Opposition Leader Ralph Thorne’s call for an investigation into the deal granting the bank free land to develop a trade centre, luxury hotel, and corporate offices, dismissed the criticism as unwarranted, citing the significant economic benefits anticipated, particularly in job creation.
He said: “[Afreximbank wants to] spend hundreds of millions of dollars to set up a regional hub, 100-room hotel, conference centre, exhibit space, retail space, parking, all a range of different things, and your investment has to be a derelict piece of land? That sounds like a return on investment to me. What is the economic impact of it? The thousands of jobs it will create.
“What is the game you are playing? You want to play a game of stagnation and complacency? Or you want to play the game of growth and prosperity. I am confused by all of the conversations, and I get that different prospects must collide, but if you are speaking about economic growth and propulsion, then you have to be honest.”
(SB)
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