The Nation Newspaper of 20th January 2011 featured an interview with Mr John Beale, the former President and Chief Executive Officer of RBTT Bank (Barbados) Ltd and Barbados’ current Ambassador in Washington D.C, in which he described the process through which banks in Barbados impose bank fees and other charges on their Barbadian customers.
Mr Beale’s reported words were as follows:-
"For example, every year a bank would sit down with their directors and their managers and they may say: ‘We made $1 million last year, we must make $1.1 million this year, where is it coming from?’ The guy may say the loans are not as many as we had in the past, and then somebody comes up with the bright idea - ‘let’s make some extra fees’, they go straight to bottom line, there is no cost to it. Someone may ask ‘how can we do that?’ The answer would be ‘Let’s tack on a $5 fee here or something and across the board that would give us another $200,000".
The Barbadian people should read this statement over and over again, and let it sink into their consciousness! Many of us suspected that our banks were unreasonably and exploitatively imposing bank fees and charges on us, and now we have express confirmation from a man who functioned at the highest level of the banking fraternity!
This is Capitalism at its very worst! This is a business system based on the principle of plundering the enterprise and its customers or constituents for the sole purpose of delivering ever increasing "profits" to people whose only connection to the enterprise is that they hold pieces of paper (shares) that entitle them to be considered a part owner of the enterprise.
Now, if Barbados had a properly functioning democratic Parliamentary system, Mr Beale’s statement would have elicited howls of outrage from our members of Parliament, and the setting up of a Parliamentary committee to investigate the banks, and to develop appropriate measures to protect the Barbadian public.
Needless-to-say, there will be no such response from the ineffectual ‘political eunuchs’ of the two political parties that are popularly known as "Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Bum".
The Peoples Empowerment Party, on the other hand, publicly addressed this issue last year as a component of the PEP’s programme to tackle the recession. The exact quote from our party document entitled ‘Time To Make A Move!’ is as follows:-
"One of our strategies must be to save our people from the suffocating effect of burdensome debt and oppressively high interest rates.
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!
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.
There is also scope for the Minister of Finance and/or the Central Bank of Barbados to engage with the banking sector in working out a national ‘Code of Conduct’ that will guide the behaviour and actions of banks in relation to their imposition of interest and other user charges on Barbadians during this period of national response to the intensifying recession.
The bottom-line is that effective measures must be taken to extricate Barbadians from the crushing mounds of personal and household debt that so many of them are now struggling under. And this must be seen as a national priority".
What a comical people we Barbadians are. We refuse visionaries and patriots admission to our House of Assembly, but open the doors wide for the bogus queens, kings and jacks of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle dum!
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
PEP DENOUNCES NEGATIVE POLITICS IN ST JOHN BY-ELECTION
We have said it before and we will say it again - the two major Barbadian political parties that began their existences in the 1930's and 50's as institutions for the liberation of oppressed Barbadians are now in danger of becoming instruments for the degradation of our people!
The ‘Peoples Empowerment Party’ first made this observation in the aftermath of the 2008 General Election as we reflected on the crude manner in which both parties had sought to buy votes and to reduce Barbadians, particularly our youth, to insensible beings who only respond to the stimuli of entertainment and material bribes.
Now the St John By-Election is proving that these two political parties are also in the process of degrading their own members, inclusive of their leaders.
Take the case of former Prime Minister Owen Arthur! If there was one sphere in which Mr Arthur had distinguished himself during his fourteen years as Prime Minister, it was in the arena of Caribbean integration - all over the region, Caribbean people came to respect Mr Arthur as, perhaps, the leading integrationist of his generation.
What a disgraceful spectacle it is therefore to witness Owen Arthur attacking Mrs Mara Thompson on the basis of her St Lucian birth! How low and politically degraded has Mr Arthur sunk with his xenophobic appeals to Barbadians to reject Mrs Thompson because she was born and raised in a sister Caribbean territory!
The PEP’s simple and blunt message to Mr Arthur and the BLP is:- "Stop it! Stop it, before you completely destroy your reputation and do irreparable damage to the Caribbean integration movement!"
