This Christmas Column is dedicated to the memory of the late Rev. Vivian Comissiong, a veteran Minister of the Methodist Church of the Caribbean and the Americas, and a great son of our Caribbean Civilization.
Rev. Comissiong’s concept of God was that of the Heavenly Father - a Father of perfect goodness and love towards His earthly children. It is not surprising therefore that the "babe of Bethlehem" held a special place in his heart, and that he loved children - all children - and especially enjoyed the celebration of Christmas, which he regarded as the "Festival of the Child":-
"Tomorrow we celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Christ, who admonished the world to - "suffer the little children to come unto me, for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs." And yet, Christmas can be the cruelest time of year for many, many children!
The celebration of Christmas has come to be characterised by an excessive concentration on the commercial marketing of toys and other ‘goodies’, and the insistence that the commemoration of the birth of Jesus is centred around the giving and receiving of presents. And as a result, many of the children of the poor are devastated at Christmas time, as they witness a seemingly never-ending parade of toys and ‘goodies’ on their television screens and in the windows of department stores - toys and ‘goodies’ that are really for other children, and that they can only admire and wish for from afar.
Some of us have seen this scenario played out time and time again at Christmas - the little single parent child whose home is so wracked by poverty that ‘mummy’ simply cannot afford to buy the beautiful things in the store window.
And so, as we celebrate Christmas tomorrow, we should spare a thought for the poor children of our nation. Indeed there is no better time to seriously reflect on the welfare and well-being of our children, since Christmas - properly understood - is really the festival of the child. This is the perfect time therefore for us to give some thought to the duty that we owe to all the children of our nation, and more especially to the children of the poor!
The Peoples Empowerment Party (PEP), has always had a clear understanding that a set of duties is owed by society to the children of Barbados. These duties may be conceptualised as essential ‘foods’ for the bodies, intellects and souls of the nation’s children, and include the duty of respect; the duty to give our children a sense of a community and a culture that belongs to them; the duty to bestow upon them a significant role in society and a sense of accomplishment and importance; and the duty to convey to them a sense of the location of their lives in the scheme of eternity and a positive belief in the future.
Of course, the duty of respect implies and encompasses the duty to provide for the physical and material welfare of all of the children of our nation. All Barbadian children - regardless of the material wealth or social standing of their parents - must be properly fed, clothed, housed, educated and cared for medically - and our Government must ensure that this duty is fulfilled!
Let us all celebrate and mark this Christmas Festival with a collective resolution to orient our society towards the children and their future!"
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
PARTNERSHIPS FOR PROGRESS
At the very core of the plan to save our country from recession must be a strategy to re-energise production in Barbados’ agriculture, construction, manufacturing, tourism and international business sectors.
We have to start with the enterprises that currently exist in these crucial sectors of our economy, and bring to bear state sponsored initiatives that will lift them to higher levels of performance and cause them to multiply.
Firstly, there must be efforts by the governmental administration to establish a close and intimate ‘partnership’ between Government and these sectors - a ‘partnership’ in planning; a ‘partnership’ designed to literally invent comparative advantage for enterprises in these sectors by extending to them a wide range of incentives, priveleges, assistance and institutional support; and a ‘partnership’ in ensuring that the jointly constructed plans are carried out and actualized.
Secondly, there must be a governmental programme to make long term credit available at extremely low interest rates for productive investment in these sectors. Essentially, farmers, hoteliers and manufacturers must be able to secure loans for productive investment in their enterprises at nominal interest rates of 1 or 2 per cent per annum!
And when we speak about a ‘partnership’ we are contemplating a relationship that is much more profound than the ‘Social Partnership’ or than the Manufacturers Association meeting with the Minister of Finance and presenting him with a wish list two or three weeks before the annual Budget presentation!
Rather, we are talking about a process of intimate and institutionalized planning, in which the two parties routinely sit down together and work out in detail an expansionary and developmental strategy for each sector, undergirded by the deliberate and conscious use of the formidable power of the State.
In manufacturing, for example, we visualize a range of enhanced possibilities for Barbadian manufacturers in such fields as garments, furniture, metal fabrication, food and beverages, office equipment, scientific and medical instruments, solar technology, pharmaceuticals and plastic goods, provided the state plays a leading role in encouraging, directing and supporting the relevant initiatives!
Outlines of the prospects in agriculture, tourism and construction, may be found in the PEP’s 2008 election manifesto, and they all hinge upon a process of joint planning and the articulation of state support and power.
We now turn our attention to a possible source of financial resources to be used by the Government in providing long term credit at nominal interest rates.
The most obvious source is Venezuela’s "Petro Caribe Energy Cooperation Agreement’. If Barbados was to participate in and to purchase its petroleum supplies under this arrangement, we could convert almost one-half of our annual petroleum expenditures into a 25 year loan at a nominal interest rate of 1 per cent per annum. Our Government would therefore be in a position to utilize this deferred expenditure by using the freed up funds to make sound long term loans to local farmers, manufacturers and hoteliers at a similarly low interest rate.
Once the loans made by Government are sound loans which will be repaid to the Treasury over a period of years, there will be no danger of a national accumulation of debt!
Furthermore, overarching the ‘Petro Caribe’ agreement is the hemisphere-wide project known as the ‘Bolivarian Alternative For Latin America & the Caribbean’ (ALBA) with its emphasis on developmental cooperation and funding. Surely, Barbados needs to be a member of ALBA, and to utilize ALBA based resources to benefit our farmers, manufacturers and hoteliers.
We have to start with the enterprises that currently exist in these crucial sectors of our economy, and bring to bear state sponsored initiatives that will lift them to higher levels of performance and cause them to multiply.
Firstly, there must be efforts by the governmental administration to establish a close and intimate ‘partnership’ between Government and these sectors - a ‘partnership’ in planning; a ‘partnership’ designed to literally invent comparative advantage for enterprises in these sectors by extending to them a wide range of incentives, priveleges, assistance and institutional support; and a ‘partnership’ in ensuring that the jointly constructed plans are carried out and actualized.
Secondly, there must be a governmental programme to make long term credit available at extremely low interest rates for productive investment in these sectors. Essentially, farmers, hoteliers and manufacturers must be able to secure loans for productive investment in their enterprises at nominal interest rates of 1 or 2 per cent per annum!
And when we speak about a ‘partnership’ we are contemplating a relationship that is much more profound than the ‘Social Partnership’ or than the Manufacturers Association meeting with the Minister of Finance and presenting him with a wish list two or three weeks before the annual Budget presentation!
Rather, we are talking about a process of intimate and institutionalized planning, in which the two parties routinely sit down together and work out in detail an expansionary and developmental strategy for each sector, undergirded by the deliberate and conscious use of the formidable power of the State.
In manufacturing, for example, we visualize a range of enhanced possibilities for Barbadian manufacturers in such fields as garments, furniture, metal fabrication, food and beverages, office equipment, scientific and medical instruments, solar technology, pharmaceuticals and plastic goods, provided the state plays a leading role in encouraging, directing and supporting the relevant initiatives!
Outlines of the prospects in agriculture, tourism and construction, may be found in the PEP’s 2008 election manifesto, and they all hinge upon a process of joint planning and the articulation of state support and power.
We now turn our attention to a possible source of financial resources to be used by the Government in providing long term credit at nominal interest rates.
The most obvious source is Venezuela’s "Petro Caribe Energy Cooperation Agreement’. If Barbados was to participate in and to purchase its petroleum supplies under this arrangement, we could convert almost one-half of our annual petroleum expenditures into a 25 year loan at a nominal interest rate of 1 per cent per annum. Our Government would therefore be in a position to utilize this deferred expenditure by using the freed up funds to make sound long term loans to local farmers, manufacturers and hoteliers at a similarly low interest rate.
Once the loans made by Government are sound loans which will be repaid to the Treasury over a period of years, there will be no danger of a national accumulation of debt!
Furthermore, overarching the ‘Petro Caribe’ agreement is the hemisphere-wide project known as the ‘Bolivarian Alternative For Latin America & the Caribbean’ (ALBA) with its emphasis on developmental cooperation and funding. Surely, Barbados needs to be a member of ALBA, and to utilize ALBA based resources to benefit our farmers, manufacturers and hoteliers.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
PEP’S RESPONSE TO THE BUDGET
Yesterday, the Democratic Labour Party administration and their new Minister of Finance forgot that Barbados is a society and not merely an economy!
More particularly, they forgot that poor people are human beings too, and are subject to the same material needs and aspirations as the upper middle class and wealthy of our society.
Furthermore, they forgot that the dominant organising principle of modern civilization is "democracy", with its emphasis on engineering a gradual equalisation in economic enjoyments across social class lines.
We are convinced that they ‘forgot’ all of these fundamental principles because how else can one rationalize a Budget that makes virtually no effort to require the wealthy and comfortable members of society to bear the burden of fiscal adjustment, but instead places the burden squarely on the backs of the large mass of working-class Barbadians.
There are tens of thousands of poor, working-class Barbadians who are barely surviving on wages of less than $300.00 per week and minimum pensions of less than $160.00 per week. And yet, Mr Sinckler and his colleagues now expect them to bear the additional burden of a 2.5 per cent increase in VAT, a one-third increase in bus fares, and an increase in gasoline prices that will bring in its wake an additional across-the-board inflation in local consumer prices.
In the DLP’s new vision of Barbados they apparently see no difficulty in asking a Barbadian earning $160.00 per week and a Barbadian earning $1,600.00 per week to bear the same additional financial burdens!
Indeed, not even advanced age seems to make a difference any more, for they have now decided that impoverished old age pensioners suffering from chronic and other diseases will henceforth be required to pay substantial sums of money for their medication. Either that, or they will have to find the taxi fare, bus fare, time, strength and effort to make their way to one of the few and far between government dispensaries to get their on going medication. Surely, Mr Sinckler must know that this will prove to be extremely difficult if not impossible for many poor, elderly Barbadians who now find it difficult enough to make their way to the private neighbourhood pharmacy!
The fundamental point that the Peoples Empowerment Party wishes to make is that if additional tax revenue had to be raised, then the first place to go for such revenue should have been the wealthy and comfortable sectors of the society.
Some three weeks ago we issued a Press Release in which we advised as follows:-
"The sectors that must be asked to bear the increased tax burden must be the wealthy and the big corporate sector.
Indeed, what we would simply need to do is to roll back a portion of the tax cuts that former Prime Minister Owen Arthur gave to the wealthy and to the corporate sector during his 14 year reign.
We refer to Mr Arthur’s 1995 "Group Tax Relief" which permitted tax losses incurred by a company that was a member of a group of companies to be set off against the taxable income of other members of the group. We also refer to the reduction of Corporation Tax from 40 per cent to 25 per cent, the reduction of income tax on the wealthy from 25 per cent to 20 per cent, the 35 to 60 per cent reduction of income tax on personnel employed in International Business companies, and to the removal or reduction of taxes on yachts, marinas and luxury cars.
The wealthy individuals and corporations that benefitted from these "Owen Arthur tax cuts" must now be called upon to give back some of this wealth, in the national interest!"
This would have been the correct place to start. Unfortunately, it does not seem that Mr Sinckler even gave any thought to this option.
The late Errol Barrow and the old DLP understood the concept of "progressive taxation" under which the wealthy is required to bear the brunt of the burden, and the concept of "regressive taxation" under which the poor masses bear the brunt. Sadly, it seems that Mr Sinckler and the current DLP have forgotten the concept of "progressive taxation".
More particularly, they forgot that poor people are human beings too, and are subject to the same material needs and aspirations as the upper middle class and wealthy of our society.
Furthermore, they forgot that the dominant organising principle of modern civilization is "democracy", with its emphasis on engineering a gradual equalisation in economic enjoyments across social class lines.
We are convinced that they ‘forgot’ all of these fundamental principles because how else can one rationalize a Budget that makes virtually no effort to require the wealthy and comfortable members of society to bear the burden of fiscal adjustment, but instead places the burden squarely on the backs of the large mass of working-class Barbadians.
There are tens of thousands of poor, working-class Barbadians who are barely surviving on wages of less than $300.00 per week and minimum pensions of less than $160.00 per week. And yet, Mr Sinckler and his colleagues now expect them to bear the additional burden of a 2.5 per cent increase in VAT, a one-third increase in bus fares, and an increase in gasoline prices that will bring in its wake an additional across-the-board inflation in local consumer prices.
