The saving created through the Special Loans (Amendment) Bill, 2026, passed in the House of Assembly on Tuesday will help in the attack on non-communicable diseases with a special focus on children.
Minister of Finance Ryan Straughn piloted the Bill that would double the borrowing limit from $2.5 billion to $5 billion as the country undertakes a debt for social swap with the focus on health.
In bringing the Bill before the House of Assembly, Straughn said that it was a very important piece of the puzzle in helping Barbados become a “little more resilient”.
“By 2035, God willing, and with the help of Bajans taking note of good counsel and advice from not just the medical profession, but from the supporting ecosystem of NGOs and the like, that we will be able to see, I think, a significant reversal of, certainly, and I think the priority will be the reversal of the obesity within our children.
“. . . If we make that dent, certainly by 2030, to halve that number, then I know that we will be on our way to being able to achieve the objectives of what this swap was intended to do, but ultimately it means that the health and well-being of our country and our country’s future, because . . . 30 of them, at some point, have to come in here, and therefore, we are laying a foundation,” Straughn told the House of Assembly.
That foundation, said the Minister, included clean water in the ocean, clean water to drink, sustainable healthy and good living, access to a world-class education and services.
Barbados was on the cusp of being able to conclude its third debt swap this time for social/ health, the Minister said.
“We recognise that as the population is getting older we are making more provision within the regular budget but we are working with the Caribbean Development Bank, we’re working with the Inter-American Development Bank, we’re working with CAF, the Development Bank for Latin America and the Caribbean as well as the World Bank to make sure that we do a similar thing that allows us now to focus our efforts on dealing aggressively with the NCDs epidemic that’s facing the country and especially given that we have 42 per cent of our children obese and are overweight.
Intervention
“We now have to do a very very aggressive intervention to make sure that we are not allowing children to age into adulthood and then further compound the cost for an early period with respect to having to deal with chronic NCDs. Therefore, it is fundamentally important that we do so and do so in a very aggressive way,” said Straughn.
He mentioned that under the Special Loans Act there is the multi-currency term facility agreement, blue loan, of which there are two at $146 518 800, which fell into the maritime affairs portfolio and involved the Marine Spatial Plan.
“Under that Special Loans Act, we executed the first debt swap in 2022 roughly $300 million in order to generate $50 million in savings, to date as the interest comes due, US$50 million in savings over 15 years, those monies have been deposited to the Barbados Environmental Sustainability Fund,” he said.
The second loan, CIBC Caribbean Bank Syndicated Sustainability Loan $592,716, 270 was in relation to the debt for climate swap in 2024 which, said Straughn, went towards upgrading of the South Coast Sewage Plant following the scandal of sewage running into the streets.
“So when people get in the paper, talk about people are no better off under the Barbados Labour Party I have to laugh because clearly they’re hoping that you forget. They’re hoping that all of our constituents in here forget they neglected the very basic, basic things that your Government must do,” Straughn said. (AC)
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