PEP COLUMN

HARD EARS YUH WON’T HEAR!
All over the island, people are beseeching leaders of the Peoples Empowerment Party, to give advise to the current government on how to handle the economic crisis. Well, all we can say is that we have been offering advise for the past 9 years now, but no-one seems to be listening! The following is but a small sample of the many interventions the PEP and its leaders have made:-May 2001 - David Comissiong’s "Facing Reality" column in the Nation Newspaper:-
"The financial tycoons of this world have built a global financial bubble that will eventually explode violently. When the bubble explodes and deep recession hits the North American and European tourist and financial services markets that Barbados depends so heavily upon, what will become of us? The global crisis is coming to us here in Barbados. Let us ensure we are prepared to face it".
September 2007 - PEP Column
"Do the Barbados Labour Party and the Democratic Labour Party have any notion of the dangers facing Barbados, and the need for pro-active, defensive actions? It is as if these two visionless, useless organisations and their leaders exist in blissful ignorance of all that is going on around them in the international arena".
May 2008 - PEP Column
"How could these two political parties have gone through a whole general election campaign, glibly spending millions of dollars, making all sorts of extravagant promises to the Barbadian people, and never seriously grappling with the implications of the rapidly deteriorating international situation?"
January 2009 - PEP letter to David Thompson, Mia Mottley and other CARICOM leaders:-
"It is already bad now, and it is going to get worse, much worse! Indeed, if we do not respond pro-actively and appropriately, we can confidently expect years of mass unemployment, collapsing social programmes, massive balance of payment crises, spiraling crime rates, and general social disintegration ............... There are many ways in which we in the Caribbean can respond to the crisis. The menu of available options would include a ‘stimulus’ package based on the collective investment in new industries and structures of production; a new thrust in import substitution; a Caribbean food and housing programme based on the use of indigenous resources; an effort to collectively organise our nations under the banner of a ‘Caribbean Civilization;’ and the crafting of new relations with other regions of the world. But in order to be effective these ‘options’ must all be based on the solid foundation of a political consensus that involves both government and opposition parties".
September 2009 - PEP letter to David Thompson and other CARICOM leaders:-
"It is clear that the CARICOM countries need a collective project to deal with the international recession. Permit me to give but one example. Throughout the region existing public sector jobs and government welfare programmes are under threat as a result of the recession. If, therefore, the CARICOM states came together and established a collective "Social Security Stabilization Project" designed to defend and preserve the social welfare status of the people by maintaining the existing public sector jobs and social welfare benefits over the next 24 months, the CARICOM group of countries would be in a credible position to present such a project to the international community, and to request financial support and assistance from relevant nations and organisations. Such a collective regional project would be much more credible and likely to attract international support than individual territories requesting assistance".