In the DLP’s new vision of Barbados they apparently see no difficulty in asking a Barbadian earning $160.00 per week and a Barbadian earning $1,600.00 per week to bear the same additional financial burdens!
Indeed, not even advanced age seems to make a difference any more, for they have now decided that impoverished old age pensioners suffering from chronic and other diseases will henceforth be required to pay substantial sums of money for their medication. Either that, or they will have to find the taxi fare, bus fare, time, strength and effort to make their way to one of the few and far between government dispensaries to get their on going medication. Surely, Mr Sinckler must know that this will prove to be extremely difficult if not impossible for many poor, elderly Barbadians who now find it difficult enough to make their way to the private neighbourhood pharmacy!
The fundamental point that the Peoples Empowerment Party wishes to make is that if additional tax revenue had to be raised, then the first place to go for such revenue should have been the wealthy and comfortable sectors of the society.
Some three weeks ago we issued a Press Release in which we advised as follows:-
"The sectors that must be asked to bear the increased tax burden must be the wealthy and the big corporate sector.
Indeed, what we would simply need to do is to roll back a portion of the tax cuts that former Prime Minister Owen Arthur gave to the wealthy and to the corporate sector during his 14 year reign.
We refer to Mr Arthur’s 1995 "Group Tax Relief" which permitted tax losses incurred by a company that was a member of a group of companies to be set off against the taxable income of other members of the group. We also refer to the reduction of Corporation Tax from 40 per cent to 25 per cent, the reduction of income tax on the wealthy from 25 per cent to 20 per cent, the 35 to 60 per cent reduction of income tax on personnel employed in International Business companies, and to the removal or reduction of taxes on yachts, marinas and luxury cars.
The wealthy individuals and corporations that benefitted from these "Owen Arthur tax cuts" must now be called upon to give back some of this wealth, in the national interest!"
This would have been the correct place to start. Unfortunately, it does not seem that Mr Sinckler even gave any thought to this option.
The late Errol Barrow and the old DLP understood the concept of "progressive taxation" under which the wealthy is required to bear the brunt of the burden, and the concept of "regressive taxation" under which the poor masses bear the brunt. Sadly, it seems that Mr Sinckler and the current DLP have forgotten the concept of "progressive taxation".
SAVING BARBADOS FROM RECESSION (PART 5)
At the very core of the plan to save our country from recession must be a strategy to re-energise production in Barbados’ agriculture, construction, manufacturing and tourism sectors!
It goes without saying that we have to be realistic and practical, and that we must therefore start with the enterprises and production capacity that currently exist in these four crucial sectors of our economy, and bring to bear state sponsored initiatives that will lift them to higher levels of performance and cause them to multiply.
The state sponsored initiatives that we have in mind fit into two broad categories.
The first category would consist of efforts by the governmental administration to establish a close and intimate ‘partnership’ between Government and these four sectors - a ‘partnership’ in planning; a ‘partnership’ designed to literally invent comparative advantage for enterprises in these four sectors by extending to them a wide range of incentives, priveleges, assistance and institutional support; and a ‘partnership’ in ensuring that the plans jointly constructed by Government and the representatives of these sectors are carried out and actualized.
The second category would consist of a governmental programme to make available long term credit at extremely low interest rates for productive investment in agriculture, manufacturing, tourism and construction. Essentially, we are talking about farmers, hoteliers and manufacturers being able to secure loans for productive investment in their enterprises at nominal interest rates of 1 or 2 per cent per annum!
When we speak about a ‘partnership’ between Government and these four sectors of the economy we are contemplating a relationship that is much more profound and intimate than the Social Partnership or than the manufacturers association or the Chamber of Commerce meeting with the Minister of Finance and presenting him with a wish list two or three weeks before the annual Budget presentation!
Rather, we are talking about a process of intimate and institutionalized planning, in which the two parties routinely sit down together and work out in detail an expansionary and developmental strategy for each sector, undergirded by the deliberate and conscious use of the formidable power of the State.
In the Peoples Empowerment Party’s 2008 general election manifesto we provided brief sketches of the developmental prospects that exist in these four productive sectors of our economy. In manufacturing, for example, we visualized a range of possibilities for Barbadian manufacturers in such fields as garments, furniture, metal fabrication, food and beverages, office equipment, scientific and medical instruments, solar technology, pharmaceuticals and plastic goods, provided the state played a leading role in encouraging, directing and supporting the relevant initiatives.
Limitations of space would not permit us to provide similar outlines of the prospects in agriculture, tourism and construction, but these details may be found in the PEP's 2008 election manifesto, and they all hinge upon a process of joint planning and the articulation of state support and power.
We now turn our attention to a possible source of financial resources to be used by the Government in providing long term credit at nominal interest rates.
The most obvious source is Venezuela’s ‘Petro Caribe Energy Cooperation Agreement’. If Barbados was to participate in and to purchase its petroleum supplies under this arrangement, we could convert almost one-half of our annual petroleum expenditures into a 25 year loan at a nominal interest rate of 1 per cent per annum. Our Government would therefore be in a position to utilize this deferred expenditure by using the freed up funds to make sound long term loans to local farmers, manufacturers and hoteliers at a similarly low interest rate.
Once the loans made by Government are sound loans which will be repaid to the Treasury over a period of years, there will be no danger of a national accumulation of debt!
This helpful Venezuelan offer has been available to us since 2005 and we have failed to take it up. If it is that we do not intend to shift our petroleum purchases from Trinidad & Tobago, then we should at least be pressing Trinidad & Tobago to extend similarly attractive credit arrangements to us!
With such planning and credit provision mechanisms in place, Barbados would be in a position to forge ahead with such new developmental initiatives as:-
(1) Substantial investment in collectively owned national agro-processing facilities designed to exploit the commercial and export potential of our locally produced ground provisions, fruit, vegetables and fish;
(2) A new thrust in "Cultural Tourism’, centred on properly developed locally owned hotels and guest houses that radiate the unique culture and hospitality of Barbados and Barbadians;
(3) A major investment in the retooling of our manufacturing sector, and the provision of critical international market research services for export oriented enterprises.
(4) A major ‘national’ lower income housing construction and urban renewal programme that pulls together and synergizes inputs from the Ministry of Housing, National Housing Corporation, National Insurance Scheme, the Credit Unions, Churches, Mutual Funds, Insurance companies, the trade unions and building contractors.
(5) The facilitation of the overseas expansion of Barbadian companies that possess the potential to spread their wings beyond the confines of our island nation.
It goes without saying that we have to be realistic and practical, and that we must therefore start with the enterprises and production capacity that currently exist in these four crucial sectors of our economy, and bring to bear state sponsored initiatives that will lift them to higher levels of performance and cause them to multiply.
The state sponsored initiatives that we have in mind fit into two broad categories.
The first category would consist of efforts by the governmental administration to establish a close and intimate ‘partnership’ between Government and these four sectors - a ‘partnership’ in planning; a ‘partnership’ designed to literally invent comparative advantage for enterprises in these four sectors by extending to them a wide range of incentives, priveleges, assistance and institutional support; and a ‘partnership’ in ensuring that the plans jointly constructed by Government and the representatives of these sectors are carried out and actualized.
The second category would consist of a governmental programme to make available long term credit at extremely low interest rates for productive investment in agriculture, manufacturing, tourism and construction. Essentially, we are talking about farmers, hoteliers and manufacturers being able to secure loans for productive investment in their enterprises at nominal interest rates of 1 or 2 per cent per annum!
When we speak about a ‘partnership’ between Government and these four sectors of the economy we are contemplating a relationship that is much more profound and intimate than the Social Partnership or than the manufacturers association or the Chamber of Commerce meeting with the Minister of Finance and presenting him with a wish list two or three weeks before the annual Budget presentation!
Rather, we are talking about a process of intimate and institutionalized planning, in which the two parties routinely sit down together and work out in detail an expansionary and developmental strategy for each sector, undergirded by the deliberate and conscious use of the formidable power of the State.
In the Peoples Empowerment Party’s 2008 general election manifesto we provided brief sketches of the developmental prospects that exist in these four productive sectors of our economy. In manufacturing, for example, we visualized a range of possibilities for Barbadian manufacturers in such fields as garments, furniture, metal fabrication, food and beverages, office equipment, scientific and medical instruments, solar technology, pharmaceuticals and plastic goods, provided the state played a leading role in encouraging, directing and supporting the relevant initiatives.
Limitations of space would not permit us to provide similar outlines of the prospects in agriculture, tourism and construction, but these details may be found in the PEP's 2008 election manifesto, and they all hinge upon a process of joint planning and the articulation of state support and power.
We now turn our attention to a possible source of financial resources to be used by the Government in providing long term credit at nominal interest rates.
The most obvious source is Venezuela’s ‘Petro Caribe Energy Cooperation Agreement’. If Barbados was to participate in and to purchase its petroleum supplies under this arrangement, we could convert almost one-half of our annual petroleum expenditures into a 25 year loan at a nominal interest rate of 1 per cent per annum. Our Government would therefore be in a position to utilize this deferred expenditure by using the freed up funds to make sound long term loans to local farmers, manufacturers and hoteliers at a similarly low interest rate.
Once the loans made by Government are sound loans which will be repaid to the Treasury over a period of years, there will be no danger of a national accumulation of debt!
This helpful Venezuelan offer has been available to us since 2005 and we have failed to take it up. If it is that we do not intend to shift our petroleum purchases from Trinidad & Tobago, then we should at least be pressing Trinidad & Tobago to extend similarly attractive credit arrangements to us!
With such planning and credit provision mechanisms in place, Barbados would be in a position to forge ahead with such new developmental initiatives as:-
(1) Substantial investment in collectively owned national agro-processing facilities designed to exploit the commercial and export potential of our locally produced ground provisions, fruit, vegetables and fish;
(2) A new thrust in "Cultural Tourism’, centred on properly developed locally owned hotels and guest houses that radiate the unique culture and hospitality of Barbados and Barbadians;
(3) A major investment in the retooling of our manufacturing sector, and the provision of critical international market research services for export oriented enterprises.
(4) A major ‘national’ lower income housing construction and urban renewal programme that pulls together and synergizes inputs from the Ministry of Housing, National Housing Corporation, National Insurance Scheme, the Credit Unions, Churches, Mutual Funds, Insurance companies, the trade unions and building contractors.
(5) The facilitation of the overseas expansion of Barbadian companies that possess the potential to spread their wings beyond the confines of our island nation.
SAVING BARBADOS FROM RECESSION (PART 4)
Our "Rescue Plan" to save Barbados from recession began with proposals for absolutely essential measures to re-establish the soundness of the finances of our Government and to restore the purchasing power of the Barbadian people.
But even while this foundation of financial reforms is being put in place, our Government must bestir itself and come to the assistance of citizens who are facing unemployment or are otherwise in poverty and distress!
To begin with, our Government must commit itself to preserving and maintaining all of our nation’s existing welfare services and programmes! And of course, this is no mere academic matter. Our new Minister of Finance will shortly be delivering his first Budget presentation, and we are therefore publicly calling on him not to touch Government’s existing welfare programmes! If cuts are to be made to the national budget, let them be made elsewhere!
We Barbadians must insist on Barbados being a ‘civilized’ society. And in a civilized society, when economic conditions become difficult, the poor and destitute are not abandoned! In fact, it is precisely in such difficult times that Government must show its true worth as the principal defender of the ‘general welfare’ of the people.
The services and programmes that we consider to be absolutely sacrosanct are as follows - the Welfare Department, National Assistance Board, National Disabilities Unit, Barbados Council for the Disabled, the Child Care Board, Poverty Alleviation Bureau, National Drug Service, the Geriatric and District Hospitals, National HIV/AIDS Commission, Children’s Development Centre and the School Meals Department. All together, these agencies and programmes comprise approximately $180 million out of Government’s total estimated expenditure of $3.6 Billion for fiscal year 2009 - 10, an extremely modest proportion indeed.
But preserving the funding of these essential welfare services is not all that is demanded of Mr Sinckler and the current Democratic Labour Party administration. They must also go on to establish a public works programme that will come to the rescue of the rising number of unemployed Barbadians!
The specific public works programme that we have in mind is an environmental programme directed towards dealing with such pressing environmental issues as flooding and soil and beach erosion. We envisage a number of labour intensive projects devoted to creating new drainage infrastructure, re-establishing critical suck wells and protective vegetation cover, as well as a variety of beach and reef protection measures. And needless-to-say the persons to be employed in this public works programme would be drawn primarily from the ranks of the currently unemployed.
