ADVICE FOR THE PRIME MINISTER

One year ago, Prime Minister Thompson produced a Budget which, according to him, was based on the fundamental premise that the world would come out of recession in 2010, and that the Barbadian economy would once again be lifted by a growing international economy.
The Peoples Empowerment Party (PEP) responded almost immediately, and in our Nation Newspaper column of June 5, 2009 we stated as follows:-
"The PEP wishes to publicly let Mr Thompson know that he is living in a ‘fool’s paradise’! The harsh reality is that there will be no international recovery in the year 2010, or indeed for several years to come. The damage done to the international financial system and to structures of physical production all over the world is too massive for there to be any short term recovery. Thus, to base Barbados’ fiscal and developmental policies on the expectation that such a recovery will occur next year, is to be guilty of gross negligence in the management of our national affairs".
Well, we are now into the year 2010 and once again the PEP has been proven right! A couple weeks ago Mr Thompson’s Ministry of Finance issued a "Medium-Term Fiscal Strategy" report in which they were forced to admit that Government’s tax revenues had declined by a whopping 9.6 per cent during the first nine months of fiscal year 2009/10, producing a massive fiscal deficit of $480.9 million!
So, having based his fiscal policies on a false premise one year ago, Mr Thompson now finds himself in a serious crisis and is desperately thrashing around in search of a way out of the hole he has dug for himself.
We will have to wait on the Budget to hear precisely what new economic policies Mr Thompson is proposing, but one of the measures he has already taken is to bring three new Democratic Labour Party (DLP) journeymen into his Administration. Mr Thompson has now made history by putting together the largest conglomeration of Government ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries in the history of Barbados - up from 18 to a truly massive 21 in number!
But why does Mr Thompson need to burden the already hard pressed taxpayers of Barbados with the heavy load of salaries and "perks" for 21 Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries? The greatest and most productive DLP cabinet was Mr Errol Barrow’s cabinet of 1961 to 1966 - a cabinet of seven ministers. Mr Thompson now has three times that number!
But aside from the matter of quantity, the PEP is definitely not impressed with the quality of Mr Thompson’s Cabinet! With Barbados in one of its most desperate economic crises, how does it serve our country to pack the Administration with additional nondescript DLP foot soldiers?
Time and time again the PEP has warned that Barbados needs a genuine ‘politics of inclusion’ to steer us out of this crisis. We are convinced that our country does possess the intellectual resources required to meet the challenges that now confront us, but those resources reside, only to a limited degree, in the Democratic Labour Party! It is therefore imperative that we develop the political maturity and the sense of patriotism that will permit us to search for and pull together executive talent from outside the confines of our own narrow political tribe. This is a warning that Mr Thompson continues to ignore to his and Barbados’ peril!
The PEP also continues to advise that a new world economic order is going to emerge from the current crisis, and that the most appropriate long term strategy for Barbados is to assume the role of chief conceptualiser and architect of a Pan-Caribbean economy and system of production, inclusive of the large populations of the Caribbean Diaspora in North America and Europe.

The Caribbean nation and civilization is our future. It is, perhaps, the only acceptable future that is available to us. Once again, we advise Mr Thompson to take the first decisive steps now, on the journey to that future.

DAVID A. COMISSIONG