Minister in the Ministry of Finance Ryan Straughn has strongly denied accusations that the Government was paid millions of dollars to vaccinate Barbadians.
While he did not call his name, Straughn’s rebuttal was in obvious response to Senator Caswell Franklyn who during a recent interview posted on social media charged that Barbadians were being used as “case studies” and Government had received millions which it did not have to repay as a result of administering the vaccine.
“Government has been promised money to get Barbados vaccinated so people can study us because we are a closed society, we don’t go across the border and come back.”
“We are here and they want to use us as a case study so Barbados will get some money for it. We already get $461 million already that we do not have to pay back so we are case studies,” Franklyn said on a recent episode of Catcha Fyah.
Franklyn offered no evidence to substantiate his claim.
In a scathing rebuttal, this morning in Parliament Straughn described Senator Franklyn’s allegations as “nonsense” and “insulting”.
He said he was disappointed a man of Franklyn’s public office would make such baseless and false statements.