But where, you may ask, is the funding to come from? Well, we believe that the Barbados Government can access international grant funding for such an environmental protection project under the broad international "global warming and climate change agenda".
Left to us, we would bring together the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Environment & Drainage and put them to work on accessing international funding for Barbados from such entities as the ‘Global Environmental Fund’ established under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Control.
Of course, the argument to be made is that as a low lying small island Caribbean state vulnerable to the effects of global warming and climate change, Barbados needs to proactively strengthen its environmental defences.
But, of course, not only will we be addressing a genuine environmental problem, we will also be combating unemployment and alleviating human distress, as part of a comprehensive strategy to save Barbados from recession.
But even while this foundation of financial reforms is being put in place, our Government must bestir itself and come to the assistance of citizens who are facing unemployment or are otherwise in poverty and distress!
To begin with, our Government must commit itself to preserving and maintaining all of our nation’s existing welfare services and programmes! And of course, this is no mere academic matter. Our new Minister of Finance will shortly be delivering his first Budget presentation, and we are therefore publicly calling on him not to touch Government’s existing welfare programmes! If cuts are to be made to the national budget, let them be made elsewhere!
We Barbadians must insist on Barbados being a ‘civilized’ society. And in a civilized society, when economic conditions become difficult, the poor and destitute are not abandoned! In fact, it is precisely in such difficult times that Government must show its true worth as the principal defender of the ‘general welfare’ of the people.
The services and programmes that we consider to be absolutely sacrosanct are as follows - the Welfare Department, National Assistance Board, National Disabilities Unit, Barbados Council for the Disabled, the Child Care Board, Poverty Alleviation Bureau, National Drug Service, the Geriatric and District Hospitals, National HIV/AIDS Commission, Children’s Development Centre and the School Meals Department. All together, these agencies and programmes comprise approximately $180 million out of Government’s total estimated expenditure of $3.6 Billion for fiscal year 2009 - 10, an extremely modest proportion indeed.
But preserving the funding of these essential welfare services is not all that is demanded of Mr Sinckler and the current Democratic Labour Party administration. They must also go on to establish a public works programme that will come to the rescue of the rising number of unemployed Barbadians!
The specific public works programme that we have in mind is an environmental programme directed towards dealing with such pressing environmental issues as flooding and soil and beach erosion. We envisage a number of labour intensive projects devoted to creating new drainage infrastructure, re-establishing critical suck wells and protective vegetation cover, as well as a variety of beach and reef protection measures. And needless-to-say the persons to be employed in this public works programme would be drawn primarily from the ranks of the currently unemployed.
But where, you may ask, is the funding to come from? Well, we believe that the Barbados Government can access international grant funding for such an environmental protection project under the broad international "global warming and climate change agenda".
Left to us, we would bring together the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Environment & Drainage and put them to work on accessing international funding for Barbados from such entities as the ‘Global Environmental Fund’ established under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Control.
Of course, the argument to be made is that as a low lying small island Caribbean state vulnerable to the effects of global warming and climate change, Barbados needs to proactively strengthen its environmental defences.
But, of course, not only will we be addressing a genuine environmental problem, we will also be combating unemployment and alleviating human distress, as part of a comprehensive strategy to save Barbados from recession.
SAVING BARBADOS FROM RECESSION (PART 3)
The "Rescue Plan" to save Barbados from recession and to lift the stagnant economy out of the doldrums begins with the re-establishment of the soundness of the finances of our Government. But once we have taken those measures we must then move with haste to deal with that part of the problem that concerns the finances and credit of the tens of thousands of ordinary citizens!
The mission that we must set out to accomplish is to restore the purchasing power and the confidence of the masses of our people, so that they can once again engage in commercial activity and socially useful consumer spending at a level that will set the internal machinery of our economy humming.
One of our strategies must be to save our people from the suffocating effect of burdensome debt and oppressively high interest rates. And a second strategy must be to clear away the encumbrances that are inhibiting socially useful spending.
At the present time, many thousands of working class and middle class Barbadians find themselves in a debt trap - ensnared by high and oppressive levels of bank debt, mortgage debt, automobile based finance company debt, and credit card debt.
Generally speaking, the interest charged on credit in Barbados is way too high. For example, Barbadians routinely pay an astronomical 22 per cent per annum on their credit card debt!
We are convinced that a significant proportion of the drying up of discretionary consumer spending by the Barbadian people is tied to the level of indebtedness that they currently find themselves in, and the high interest rates that they are forced to bear.
It is clear therefore that our Government needs to come to the rescue of the Barbadian people by ensuring that the Minister of Finance, a public official elected by the people and therefore accountable to the people, has the power to intervene and to determine maximum limits on interest rates charged by banks and other financial institutions, across the board. Clearly, this is not a matter that can be left up to so-called "market forces"! And in any event, in Barbados, "market forces" usually amounts to three or four large entities coming together to agree things among themselves.
Our Government also needs to exert itself to do more - much more - to save Barbadian consumers from an unnaturally high cost of living inflicted upon them by an oligopolistic elite merchant class that has a 300 year old record of price gouging.
The present governmental administration has made many vain promises on this matter. Surely, the time has now come for serious action based on a combination of price controls and direct governmental involvement in the importation of some strategically important consumer items. We must act now to increase the power of the currency in the hand of the consumer by reducing the overall level of prices!
Government must also act now to come to come to the assistance of micro businesses in the working-class sector of the economy - corner shops, mini-marts, seamstresses, wayside vendors, and the list goes on.
Many of these small working-class entrepreneurs have experienced a significant decline in sales. Of course, there are many reasons for this, but a major reason that is overlooked is that tens of thousands of Barbadians have diverted their discretionary spending away from these working-class businesses towards Lotto tickets, other forms of gambling and cell phones! Literally millions of dollars that would otherwise have been spent with the community corner shop, are now ploughed into gambling and cell phones by working-class Barbadians, on a weekly basis.
We therefore say - moderate cell phone use and impose an outright ban on gambling in Barbados, and permit this discretionary consumer spending to revert back to more socially useful purposes!
We also recommend that financial resources be freed up by adopting Muhammad Nassar’s often repeated proposal that Government off set the delay that small business persons routinely experience in receiving payment of State funds owed to them, by issuing Government backed guarantee certificates that the small businessman can take to the bank and exchange for cash or use as security for credit.
The mission that we must set out to accomplish is to restore the purchasing power and the confidence of the masses of our people, so that they can once again engage in commercial activity and socially useful consumer spending at a level that will set the internal machinery of our economy humming.
One of our strategies must be to save our people from the suffocating effect of burdensome debt and oppressively high interest rates. And a second strategy must be to clear away the encumbrances that are inhibiting socially useful spending.
At the present time, many thousands of working class and middle class Barbadians find themselves in a debt trap - ensnared by high and oppressive levels of bank debt, mortgage debt, automobile based finance company debt, and credit card debt.
Generally speaking, the interest charged on credit in Barbados is way too high. For example, Barbadians routinely pay an astronomical 22 per cent per annum on their credit card debt!
We are convinced that a significant proportion of the drying up of discretionary consumer spending by the Barbadian people is tied to the level of indebtedness that they currently find themselves in, and the high interest rates that they are forced to bear.
It is clear therefore that our Government needs to come to the rescue of the Barbadian people by ensuring that the Minister of Finance, a public official elected by the people and therefore accountable to the people, has the power to intervene and to determine maximum limits on interest rates charged by banks and other financial institutions, across the board. Clearly, this is not a matter that can be left up to so-called "market forces"! And in any event, in Barbados, "market forces" usually amounts to three or four large entities coming together to agree things among themselves.
Our Government also needs to exert itself to do more - much more - to save Barbadian consumers from an unnaturally high cost of living inflicted upon them by an oligopolistic elite merchant class that has a 300 year old record of price gouging.
The present governmental administration has made many vain promises on this matter. Surely, the time has now come for serious action based on a combination of price controls and direct governmental involvement in the importation of some strategically important consumer items. We must act now to increase the power of the currency in the hand of the consumer by reducing the overall level of prices!
Government must also act now to come to come to the assistance of micro businesses in the working-class sector of the economy - corner shops, mini-marts, seamstresses, wayside vendors, and the list goes on.
Many of these small working-class entrepreneurs have experienced a significant decline in sales. Of course, there are many reasons for this, but a major reason that is overlooked is that tens of thousands of Barbadians have diverted their discretionary spending away from these working-class businesses towards Lotto tickets, other forms of gambling and cell phones! Literally millions of dollars that would otherwise have been spent with the community corner shop, are now ploughed into gambling and cell phones by working-class Barbadians, on a weekly basis.
We therefore say - moderate cell phone use and impose an outright ban on gambling in Barbados, and permit this discretionary consumer spending to revert back to more socially useful purposes!
We also recommend that financial resources be freed up by adopting Muhammad Nassar’s often repeated proposal that Government off set the delay that small business persons routinely experience in receiving payment of State funds owed to them, by issuing Government backed guarantee certificates that the small businessman can take to the bank and exchange for cash or use as security for credit.
SAVING BARBADOS FROM RECESSION (PART 2)
The foundation upon which any national effort to lift Barbados out of recession must be built iS the re-establishment of the soundness of the finances and credit of our Government!
Make no mistake about it, the institution known as "Government" has to take the lead in addressing the recession and bringing the nation out of the economic doldrums. Simply put, our government has to lead, and the private sector and the people will follow!
However, if Government is to be able to provide such leadership, Government must begin by re-structuring and strengthening its own finances and credit, because without that no real leadership is possible.
A Government whose finances are in disarray will simply not be in a position to go on to tackle the other aspects of the rescue plan such as restoring the purchasing power of the Barbadian people, securing welfare services, providing employment in essential public works projects, and re-energising the major productive sectors of the economy.
The fundamental problem we are facing with Government’s finances is that for several years now our government has not been living within its income. And this fact, along with the recent decline in Government’s tax intake caused by the recession, has created a $500 million annual structural deficit in Government’s finances.
Over the past year or so, concrete evidence of a cancerous structural deficit in Barbados’ traditional Government budget has emerged. Indeed, compelling evidence of a structural 10 per cent decline in our Government’s annual tax intake has manifested itself, in tandem with a naturally increasing expenditure bill.
The immediate task therefore must be to bring our Government’s annual regular or recurrent expenditures within the limits of Government’s annual income. And this must be done even in a situation where Government, in dealing with a recessionary situation, may actually need to be borrowing and spending many millions of dollars to energize economic growth and development in the country.
So what we are proposing is the seeming paradoxical situation of Government rigorously tailoring its regular or recurrent expenditure to fit within its annual income, while at the same time borrowing and spending in an effort to energize and build the economy.
Of course, the key to this is that the great majority of this emergency money or capital resources that is borrowed and spent must be paid out by Government in the form of sound loans which will be repaid to the Treasury over a period of years. In addition, if any such borrowed funds don’t fit the criteria of "sound loans" then Government must ensure that they are covered by new taxes that will take care of repayment of the interest and the periodic instalments!
Now to the most critical issue - how can the Barbados Government go about closing a $500 million gap between its annual recurrent expenditure and its annual income?
Well, the most painless place to start would be with a rationalization of existing Government departments, projects and programmes, with a view to cutting down duplication, inefficiencies and non-essential spending. An effort also has to be made to restructure the management of the statutory corporations, with a view to making them more efficient and less costly to finance.
But when all efforts at rationalization and restructuring are exhausted, it may still become necessary to increase Government’s tax intake. And if this becomes necessary, the sectors that must be asked to bear the increased tax burden must be the wealthy and the big corporate sector!
Indeed, what we would simply need to do is to roll back a portion of the tax cuts that former Prime Minister Owen Arthur gave to the wealthy and to the corporate sector during his 14 year reign.
We refer to Mr Arthur’s 1995 "Group Tax Relief" which permitted tax losses incurred by a company that was a member of a group of companies to be set off against the taxable income of other members of the group. We also refer to the reduction of Corporation Tax from 40 per cent to 25 per cent, the reduction of income tax on the wealthy from 25 per cent to 20 per cent, the 35 to 60 per cent reduction of income tax on personnel employed in International Business companies, and to the removal or reduction of taxes on yachts, marinas and luxury cars.
