Browne wants bipartisan approach to coronavirus

PRIME MINISTER Gaston Browne has called for a bipartisan approach to the fight against the coronavirus and reiterated an earlier statement that his administration has no intention of shutting down its borders.

Browne, speaking in Parliament, said he wanted all stakeholders to “come together in optimistic solidarity to work together as a nation of one people with a common destiny to fight this threat”.

Antigua and Barbuda is among several CARICOM countries that have registered cases of the virus that has been “imported” into the region since all of the cases have been brought in by travellers mainly from Europe and the United States.

Browne told legislators that the best defence the court could have against the virus, which has killed more than 6,000 people worldwide, is to establish a united front, since more people will get infected here.

“People will get sick within the domestic population. I have no doubt that within all of the countries of the Caribbean …people in the domestic population will contract the disease. Let us hope, though, that it does not become unmanageable”.

Browne again dismissed suggestions of shutting down the island’s borders, noting that tourism plays a vital role in the socio-economic development of the island.

“The question is, how are we going to substitute this fallout in revenue in which we would have lost 75 per cent of our revenue? And for those who are thinking it will come from CIP (Citizenship by Investment Programme), CIP will be affected as well”.

Under the CIP, Antigua and Barbuda, like several other Caribbean countries, provides citizenship to foreign investors in return for making a substantial investment in the socioeconomic development of the island.