The wealthy individuals and corporations that benefitted from these "Owen Arthur tax cuts", must now be called upon to give back some of this wealth, in the national interest!
Make no mistake about it, the institution known as "Government" has to take the lead in addressing the recession and bringing the nation out of the economic doldrums. Simply put, our government has to lead, and the private sector and the people will follow!
However, if Government is to be able to provide such leadership, Government must begin by re-structuring and strengthening its own finances and credit, because without that no real leadership is possible.
A Government whose finances are in disarray will simply not be in a position to go on to tackle the other aspects of the rescue plan such as restoring the purchasing power of the Barbadian people, securing welfare services, providing employment in essential public works projects, and re-energising the major productive sectors of the economy.
The fundamental problem we are facing with Government’s finances is that for several years now our government has not been living within its income. And this fact, along with the recent decline in Government’s tax intake caused by the recession, has created a $500 million annual structural deficit in Government’s finances.
Over the past year or so, concrete evidence of a cancerous structural deficit in Barbados’ traditional Government budget has emerged. Indeed, compelling evidence of a structural 10 per cent decline in our Government’s annual tax intake has manifested itself, in tandem with a naturally increasing expenditure bill.
The immediate task therefore must be to bring our Government’s annual regular or recurrent expenditures within the limits of Government’s annual income. And this must be done even in a situation where Government, in dealing with a recessionary situation, may actually need to be borrowing and spending many millions of dollars to energize economic growth and development in the country.
So what we are proposing is the seeming paradoxical situation of Government rigorously tailoring its regular or recurrent expenditure to fit within its annual income, while at the same time borrowing and spending in an effort to energize and build the economy.
Of course, the key to this is that the great majority of this emergency money or capital resources that is borrowed and spent must be paid out by Government in the form of sound loans which will be repaid to the Treasury over a period of years. In addition, if any such borrowed funds don’t fit the criteria of "sound loans" then Government must ensure that they are covered by new taxes that will take care of repayment of the interest and the periodic instalments!
Now to the most critical issue - how can the Barbados Government go about closing a $500 million gap between its annual recurrent expenditure and its annual income?
Well, the most painless place to start would be with a rationalization of existing Government departments, projects and programmes, with a view to cutting down duplication, inefficiencies and non-essential spending. An effort also has to be made to restructure the management of the statutory corporations, with a view to making them more efficient and less costly to finance.
But when all efforts at rationalization and restructuring are exhausted, it may still become necessary to increase Government’s tax intake. And if this becomes necessary, the sectors that must be asked to bear the increased tax burden must be the wealthy and the big corporate sector!
Indeed, what we would simply need to do is to roll back a portion of the tax cuts that former Prime Minister Owen Arthur gave to the wealthy and to the corporate sector during his 14 year reign.
We refer to Mr Arthur’s 1995 "Group Tax Relief" which permitted tax losses incurred by a company that was a member of a group of companies to be set off against the taxable income of other members of the group. We also refer to the reduction of Corporation Tax from 40 per cent to 25 per cent, the reduction of income tax on the wealthy from 25 per cent to 20 per cent, the 35 to 60 per cent reduction of income tax on personnel employed in International Business companies, and to the removal or reduction of taxes on yachts, marinas and luxury cars.
The wealthy individuals and corporations that benefitted from these "Owen Arthur tax cuts", must now be called upon to give back some of this wealth, in the national interest!
Saving Barbados From Recession (Part 1)
No representative of the Peoples Empowerment Party(PEP) has ever been invited to attend, much less participate, in any of the Government or Private Sector sponsored economic ‘powwows’ that have been periodically held in Barbados!
It is as if the people charged with piloting the economic affairs of our country only want to hear from people who share and subscribe to their own ideas. It would appear that they fear having their ideas challenged by persons or organizations outside of their little incestuous in-group.
Now-a-days, these self-proclaimed economic gurus are fond of declaring that no-one could have predicted or anticipated the international economic recession that has so affected Barbados. But this is simply not true! There was at least one Barbadian thinker who went on the public record as long ago as the year 2001, and predicted, with precision, the calamitous economic events that unfolded in 2007. And that ‘thinker’ was the current president of the PEP, Mr. David Comissiong.
In his May 2001 Facing Reality column in the Nation Newspaper, Mr.Comissiong wrote as follows, under the headline – ‘A Word to the Wise”:-
“The world has become enmeshed in a global monetary and financial quagmire, the tentacles of which reach into Western and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia, and indeed as far as the allegedly all-powerful New York Stock Exchange …One result of this unfortunate trend is that it is now estimated that the sum total value of purely financial instruments known as ‘derivatives’ in the world today is over US$140 trillion - a figure far in excess of the total real Gross National Products of all the nations of the world combined.
In other words, the financial tycoons of the world have built a global financial bubble that will eventually explode violently … And the bubble will burst – there can be no doubt about that. Indeed, you can only escape reality for so long.
When the financial bubble explodes and deep recession hits the North American and European tourist and financial service 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 that we are prepared to face it.”
Mr. David Comissiong wrote those prophetic words in May 2001, and publicly repeated his warnings several times thereafter! But Barbados’ supposed economic gurus probably never heard - they would have been too busy indulging in their usual facile in-group intellectual self-congratulations.
Well, with an intransigent economic recession threatening to suffocate our Barbadian economy, our Party now proposes to lay out a practical, people-centred blue print for ‘Saving Barbados from Recession”.
The PEP’s blue print for ‘Saving Barbados from Recession” will be based on a foundation of policies and measures to:-
(i) Re-establish the soundness of the finances and credit of the Barbados Government;
(ii) Restore the purchasing power of the masses of Barbadian people;
(iii) Secure and shore up welfare services and programmes that prevent or alleviate human distress;
(iv) Provide employment through essential environmental public works programmes;
(v) Re-energise production in Barbados’ Agriculture, Construction, Manufacturing and Tourism sectors; and
(vi) Engineer a new social contract based on a greater degree of equality and sharing of resources in Barbados.
Stay tuned for a series of submissions from the PEP on this critical issue over the coming weeks!
It is as if the people charged with piloting the economic affairs of our country only want to hear from people who share and subscribe to their own ideas. It would appear that they fear having their ideas challenged by persons or organizations outside of their little incestuous in-group.
Now-a-days, these self-proclaimed economic gurus are fond of declaring that no-one could have predicted or anticipated the international economic recession that has so affected Barbados. But this is simply not true! There was at least one Barbadian thinker who went on the public record as long ago as the year 2001, and predicted, with precision, the calamitous economic events that unfolded in 2007. And that ‘thinker’ was the current president of the PEP, Mr. David Comissiong.
In his May 2001 Facing Reality column in the Nation Newspaper, Mr.Comissiong wrote as follows, under the headline – ‘A Word to the Wise”:-
“The world has become enmeshed in a global monetary and financial quagmire, the tentacles of which reach into Western and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia, and indeed as far as the allegedly all-powerful New York Stock Exchange …One result of this unfortunate trend is that it is now estimated that the sum total value of purely financial instruments known as ‘derivatives’ in the world today is over US$140 trillion - a figure far in excess of the total real Gross National Products of all the nations of the world combined.
In other words, the financial tycoons of the world have built a global financial bubble that will eventually explode violently … And the bubble will burst – there can be no doubt about that. Indeed, you can only escape reality for so long.
When the financial bubble explodes and deep recession hits the North American and European tourist and financial service 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 that we are prepared to face it.”
Mr. David Comissiong wrote those prophetic words in May 2001, and publicly repeated his warnings several times thereafter! But Barbados’ supposed economic gurus probably never heard - they would have been too busy indulging in their usual facile in-group intellectual self-congratulations.
Well, with an intransigent economic recession threatening to suffocate our Barbadian economy, our Party now proposes to lay out a practical, people-centred blue print for ‘Saving Barbados from Recession”.
The PEP’s blue print for ‘Saving Barbados from Recession” will be based on a foundation of policies and measures to:-
(i) Re-establish the soundness of the finances and credit of the Barbados Government;
(ii) Restore the purchasing power of the masses of Barbadian people;
(iii) Secure and shore up welfare services and programmes that prevent or alleviate human distress;
(iv) Provide employment through essential environmental public works programmes;
(v) Re-energise production in Barbados’ Agriculture, Construction, Manufacturing and Tourism sectors; and
(vi) Engineer a new social contract based on a greater degree of equality and sharing of resources in Barbados.
Stay tuned for a series of submissions from the PEP on this critical issue over the coming weeks!
OH BARBADOS!
Oh Barbados! This is our season of affliction and lamentation! In the words of our national poet, Kamau Brathwaite:-
"Ev’ry day you see the sun
Rise, the sun
Set; God sen’ ev’ry month
A new moon. Dry season
Follow wet season again
An’ the green crop follow the rain
An’ then suddenly so
Widdout rhyme
Widdout reason
You crops start to die
You can’t even see the sun in the sky;
An’ suddenly so, without rhyme,
Without reason, all you hope gone
Ev’rything look like it comin’ out wrong.
Why is that? What it mean?"
What does it mean when the conventional wisdom of all the supposedly great economic gurus is proven to be mere folly, and the world plunges into a recession that grabs a still dependent Barbados by its throat?
Why is it that young men born and bred in Barbados can show themselves capable of wantonly and callously causing the deaths of six of their young Barbadian sisters?
What does it mean when naked greed, ambition and arrogance can so dominate our social life that not even a venerable 70 year old political party is spared the ravaging and demoralizing effects of a blind pursuit of narrow self-interest?
But most of all, why did our 48 year old Prime Minister, in the full bloom of his maturity and intellectual powers, have to die - so sudden, so young, without rhyme, without reason!
Truly, this is the dark time - a period in which it seems that we will be tested as a nation and profound questions will be posed to us.
But in the midst of the darkness there are several points of light, evidence of something good and strong within the national character!
We see, for example, a young widow and her three beautiful daughters bearing their loss and the tremendous crush of national scrutiny with exemplary dignity and grace.
We witness self-less citizens joining together to memorialise our nation's six newest martyrs, and pledging themselves to wok for Barbados in such a way that what happened on September 3rd will never happen again.
We witness self-less citizens joining together to memorialize our nation’s six
We see an acting Prime Minister negotiating the succession process in a throughly democratic manner, with transparency and constitutional rectitude. Surely, congratulations are in order for new Prime Minister Freundel Stuart for giving Barbadians, including Sir Lloyd Sandiford, a lesson in democracy and constitutional correctness!
We see a people mourning for their fallen leader with fortitude, dignity, graciousness and profound genunineness of human feeling! Truly, it seems that adversity brings out the best in the Barbadian spirit!
And so, in keeping with this imperishable spirit, we in the Peoples Empowerment Party (PEP) pledge to our fellow citizens that in the midst of darkness the PEP will always be found searching for the points of light.
We believe in Barbados and in the Barbadian people, and are imbued with the confidence that Barbados and its fellow Caribbean nations possess all the resources requied to solve their problems and to establish a civilization that will amaze the world.
Again, Kamau Brathwaite speaks for us:-
"let my children
rise
in the path
of the morning
up and go forth
on the road
of the morning
run through the fields
in the sun
of the morning,
see the rainbow
of Heaven:
God’s curved
mourning
calling."
"Ev’ry day you see the sun
Rise, the sun
Set; God sen’ ev’ry month
A new moon. Dry season
Follow wet season again
An’ the green crop follow the rain
An’ then suddenly so
Widdout rhyme
Widdout reason
You crops start to die
You can’t even see the sun in the sky;
An’ suddenly so, without rhyme,
Without reason, all you hope gone
Ev’rything look like it comin’ out wrong.
Why is that? What it mean?"
What does it mean when the conventional wisdom of all the supposedly great economic gurus is proven to be mere folly, and the world plunges into a recession that grabs a still dependent Barbados by its throat?
Why is it that young men born and bred in Barbados can show themselves capable of wantonly and callously causing the deaths of six of their young Barbadian sisters?
What does it mean when naked greed, ambition and arrogance can so dominate our social life that not even a venerable 70 year old political party is spared the ravaging and demoralizing effects of a blind pursuit of narrow self-interest?
But most of all, why did our 48 year old Prime Minister, in the full bloom of his maturity and intellectual powers, have to die - so sudden, so young, without rhyme, without reason!
Truly, this is the dark time - a period in which it seems that we will be tested as a nation and profound questions will be posed to us.
But in the midst of the darkness there are several points of light, evidence of something good and strong within the national character!
We see, for example, a young widow and her three beautiful daughters bearing their loss and the tremendous crush of national scrutiny with exemplary dignity and grace.
We witness self-less citizens joining together to memorialise our nation's six newest martyrs, and pledging themselves to wok for Barbados in such a way that what happened on September 3rd will never happen again.
We witness self-less citizens joining together to memorialize our nation’s six
We see an acting Prime Minister negotiating the succession process in a throughly democratic manner, with transparency and constitutional rectitude. Surely, congratulations are in order for new Prime Minister Freundel Stuart for giving Barbadians, including Sir Lloyd Sandiford, a lesson in democracy and constitutional correctness!
We see a people mourning for their fallen leader with fortitude, dignity, graciousness and profound genunineness of human feeling! Truly, it seems that adversity brings out the best in the Barbadian spirit!
And so, in keeping with this imperishable spirit, we in the Peoples Empowerment Party (PEP) pledge to our fellow citizens that in the midst of darkness the PEP will always be found searching for the points of light.
We believe in Barbados and in the Barbadian people, and are imbued with the confidence that Barbados and its fellow Caribbean nations possess all the resources requied to solve their problems and to establish a civilization that will amaze the world.
Again, Kamau Brathwaite speaks for us:-
"let my children
rise
in the path
of the morning
up and go forth
on the road
of the morning
run through the fields
in the sun
of the morning,
see the rainbow
of Heaven:
God’s curved
mourning
calling."
THE BARBADOS TRAGEDY
Virtually every where one looks in Barbados these days, one sees deeply flawed national leaders and institutions sinking - almost inexorably - into tragedy! It is almost as if a "tragic flaw" has become lodged in the bosom of the national body politic.
In January 2006, the then opposition Member of Parliament, David Thompson, executed a most cynical and opportunistic political manoeuver, and displaced his long time colleague, Clyde Mascoll, from the leadership of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP). Having basically used Mascoll’s leadership to get the DLP through a difficult period, Thompson decided that he wanted the beckoning political glory, and did what was necessary to unseat his friend and take back the reins of power.
Well, Thompson got what he wanted - the leadership of the D.L.P and ultimately the leadership of the entire country - but, almost like the unfolding of a Greek tragedy, he has not been able to enjoy the winning of his long sought after prize.
Now, in October 2010, another opposition Member of Parliament has done a similar thing to his long time colleague and political side-kick! After having used Mia Mottley to get the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) through the difficult first years of a stint in opposition, Owen Arthur now senses that political glory is in the offing, and had decided that such glory must fall to him and be used to rebuild his image in the historical annals of Barbados.
Mr Arthur has seemingly gotten what he wanted, but will it all turn to ashes in his opportunistic hands? Time will tell!
But the sense of tragedy also extends to institutions and entire social classes as well. Take the case of the wealthy, traditional, white, big business elite of Barbadian society. Clearly, they have realized that recession-mired Barbados is on the verge of a major economic and fiscal adjustment, and they are now making their moves behind the scenes to ensure that the adjustment does not touch them, but is borne instead by the working and lower middle classes. And, of course, a critical part of this scheme involves getting their agents into positions of leadership in the two major political parties!
The tragedy in all this is that after 44 years of ‘Independence’, the white Barbadian sector of the population still see themselves as a separate minority group with one foot out and one foot in the nation building process, determined to hold on tight to their traditional position of economic domination, ambivalent towards the new emerging national culture, and forever seeking opportunities to extract wealth from the society.
This is a tragic, unhealthy situation that should have been rectified years ago! There is no reason why - with enlightened national leadership - the white community could not be led to reorient themselves; to establish a meaningful relationship with the masses of black Barbadians; and to adopt a constructive nationalist role in the building of a new economy.
The large black working and lower middle classes also face the tragedy of political parties that are getting ready to sell them out! Listen carefully to the noises coming out of the DLP, and you will see that they are readying themselves to decimate the National Drug Service and the system of free tertiary education.
The BLP, for their part, are pushing notions of privatisation - even of the airport and seaport - and can see no further than a servile "off shore" economy based on tax avoidance and evasion.
The major losers in all of this are the working and lower middle class people of Barbados, who, unfortunately, can see no further than the DLP / BLP circus show. And this is the ultimate "Barbados Tragedy"!
In January 2006, the then opposition Member of Parliament, David Thompson, executed a most cynical and opportunistic political manoeuver, and displaced his long time colleague, Clyde Mascoll, from the leadership of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP). Having basically used Mascoll’s leadership to get the DLP through a difficult period, Thompson decided that he wanted the beckoning political glory, and did what was necessary to unseat his friend and take back the reins of power.
Well, Thompson got what he wanted - the leadership of the D.L.P and ultimately the leadership of the entire country - but, almost like the unfolding of a Greek tragedy, he has not been able to enjoy the winning of his long sought after prize.
Now, in October 2010, another opposition Member of Parliament has done a similar thing to his long time colleague and political side-kick! After having used Mia Mottley to get the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) through the difficult first years of a stint in opposition, Owen Arthur now senses that political glory is in the offing, and had decided that such glory must fall to him and be used to rebuild his image in the historical annals of Barbados.
Mr Arthur has seemingly gotten what he wanted, but will it all turn to ashes in his opportunistic hands? Time will tell!
But the sense of tragedy also extends to institutions and entire social classes as well. Take the case of the wealthy, traditional, white, big business elite of Barbadian society. Clearly, they have realized that recession-mired Barbados is on the verge of a major economic and fiscal adjustment, and they are now making their moves behind the scenes to ensure that the adjustment does not touch them, but is borne instead by the working and lower middle classes. And, of course, a critical part of this scheme involves getting their agents into positions of leadership in the two major political parties!
The tragedy in all this is that after 44 years of ‘Independence’, the white Barbadian sector of the population still see themselves as a separate minority group with one foot out and one foot in the nation building process, determined to hold on tight to their traditional position of economic domination, ambivalent towards the new emerging national culture, and forever seeking opportunities to extract wealth from the society.
This is a tragic, unhealthy situation that should have been rectified years ago! There is no reason why - with enlightened national leadership - the white community could not be led to reorient themselves; to establish a meaningful relationship with the masses of black Barbadians; and to adopt a constructive nationalist role in the building of a new economy.
The large black working and lower middle classes also face the tragedy of political parties that are getting ready to sell them out! Listen carefully to the noises coming out of the DLP, and you will see that they are readying themselves to decimate the National Drug Service and the system of free tertiary education.
The BLP, for their part, are pushing notions of privatisation - even of the airport and seaport - and can see no further than a servile "off shore" economy based on tax avoidance and evasion.
The major losers in all of this are the working and lower middle class people of Barbados, who, unfortunately, can see no further than the DLP / BLP circus show. And this is the ultimate "Barbados Tragedy"!
THERE IS AN OPEN CONSPIRACY IN BARBADOS!
Whenever there is a serious crisis in a country, and a major economic adjustment is required, the central issue that comes to the fore is--'Which class or grouping of the population will be made to bear the brunt of the cost or burden of the adjustment?"
Well, Barbados is at the stage where we are on the verge of making fundamental decisions about a major economic and fiscal adjustment for the country, and all the signs are there that a massive right wing, big business, elitist conspiracy is underway to ensure that the working class and lower middle class sectors of Barbados bear the brunt of the adjustment!
If we want to understand how such a conspiracy works in Barbados, then we have to go back to the last serious crisis that the country faced--- the crisis of 1990 to 1992.
At that time--- in March 1990 to be precise--- under the coordination of Mr. Peter Boos, the Barbados Chamber of Commerce and Industry joined forces with the accounting firm of Ernst & Young, in a so-called National Resource Mobilisation Conference, to develop a plan to steer Barbados along a big business, private sector oriented path of economic adjustment.
Those Barbadians who were fortunate enough to get their hands on a copy of the "Post Conference" document discovered that the agreed upon modus operandi was as follows:-
* "Massive public education programme to explain the benefits of market forces....and that the country is living beyond its means"
* "Establish a task force to construct a private sector agenda"
* "Prepare and publish alternative Estimates"
* "Encourage opposition parties to present pro-business Bills in the House"
* "Establish a "Call In" programme"
* "Reduce scope of welfare services including health"
* "Eliminate free tertiary education"
* "Reduce scope of government regulation"
* "Targets for privatisation should include both profitable and unprofitable enterprises and be extended to central government services....including...CBC, IDC factories, revenue collection, Port Authority..."
Those of us who have been following recent developments in Barbados closely would have noted the outlines of a very similar agenda in the following events :-
1. The recent establishment of the Peter Boos led "Barbados Entrepreneurship Foundation" ;
2. The recent effort made by the Chairman of government's Council of Economic Advisors to float the idea that Barbados can no longer afford free secondary and tertiary education;
3. Sir Courtney Blackman's highly publicised prescription of a public sector wage freeze, and his violent rejection of price controls on the private sector;
4. The termination of Marilyn Rice- Bowen, who, as Chairperson of the National Housing Corporation, publicly complained about the Minister steering virtually all major contracts to one or two big, elite,construction companies;
5. The recent enhanced power of right wing elements within the Democratic Labour Party, leading to the installation of the pliable Chris Sinckler in the Ministry of Finance, and efforts to subvert the position and strength of the ideologically strong Freundel Stuart;and
6. The recent similar efforts within the Barbados Labour Party aimed at ressurecting the political fortunes of Owen Arthur--- a veritable front man for big, elite, business interests--- at the expense of the more intrinsically nationalist Mia Mottley.
What is taking shape here is a major push by the traditional local big business elite and their foreign allies to impose an adjustment on Barbados that will leave them virtually unscathed, but that--- similar to 1991--- will see the masses of working class people hit with terrible blows of wage stagnation, lay offs, and welfare and social service cuts.
It is now becoming more and more clear that the real political divide in Barbados is not between the various political parties, but between persons and organisations that line up on opposite sides of a central ideological divide.
The Peoples Empowerment Party (PEP) stands on the side of the Social Democratic consensus that has been at the heart of whatever social progress Barbados has made over the years, with ambitions to shift that Consensus further to the left, in a gradual and organic manner.
There is no need for a harsh right wing response to the crisis in Barbados! There are many alternative Social Democracy and Democratic Socialist solutions that will preserve principles of fairness, justice and human dignity!
Well, Barbados is at the stage where we are on the verge of making fundamental decisions about a major economic and fiscal adjustment for the country, and all the signs are there that a massive right wing, big business, elitist conspiracy is underway to ensure that the working class and lower middle class sectors of Barbados bear the brunt of the adjustment!
If we want to understand how such a conspiracy works in Barbados, then we have to go back to the last serious crisis that the country faced--- the crisis of 1990 to 1992.
At that time--- in March 1990 to be precise--- under the coordination of Mr. Peter Boos, the Barbados Chamber of Commerce and Industry joined forces with the accounting firm of Ernst & Young, in a so-called National Resource Mobilisation Conference, to develop a plan to steer Barbados along a big business, private sector oriented path of economic adjustment.
Those Barbadians who were fortunate enough to get their hands on a copy of the "Post Conference" document discovered that the agreed upon modus operandi was as follows:-
* "Massive public education programme to explain the benefits of market forces....and that the country is living beyond its means"
* "Establish a task force to construct a private sector agenda"
* "Prepare and publish alternative Estimates"
* "Encourage opposition parties to present pro-business Bills in the House"
* "Establish a "Call In" programme"
* "Reduce scope of welfare services including health"
* "Eliminate free tertiary education"
* "Reduce scope of government regulation"
* "Targets for privatisation should include both profitable and unprofitable enterprises and be extended to central government services....including...CBC, IDC factories, revenue collection, Port Authority..."
Those of us who have been following recent developments in Barbados closely would have noted the outlines of a very similar agenda in the following events :-
1. The recent establishment of the Peter Boos led "Barbados Entrepreneurship Foundation" ;
2. The recent effort made by the Chairman of government's Council of Economic Advisors to float the idea that Barbados can no longer afford free secondary and tertiary education;
3. Sir Courtney Blackman's highly publicised prescription of a public sector wage freeze, and his violent rejection of price controls on the private sector;
4. The termination of Marilyn Rice- Bowen, who, as Chairperson of the National Housing Corporation, publicly complained about the Minister steering virtually all major contracts to one or two big, elite,construction companies;
5. The recent enhanced power of right wing elements within the Democratic Labour Party, leading to the installation of the pliable Chris Sinckler in the Ministry of Finance, and efforts to subvert the position and strength of the ideologically strong Freundel Stuart;and
6. The recent similar efforts within the Barbados Labour Party aimed at ressurecting the political fortunes of Owen Arthur--- a veritable front man for big, elite, business interests--- at the expense of the more intrinsically nationalist Mia Mottley.
What is taking shape here is a major push by the traditional local big business elite and their foreign allies to impose an adjustment on Barbados that will leave them virtually unscathed, but that--- similar to 1991--- will see the masses of working class people hit with terrible blows of wage stagnation, lay offs, and welfare and social service cuts.
It is now becoming more and more clear that the real political divide in Barbados is not between the various political parties, but between persons and organisations that line up on opposite sides of a central ideological divide.
The Peoples Empowerment Party (PEP) stands on the side of the Social Democratic consensus that has been at the heart of whatever social progress Barbados has made over the years, with ambitions to shift that Consensus further to the left, in a gradual and organic manner.
There is no need for a harsh right wing response to the crisis in Barbados! There are many alternative Social Democracy and Democratic Socialist solutions that will preserve principles of fairness, justice and human dignity!
BARBADOS AND THE "CUBAN FIVE"
The "Cuban Five" are five patriotic Cuban men - Gerardo Nordelo, Ramon Salazar, Rene Sehweret, Fernando Llort and Antonio Rodriguez - who are currently locked away in a number of prisons in the United States of America, serving sentences ranging from 15 years to life in prison, imposed upon them by the Federal court of Miami in the state of Florida, USA for the alleged crime of espionage against the U.S.A and other associated alleged offences.
Over the past twelve years these five men have been treated by the judicial authorities of the U.S.A as if they are the most vile criminals, and yet, in the Republic of Cuba itself, and in numerous countries all around the world, these men are regarded as heroes and have been the subject of a multiplicity of campaigns and petitions demanding their release.
When one examines the backgrounds of the "Cuban Five", one discovers that they are all married family men between the ages of 45 years and 54 years, and that their occupations range from engineer, to pilot, to writer, cartoonist and economist. In addition, prior to their arrests and convictions by the U.S. criminal justice system they enjoyed shining and unblemished reputations.
The American establishment claim that they are guilty of some substantial crime, but at the same time , all around the world, tens of thousands of fair minded and justice loving persons, including no less than ten Nobel Prize winners have formed themselves into committees and are demanding the release of the "Cuban Five".
Indeed, right here in Barbados there is a small "Cuban Five Defence Committee" under the chairmanship of Mr Eddie Douglas! Furthermore, our very own "Clement Payne Movement" has also done some considerable work on bringing the plight of the Cuban Five to the attention of the legal fraternity of Barbados and in petitioning the government of the USA to release these unjustly convicted and imprisoned fighters against US based terrorist attacks on the Republic of Cuba.
And this is as it should be! In fact, Barbados should be playing an even greater role in the international campaign to free the Cuban Five, because, in a very real sense, the journey of these five Cuban patriots to their imprisonment in the USA began right here in Barbados, almost 25 years ago!
It was on the 6th day of October 1976 that, within minutes of a Cuban civilian airliner taking off from Seawell Airport in Barbados, a bomb planted in the cabin of the aircraft exploded, causing the Cubana airplane to plunge into the waters of the Caribbean sea, in close proximity to the west coast of Barbados. Every single one of the 73 Cubans, Guyanese and North Koreans on board perished in this precedent setting act of terrorism!
One week later - on 14th October 1976 - the government of Barbados appointed a Commission of Enquiry under the chairmanship of High Court judge, Denys Williams, to investigate the causes and circumstances of this tragic event.
In its report issued some four months later, the Commission noted that substantial evidence existed to identify Ricardo Lozano and Freddie Lugo--- two passengers who had joined the Cubana flight in Trinidad and who had disembarked when the plane landed at Seawell Airport in Barbados--- as the two functionaries who had been responsible for placing the bomb on the Cubana plane. And significantly, in his evidence before the Commission, the representative of the Cuban government, Senior Martinez, explained that the Cuban government’s own investigation had determined that Lozano and Lugo were subordinates of the anti-Cuban CIA supported terrorist organisations known as CORU and ICICA and run by arch-terrorists Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles respectively.
Needless-to-say, the Cubana mass murder in Barbados shocked the entire Cuban nation and brought about a national realization that the campaign of terrorism that had been launched in 1960 against the Cuban Revolution by the Cuban-American mafia and their United States backers had now reached a new level of barbarity, and that bolder measures would have to be taken in the future to foil the U S based terrorists.
Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carilles were never brought to justice for their high crimes against the Cuban nation, and in fact continued to be given comfort, succor and support in the USA by the plethora of Cuban-American counter- revolutionary organisations stationed in the city of Miami.
Indeed, Carilles and Bosch became so emboldened by their US based support that in the mid 1990's Bosch embarked upon a new conspiracy to assassinate Fidel Castro, and Carilles masterminded a terrorist campaign to blow up hotels in Cuba. And so, operating out of Miami, counter-revolutionary terrorists found their way into Cuba and set off explosions at no less than six Cuban hotels in the year 1997!
In fact, so brazen and arrogant had the counter-revolutionary forces become that the Miami Herald newspaper actually openly reported that Carilles was at the heart of these bombing operations, while Carilles himself, in a 1998 New York Times interview, publicly admitted to having organized the bombing campaign.
It was this intensification of terrorist attack on Cuba that led five Cuban patriots to station themselves in Miami in order to infiltrate the various terrorist organisations, and to collect advance intelligence that could be used to forestall pending attacks on their homeland.
Indeed, so open and well-meaning were the Cuban authorities, that in June 1998 Cuba’s Ministry of Home Affairs provided the FBI with dossiers of information on the acts of violence being planned in Miami, together with audio and video tapes which explicitly identified the malefactors. Ironically,
it was this honest and constructive overture that the American authorities pounced upon and used as a springboard to launch arrests against– not the Miami based terrorists – but against the five Cuban patriots who had helped to ferret out the information.
And so, on 12th. September 1998 the "Cuban Five" were arrested in Miami, subjected to a biased and deeply flawed political trial, and sentenced to unjust and inordinately long prison terms.
We all have a duty to help to get them released, and the best way we can do so is by raising our voices in condemnation of this egregious injustice, and by lobbying our government and fellow citizens to get involved in the international campaign to free the Cuban Five. Please feel free to contact the Peoples Empowerment Party for further information.
Over the past twelve years these five men have been treated by the judicial authorities of the U.S.A as if they are the most vile criminals, and yet, in the Republic of Cuba itself, and in numerous countries all around the world, these men are regarded as heroes and have been the subject of a multiplicity of campaigns and petitions demanding their release.
When one examines the backgrounds of the "Cuban Five", one discovers that they are all married family men between the ages of 45 years and 54 years, and that their occupations range from engineer, to pilot, to writer, cartoonist and economist. In addition, prior to their arrests and convictions by the U.S. criminal justice system they enjoyed shining and unblemished reputations.
The American establishment claim that they are guilty of some substantial crime, but at the same time , all around the world, tens of thousands of fair minded and justice loving persons, including no less than ten Nobel Prize winners have formed themselves into committees and are demanding the release of the "Cuban Five".
Indeed, right here in Barbados there is a small "Cuban Five Defence Committee" under the chairmanship of Mr Eddie Douglas! Furthermore, our very own "Clement Payne Movement" has also done some considerable work on bringing the plight of the Cuban Five to the attention of the legal fraternity of Barbados and in petitioning the government of the USA to release these unjustly convicted and imprisoned fighters against US based terrorist attacks on the Republic of Cuba.
And this is as it should be! In fact, Barbados should be playing an even greater role in the international campaign to free the Cuban Five, because, in a very real sense, the journey of these five Cuban patriots to their imprisonment in the USA began right here in Barbados, almost 25 years ago!
It was on the 6th day of October 1976 that, within minutes of a Cuban civilian airliner taking off from Seawell Airport in Barbados, a bomb planted in the cabin of the aircraft exploded, causing the Cubana airplane to plunge into the waters of the Caribbean sea, in close proximity to the west coast of Barbados. Every single one of the 73 Cubans, Guyanese and North Koreans on board perished in this precedent setting act of terrorism!
One week later - on 14th October 1976 - the government of Barbados appointed a Commission of Enquiry under the chairmanship of High Court judge, Denys Williams, to investigate the causes and circumstances of this tragic event.
In its report issued some four months later, the Commission noted that substantial evidence existed to identify Ricardo Lozano and Freddie Lugo--- two passengers who had joined the Cubana flight in Trinidad and who had disembarked when the plane landed at Seawell Airport in Barbados--- as the two functionaries who had been responsible for placing the bomb on the Cubana plane. And significantly, in his evidence before the Commission, the representative of the Cuban government, Senior Martinez, explained that the Cuban government’s own investigation had determined that Lozano and Lugo were subordinates of the anti-Cuban CIA supported terrorist organisations known as CORU and ICICA and run by arch-terrorists Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles respectively.
Needless-to-say, the Cubana mass murder in Barbados shocked the entire Cuban nation and brought about a national realization that the campaign of terrorism that had been launched in 1960 against the Cuban Revolution by the Cuban-American mafia and their United States backers had now reached a new level of barbarity, and that bolder measures would have to be taken in the future to foil the U S based terrorists.
Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carilles were never brought to justice for their high crimes against the Cuban nation, and in fact continued to be given comfort, succor and support in the USA by the plethora of Cuban-American counter- revolutionary organisations stationed in the city of Miami.
Indeed, Carilles and Bosch became so emboldened by their US based support that in the mid 1990's Bosch embarked upon a new conspiracy to assassinate Fidel Castro, and Carilles masterminded a terrorist campaign to blow up hotels in Cuba. And so, operating out of Miami, counter-revolutionary terrorists found their way into Cuba and set off explosions at no less than six Cuban hotels in the year 1997!
In fact, so brazen and arrogant had the counter-revolutionary forces become that the Miami Herald newspaper actually openly reported that Carilles was at the heart of these bombing operations, while Carilles himself, in a 1998 New York Times interview, publicly admitted to having organized the bombing campaign.
It was this intensification of terrorist attack on Cuba that led five Cuban patriots to station themselves in Miami in order to infiltrate the various terrorist organisations, and to collect advance intelligence that could be used to forestall pending attacks on their homeland.
Indeed, so open and well-meaning were the Cuban authorities, that in June 1998 Cuba’s Ministry of Home Affairs provided the FBI with dossiers of information on the acts of violence being planned in Miami, together with audio and video tapes which explicitly identified the malefactors. Ironically,
it was this honest and constructive overture that the American authorities pounced upon and used as a springboard to launch arrests against– not the Miami based terrorists – but against the five Cuban patriots who had helped to ferret out the information.
And so, on 12th. September 1998 the "Cuban Five" were arrested in Miami, subjected to a biased and deeply flawed political trial, and sentenced to unjust and inordinately long prison terms.
We all have a duty to help to get them released, and the best way we can do so is by raising our voices in condemnation of this egregious injustice, and by lobbying our government and fellow citizens to get involved in the international campaign to free the Cuban Five. Please feel free to contact the Peoples Empowerment Party for further information.
A FUNDAMENTAL BREAKDOWN!
They are not criminal deportees from North America! Neither are they migrants from some other Caribbean country! In fact, they are not foreigners at all. No! They are born and bred Barbadians, and when you look at their photographs in the newspaper, they look no different from tens of thousands of other Barbadian young men.
When they were born - in 1979 and 1981 - the supposedly great contemporary European philosophers were proclaiming that the projects that we Barbadians had embarked upon back in the 1930's, of seeking to establish a nation of our own, and pursuing the ideal of a society characterised by justice and righteousness, were no longer valid.
They told us that those projects were part of the "Modern" phase of mankind’s development, and that human history had advanced beyond the "Modern" era into so-called "Post Modernity".
Furthermore, they described the Post Modern society as one in which the old human quest for truth, for universal and eternal values, and the construction of collective forms of existence that transcend narrow, individualistic desires and wants had become irrelevant.
And from the U.S.A. came the voice of the historian and former State Department functionary, Francis Fukhuama, assuring us that history itself had come to an end, and that there was no form of human existence to be sought for beyond the Western liberal capitalist society, festooned with its narrow individualism, hyper-active materialism and crass commercialism.
If we Barbadians wish to comprehend why we are producing young men and women who are so atomised, alienated, lacking in empathy and so devoid of any sense of a connection between themselves and their fellow citizens that they are capable of committing callous fire bombings and public open-air executions, then we need to acquire an understanding of the extremely powerful political, cultural, psychological and economic forces that have reshaped the great centres of international capitalism in North America and Western Europe, and that are sedulously undermining our intrinsically weak neo-colonial society.
Take some time to reflect on the vast number of Barbadian politicians, business gurus, and sundry social leaders who mindlessly prate on about the alleged wonders and benefits of Post Modern society, Post Industrial economy, Globalisation, neo-Liberalism, the Information Age, the services economy and other Western capitalist nostrums of the past quarter century.
Back in the late 1960's and early 70's, if you asked typical Barbadian secondary school students what life was all about in Barbados, and where they were heading with their individual lives, they would give you sensible and coherent answers rooted in the collective national mission of independence and the construction of a new independent nation, and in the still vibrant effort to establish a multi-territory Caribbean nation and civilization.
Ask the same questions to the Barbadian students of today and they cannot give you a meaningful answer! But it is not their fault! The current generation of official Barbadian adult leaders has failed to establish and set before our people any meaningful collective or national mission that is rooted in our own history and culture.
These "mis-leaders", having facilely jumped on the Western capitalist bandwagon of globalising Post Modern society, have permitted a socio-cultural vacuum to develop, and this vacuum is now gradually being filled with all of the diseased new cultural, political and economic secretions of the great centres of Northern capitalism.
It is not a simple question of reintroducing hanging, corporal punishment or Sunday school! The very fundamentals of our society have to be dealt with!
When they were born - in 1979 and 1981 - the supposedly great contemporary European philosophers were proclaiming that the projects that we Barbadians had embarked upon back in the 1930's, of seeking to establish a nation of our own, and pursuing the ideal of a society characterised by justice and righteousness, were no longer valid.
They told us that those projects were part of the "Modern" phase of mankind’s development, and that human history had advanced beyond the "Modern" era into so-called "Post Modernity".
Furthermore, they described the Post Modern society as one in which the old human quest for truth, for universal and eternal values, and the construction of collective forms of existence that transcend narrow, individualistic desires and wants had become irrelevant.
And from the U.S.A. came the voice of the historian and former State Department functionary, Francis Fukhuama, assuring us that history itself had come to an end, and that there was no form of human existence to be sought for beyond the Western liberal capitalist society, festooned with its narrow individualism, hyper-active materialism and crass commercialism.
If we Barbadians wish to comprehend why we are producing young men and women who are so atomised, alienated, lacking in empathy and so devoid of any sense of a connection between themselves and their fellow citizens that they are capable of committing callous fire bombings and public open-air executions, then we need to acquire an understanding of the extremely powerful political, cultural, psychological and economic forces that have reshaped the great centres of international capitalism in North America and Western Europe, and that are sedulously undermining our intrinsically weak neo-colonial society.
Take some time to reflect on the vast number of Barbadian politicians, business gurus, and sundry social leaders who mindlessly prate on about the alleged wonders and benefits of Post Modern society, Post Industrial economy, Globalisation, neo-Liberalism, the Information Age, the services economy and other Western capitalist nostrums of the past quarter century.
Back in the late 1960's and early 70's, if you asked typical Barbadian secondary school students what life was all about in Barbados, and where they were heading with their individual lives, they would give you sensible and coherent answers rooted in the collective national mission of independence and the construction of a new independent nation, and in the still vibrant effort to establish a multi-territory Caribbean nation and civilization.
Ask the same questions to the Barbadian students of today and they cannot give you a meaningful answer! But it is not their fault! The current generation of official Barbadian adult leaders has failed to establish and set before our people any meaningful collective or national mission that is rooted in our own history and culture.
These "mis-leaders", having facilely jumped on the Western capitalist bandwagon of globalising Post Modern society, have permitted a socio-cultural vacuum to develop, and this vacuum is now gradually being filled with all of the diseased new cultural, political and economic secretions of the great centres of Northern capitalism.
It is not a simple question of reintroducing hanging, corporal punishment or Sunday school! The very fundamentals of our society have to be dealt with!
LET US FIGHT FOR BARBADOS - NOW!
It was not the absence of a fire escape, nor the lack of adequate street lighting that killed Nikita Belgrave, Pearl Cornelius, Kellisha Olliverre, Shana Griffith, Kelly Ann Welch and Tiffany Harding! No! These six young and beautiful black Barbadian women were killed by the conscious, pre-meditated and deliberate actions of two young black men!
The robbery of a store in the heart of Bridgetown is not an on-the-spur-of-the moment, haphazard event. Rather, it is a pre-meditated, planned enterprise. And so, when those two young black men exploded that incendiary device and set the Campus Trenz store alight, they had to know that there were young women in the store who might suffer severe injury or death - but they just did not care! Clearly, they had no sense of there being any connection between themselves and these young daughters of our nation - they had no empathy, no human feeling! They were totally self centred and self consumed, and the fate of these innocent young women who had caused them no offense meant nothing to them!
And what is particularly troubling is the fact that last Friday’s horrific event is by no means a one-off or isolated happening. Indeed, for some time now we have been witnessing a number of brutal and callous murders carried out by persons who are manifestly alienated, atomized, self-consumed, and lacking in human empathy and feeling. The recent casual execution of a young Pinelands basketball player is a case in point, as well as the February 2010 gunning down of Fabian Antonio Greaves at an open air street party in Waterhall Land.
So, this is where we have now reached in Barbados! We now live in a country in which a growing number of our fellow residents are demonstrating that they are capable of coldly, callously and remorselessly destroying human life.
The questions that we all need to ask ourselves are - "What does this mean?...." "What does this say about out nation?"
Barbados is such a small and intimate country that we should be existing and functioning like a family - a humane and well ordered family in which we share our collective resources, look out for each other, set individual and family goals, and take pride in assisting each other to attain such goals. How could we have fallen so far from this ideal? Why have we degenerated to such a stage that we are now producing people who are so alienated from their fellow citizens, and so bereft of a collective national or family interest that they are capable of such barbarity?
And most importantly - "Who or what is to blame?"
Should any blame be ascribed to the politicians
and political parties that crudely and crassly buy votes in elections, and that set out to systematically reduce our people to insensible, materialistic beings who only respond to the bribery of money and entertainments?
Should any blame be ascribed to the various pastors and priests
who dilute the spirituality of the nation with their morally bankrupt, money based "Prosperity Gospel", or with their sterile status-quo and establishment oriented Christianity? And what about businessmen and women who see our Barbadian youth as merely a captive commercial market to be exploited and plundered and act in accordance with that vulgar conception?
And how about the educators
who are content to maintain an educational system that herds thousands of low academic achievers into schools that are so lacking in the facilities, resources and spirit required to respond to the special needs of these children, that the eventual production of hundreds, if not thousands, of alienated, hopeless and angry young men and women is virtually guaranteed?
And why have all of us
allowed the continued existence of a social structure marred by deep pockets of poverty and deprivation amidst a vista of comfort and plenty, and a capitalism based culture in which the American dominated media inculcates negative values of selfishness, individualism, lack of compassion and contempt for those who are considered to be different or unsuccessful?
Clearly, a major national effort is required to retrieve the situation - a major effort in which highly motivated and committed citizens come together to target and to reform a number of social sectors and institutions, including our Barbadian family life, our neighbourhoods and communities, our national political behaviour and policies, our Barbadian business system and culture, our educational system, the national mass media and the internet and video game culture, and our churches and religious sector.
The time for Barbadians to wake up, bestir themselves and make a monumental effort to save their nation has come!
The robbery of a store in the heart of Bridgetown is not an on-the-spur-of-the moment, haphazard event. Rather, it is a pre-meditated, planned enterprise. And so, when those two young black men exploded that incendiary device and set the Campus Trenz store alight, they had to know that there were young women in the store who might suffer severe injury or death - but they just did not care! Clearly, they had no sense of there being any connection between themselves and these young daughters of our nation - they had no empathy, no human feeling! They were totally self centred and self consumed, and the fate of these innocent young women who had caused them no offense meant nothing to them!
And what is particularly troubling is the fact that last Friday’s horrific event is by no means a one-off or isolated happening. Indeed, for some time now we have been witnessing a number of brutal and callous murders carried out by persons who are manifestly alienated, atomized, self-consumed, and lacking in human empathy and feeling. The recent casual execution of a young Pinelands basketball player is a case in point, as well as the February 2010 gunning down of Fabian Antonio Greaves at an open air street party in Waterhall Land.
So, this is where we have now reached in Barbados! We now live in a country in which a growing number of our fellow residents are demonstrating that they are capable of coldly, callously and remorselessly destroying human life.
The questions that we all need to ask ourselves are - "What does this mean?...." "What does this say about out nation?"
Barbados is such a small and intimate country that we should be existing and functioning like a family - a humane and well ordered family in which we share our collective resources, look out for each other, set individual and family goals, and take pride in assisting each other to attain such goals. How could we have fallen so far from this ideal? Why have we degenerated to such a stage that we are now producing people who are so alienated from their fellow citizens, and so bereft of a collective national or family interest that they are capable of such barbarity?
And most importantly - "Who or what is to blame?"
Should any blame be ascribed to the politicians
and political parties that crudely and crassly buy votes in elections, and that set out to systematically reduce our people to insensible, materialistic beings who only respond to the bribery of money and entertainments?
Should any blame be ascribed to the various pastors and priests
who dilute the spirituality of the nation with their morally bankrupt, money based "Prosperity Gospel", or with their sterile status-quo and establishment oriented Christianity? And what about businessmen and women who see our Barbadian youth as merely a captive commercial market to be exploited and plundered and act in accordance with that vulgar conception?
And how about the educators
who are content to maintain an educational system that herds thousands of low academic achievers into schools that are so lacking in the facilities, resources and spirit required to respond to the special needs of these children, that the eventual production of hundreds, if not thousands, of alienated, hopeless and angry young men and women is virtually guaranteed?
And why have all of us
allowed the continued existence of a social structure marred by deep pockets of poverty and deprivation amidst a vista of comfort and plenty, and a capitalism based culture in which the American dominated media inculcates negative values of selfishness, individualism, lack of compassion and contempt for those who are considered to be different or unsuccessful?
Clearly, a major national effort is required to retrieve the situation - a major effort in which highly motivated and committed citizens come together to target and to reform a number of social sectors and institutions, including our Barbadian family life, our neighbourhoods and communities, our national political behaviour and policies, our Barbadian business system and culture, our educational system, the national mass media and the internet and video game culture, and our churches and religious sector.
The time for Barbadians to wake up, bestir themselves and make a monumental effort to save their nation has come!
A NEW MANAGEMENT MODEL FOR Q.E.H AND OTHER STATUTORY CORPORATIONS
The Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) is currently in the news for all the wrong reasons, and all of the controversy seems to centre around the "Board’ of the QEH!
The National Union of Public Workers, is accusing the ‘Board’ of flouting established industrial relations practises by appointing politically sent "johnnies come lately" over the heads of temporary workers who have served the QEH for as long as 10 years, while the Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners is also accusing the "Board’ of having breached the contracts of medical doctors employed at the QEH by failing to first advertise internally at the QEH for candidates for prestigious consultancies at the Hospital.
In both instances, it is the relatively anonymous and somewhat mysterious ‘Board’ of the QEH that is being identified as the source of the unions’ displeasure. The question therefore arises - just who or what is this ‘Board’ of the QEH?
As many Barbadians would be aware in 2001 the previous Barbados Labour Party administration transformed the QEH into a statutory corporation with the passage of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Act, and placed our sole national hospital under the management of a 13 person "Queen Elizabeth Hospital Board".
After a 2008 amendment, the Act now stipulates that the Board shall consist of eleven persons appointed by the Minister of Health, along with two ex-officio members in the form of the Chief Medical Officer and the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health. The Act also expressly stipulates that "members of staff of the Hospital shall not be appointed as members of the Board".
And so, the current, Democratic Labour Party (DLP) appointed Board of the QEH consists of a little known Anglican priest - Rev. Guy Hewitt - who is Chairman of the Board; attorney-at-law and former D.L.P candidate - Francis De Peiza - the Deputy Chairman; and a number of ordinary Board members - Cardinal Fenty, Lisa Niles, Natasha Small, Junior Allsopp, Lawrence Clarke and Dr Irvine Brancker.
Now, the QEH is the single largest institution in the whole of Barbados, employing some 2,500 workers, carrying out some of the most technical and complicated medical procedures imaginable, and commanding an annual budget of some $157 million. The QEH is therefore an extremely large and complex organisation. And such an organisation cannot be adequately managed by a group of part time Directors who are not intimately involved with the complicated workings and procedures of the Hospital on a daily basis!
In order to make proper informed management decisions about the QEH, the decision makers must be possessed of the specialized knowledge on which the Hospital operates, and must be intimately involved with the everyday exchange of information within the Hospital. And clearly, a group of Directors operating part time and meeting for a few hours once a month will not be equipped with the intimate knowledge and insight required to make complicated decisions about the QEH! After all, running a large and complicated modern hospital requires serious knowledge and attention!
The Peoples Empowerment Party (PEP) therefore has grave reservations about the capacity of Messers Hewitt, De Peiza and the others to effectively manage the QEH! Clearly, the persons with the required knowledge and hands-on experience to make informed management decisions about the QEH are Chief Executive Officer, Dr Dexter James, and his team of senior medical, engineering and administrative full time staff. And they must therefore be permitted to manage their institution free of inappropriate intrusion by relative "outsiders" who are not sufficiently integrated in the running of the institution to possess the knowledge required for complicated decision-making.
This is not to say that there is not a role for a government appointed "supervisory" Board to play in the overall administration of the hospital. But the correct role of such a government appointed body should be the more restrictive but very important one of ensuring that the technocratic management structure seriously pursues the fundamental objectives set by Government for the Hospital, and that they adhere to the operative rules and principles, and operate with integrity and accountability to the people and Government of Barbados. And of course, the Board should also have the power to discipline where there are clear breaches of the rules.
If this is to be the role for the
Government appointed Board, then persons should "NOT" be appointed to such boards on the basis of partisan political party affiliation! Rather such Boards should be composed of outstanding and publicly known citizens, possessed of impeccable and publicly recognised reputations for integrity and high professional competence.
We, the citizens of Barbados, should know and have confidence in the people who are placed in a supervisory role over major public institutions that we are underwriting with our precious tax dollars! And we cannot, in all honesty, say that the current Board of the QEH, as a whole, fits this criteria of public recognition of reputation and merit! In fact, we in the PEP could easily think of 100 publicly recognised outstanding citizens who are much better qualified to lead a properly focussed QEH Board than Messers Hewitt and De Peiza.
The PEP is therefore hereby making a call for a revolutionary restructuring of the management structures of all the major statutory corporations. Let the professional full time officers manage with a large degree of independence. And let state appointed supervisory Boards be appointed on the basis of undoubted public reputation, rather than on the basis of partisan political connections!
The National Union of Public Workers, is accusing the ‘Board’ of flouting established industrial relations practises by appointing politically sent "johnnies come lately" over the heads of temporary workers who have served the QEH for as long as 10 years, while the Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners is also accusing the "Board’ of having breached the contracts of medical doctors employed at the QEH by failing to first advertise internally at the QEH for candidates for prestigious consultancies at the Hospital.
In both instances, it is the relatively anonymous and somewhat mysterious ‘Board’ of the QEH that is being identified as the source of the unions’ displeasure. The question therefore arises - just who or what is this ‘Board’ of the QEH?
As many Barbadians would be aware in 2001 the previous Barbados Labour Party administration transformed the QEH into a statutory corporation with the passage of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Act, and placed our sole national hospital under the management of a 13 person "Queen Elizabeth Hospital Board".
After a 2008 amendment, the Act now stipulates that the Board shall consist of eleven persons appointed by the Minister of Health, along with two ex-officio members in the form of the Chief Medical Officer and the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health. The Act also expressly stipulates that "members of staff of the Hospital shall not be appointed as members of the Board".
And so, the current, Democratic Labour Party (DLP) appointed Board of the QEH consists of a little known Anglican priest - Rev. Guy Hewitt - who is Chairman of the Board; attorney-at-law and former D.L.P candidate - Francis De Peiza - the Deputy Chairman; and a number of ordinary Board members - Cardinal Fenty, Lisa Niles, Natasha Small, Junior Allsopp, Lawrence Clarke and Dr Irvine Brancker.
Now, the QEH is the single largest institution in the whole of Barbados, employing some 2,500 workers, carrying out some of the most technical and complicated medical procedures imaginable, and commanding an annual budget of some $157 million. The QEH is therefore an extremely large and complex organisation. And such an organisation cannot be adequately managed by a group of part time Directors who are not intimately involved with the complicated workings and procedures of the Hospital on a daily basis!
In order to make proper informed management decisions about the QEH, the decision makers must be possessed of the specialized knowledge on which the Hospital operates, and must be intimately involved with the everyday exchange of information within the Hospital. And clearly, a group of Directors operating part time and meeting for a few hours once a month will not be equipped with the intimate knowledge and insight required to make complicated decisions about the QEH! After all, running a large and complicated modern hospital requires serious knowledge and attention!
The Peoples Empowerment Party (PEP) therefore has grave reservations about the capacity of Messers Hewitt, De Peiza and the others to effectively manage the QEH! Clearly, the persons with the required knowledge and hands-on experience to make informed management decisions about the QEH are Chief Executive Officer, Dr Dexter James, and his team of senior medical, engineering and administrative full time staff. And they must therefore be permitted to manage their institution free of inappropriate intrusion by relative "outsiders" who are not sufficiently integrated in the running of the institution to possess the knowledge required for complicated decision-making.
This is not to say that there is not a role for a government appointed "supervisory" Board to play in the overall administration of the hospital. But the correct role of such a government appointed body should be the more restrictive but very important one of ensuring that the technocratic management structure seriously pursues the fundamental objectives set by Government for the Hospital, and that they adhere to the operative rules and principles, and operate with integrity and accountability to the people and Government of Barbados. And of course, the Board should also have the power to discipline where there are clear breaches of the rules.
If this is to be the role for the
Government appointed Board, then persons should "NOT" be appointed to such boards on the basis of partisan political party affiliation! Rather such Boards should be composed of outstanding and publicly known citizens, possessed of impeccable and publicly recognised reputations for integrity and high professional competence.
We, the citizens of Barbados, should know and have confidence in the people who are placed in a supervisory role over major public institutions that we are underwriting with our precious tax dollars! And we cannot, in all honesty, say that the current Board of the QEH, as a whole, fits this criteria of public recognition of reputation and merit! In fact, we in the PEP could easily think of 100 publicly recognised outstanding citizens who are much better qualified to lead a properly focussed QEH Board than Messers Hewitt and De Peiza.
The PEP is therefore hereby making a call for a revolutionary restructuring of the management structures of all the major statutory corporations. Let the professional full time officers manage with a large degree of independence. And let state appointed supervisory Boards be appointed on the basis of undoubted public reputation, rather than on the basis of partisan political connections!
WE ARE BEING MISLED!
Barbados is in dire straits, and the Government of Barbados is doing a serious disservice to the people of Barbados by encouraging an overly optimistic and indeed, false, belief that our economic difficulties are temporary in nature and easily manageable!
The current Government is guilty of pushing the patently false notion that there will be an international economic revival by the latter part of 2010, and that this development will automatically lift the Barbadian economy and return us to a state of normalcy.
This is mere foolish wishful thinking, and to the extent that it provides the Government with an excuse for doing little or nothing, and lulls our citizens into a false sense of security, it is also treacherous.
The simple fact of the matter is that there will be no substantive international economic recovery by the latter part of 2010, or indeed for several years to come! Indeed only foolish "pollyannas" are being taken in by the overly optimistic, reassuring blandishments of Western central bankers. And only economic neophytes are misreading the temporary upward bump in economic data produced by the pumping of trillions of newly printed dollars into the North American and European banking systems, as evidence of a substantive recovery.
The harsh truth is that too much damage has been done to the real economy and financial structures of the Western capitalist countries for there to be any short term recovery. The United States industrial sector, for example, cannot recover over-night from the virtual shutting down of the US automobile industry. Furthermore, at the heart of the still lingering crisis is the continuing overhang of staggering losses in the Western financial sector estimated at more than US $4 Trillion.
In spite of what the facile central bankers predict, the reality is that rising household and corporate debt in North America and Europe will cause further declines in asset values and losses to financial institutions. In addition, these countries now have to grapple with the necessity of reducing their record Governmental budget deficits, in a generalised context of sinking tax revenues.
All of this constitutes a recipe for economic contraction and deflation, and already influential institutions of the Anglo-American establishment such as the ‘Royal Institute of International Affairs’ are beginning to acknowledge this and are warning about the very real possibility of a "lost decade".
We already have concrete evidence in Barbados that the international recession has produced a cancerous structural defect in Barbados’ traditional Governmental budget. Compelling evidence of a structural 10 per cent decline in the Government’s annual tax intake has manifested itself, in tandem with a naturally increasing expenditure bill.
All of this spells danger for Barbados, and particularly for the fairly impressive ‘welfare state’ that we have managed to build for ourselves over the past 50 years.
How, in the prevailing circumstances, will a sleeping "know nothing / do nothing" Government preserve Barbados’ free education system and our almost ‘first world’ national drug service? How will they rebuild and re-tool our Queen Elizabeth Hospital? How will they tackle the problems of water and energy and find jobs for the 5000 young people leaving secondary school in July?
Do they have any concrete ideas for expanding the economy in new directions and spheres of activity? Are there any new social forces that they propose to mobilize within the national society?
What is the plan? What is the mission? Where is the national call to arms? Sadly, there is none. And there will not be any until we rid ourselves of the foolish fiction that some ‘big brother’ of the North will soon lift us up and return us to the good old days.
The current Government is guilty of pushing the patently false notion that there will be an international economic revival by the latter part of 2010, and that this development will automatically lift the Barbadian economy and return us to a state of normalcy.
This is mere foolish wishful thinking, and to the extent that it provides the Government with an excuse for doing little or nothing, and lulls our citizens into a false sense of security, it is also treacherous.
The simple fact of the matter is that there will be no substantive international economic recovery by the latter part of 2010, or indeed for several years to come! Indeed only foolish "pollyannas" are being taken in by the overly optimistic, reassuring blandishments of Western central bankers. And only economic neophytes are misreading the temporary upward bump in economic data produced by the pumping of trillions of newly printed dollars into the North American and European banking systems, as evidence of a substantive recovery.
The harsh truth is that too much damage has been done to the real economy and financial structures of the Western capitalist countries for there to be any short term recovery. The United States industrial sector, for example, cannot recover over-night from the virtual shutting down of the US automobile industry. Furthermore, at the heart of the still lingering crisis is the continuing overhang of staggering losses in the Western financial sector estimated at more than US $4 Trillion.
In spite of what the facile central bankers predict, the reality is that rising household and corporate debt in North America and Europe will cause further declines in asset values and losses to financial institutions. In addition, these countries now have to grapple with the necessity of reducing their record Governmental budget deficits, in a generalised context of sinking tax revenues.
All of this constitutes a recipe for economic contraction and deflation, and already influential institutions of the Anglo-American establishment such as the ‘Royal Institute of International Affairs’ are beginning to acknowledge this and are warning about the very real possibility of a "lost decade".
We already have concrete evidence in Barbados that the international recession has produced a cancerous structural defect in Barbados’ traditional Governmental budget. Compelling evidence of a structural 10 per cent decline in the Government’s annual tax intake has manifested itself, in tandem with a naturally increasing expenditure bill.
All of this spells danger for Barbados, and particularly for the fairly impressive ‘welfare state’ that we have managed to build for ourselves over the past 50 years.
How, in the prevailing circumstances, will a sleeping "know nothing / do nothing" Government preserve Barbados’ free education system and our almost ‘first world’ national drug service? How will they rebuild and re-tool our Queen Elizabeth Hospital? How will they tackle the problems of water and energy and find jobs for the 5000 young people leaving secondary school in July?
Do they have any concrete ideas for expanding the economy in new directions and spheres of activity? Are there any new social forces that they propose to mobilize within the national society?
What is the plan? What is the mission? Where is the national call to arms? Sadly, there is none. And there will not be any until we rid ourselves of the foolish fiction that some ‘big brother’ of the North will soon lift us up and return us to the good old days.
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