Our party is also not impressed with Prime Minister Freundel Stuart’s persistent personal attacks on Mr Arthur! Unfortunately, Mr Stuart seems to have bought into the notion that our national politics centres around a little personal ‘beauty contest’ between himself and Owen Arthur. Since coming to office, Mr Stuart has wasted time with too many speeches about who "shines like a lighthouse"; who hates themselves; who is the loneliest man and the list goes on, when what is required is nothing less than the establishment, by deeds and words, of a new, widely shared, sense of mission for our nation.
The times are too critical for an opportunity to set the nation on a new path to be wasted in that manner! The PEP is alerting Mr Stuart that if he does not act quickly to distinguish himself from the politically decadent, highly mythologised David Thompson brand of leadership, he will be drawn in and become complicit in the process of national degradation that is already in train.
Our party is also deeply concerned about the disservice that both the DLP and BLP are doing to the good people of St John. Contrary to what is being suggested by their platform effusions, the people of St John are not a backward, simple-minded, helpless group who require a nanny (female or male) to look after them!
Some 23 years ago PEP President, David Comissiong, wrote a Nation Newspaper column in which he acknowledged the vibrancy and worth of the youth of St John and noted that "these young people have made it unmistakeably clear that they are ready, willing and able to play a fully active role in every conceivable area of our national life.......... they are also imbued with a strong sense of national identity.......... these rural youth are not the type whose greatest ambition is to catch the earliest 747 aeroplane to New York City".
That was the calibre of the young people that the late David Thompson "inherited" in 1987. What did he do to unleash and facilitate those pent up abilities?
Are Mara and Hudson capable of doing any better? What message do they have for the youth of St John and Barbados? What role do they see for themselves in helping Barbados to find a way out of the ideological, economic, spiritual and cultural quagmire that our country finds itself in?
These are the types of questions they must be required to answer!
The ‘Peoples Empowerment Party’ first made this observation in the aftermath of the 2008 General Election as we reflected on the crude manner in which both parties had sought to buy votes and to reduce Barbadians, particularly our youth, to insensible beings who only respond to the stimuli of entertainment and material bribes.
Now the St John By-Election is proving that these two political parties are also in the process of degrading their own members, inclusive of their leaders.
Take the case of former Prime Minister Owen Arthur! If there was one sphere in which Mr Arthur had distinguished himself during his fourteen years as Prime Minister, it was in the arena of Caribbean integration - all over the region, Caribbean people came to respect Mr Arthur as, perhaps, the leading integrationist of his generation.
What a disgraceful spectacle it is therefore to witness Owen Arthur attacking Mrs Mara Thompson on the basis of her St Lucian birth! How low and politically degraded has Mr Arthur sunk with his xenophobic appeals to Barbadians to reject Mrs Thompson because she was born and raised in a sister Caribbean territory!
The PEP’s simple and blunt message to Mr Arthur and the BLP is:- "Stop it! Stop it, before you completely destroy your reputation and do irreparable damage to the Caribbean integration movement!"
Our party is also not impressed with Prime Minister Freundel Stuart’s persistent personal attacks on Mr Arthur! Unfortunately, Mr Stuart seems to have bought into the notion that our national politics centres around a little personal ‘beauty contest’ between himself and Owen Arthur. Since coming to office, Mr Stuart has wasted time with too many speeches about who "shines like a lighthouse"; who hates themselves; who is the loneliest man and the list goes on, when what is required is nothing less than the establishment, by deeds and words, of a new, widely shared, sense of mission for our nation.
The times are too critical for an opportunity to set the nation on a new path to be wasted in that manner! The PEP is alerting Mr Stuart that if he does not act quickly to distinguish himself from the politically decadent, highly mythologised David Thompson brand of leadership, he will be drawn in and become complicit in the process of national degradation that is already in train.
Our party is also deeply concerned about the disservice that both the DLP and BLP are doing to the good people of St John. Contrary to what is being suggested by their platform effusions, the people of St John are not a backward, simple-minded, helpless group who require a nanny (female or male) to look after them!
Some 23 years ago PEP President, David Comissiong, wrote a Nation Newspaper column in which he acknowledged the vibrancy and worth of the youth of St John and noted that "these young people have made it unmistakeably clear that they are ready, willing and able to play a fully active role in every conceivable area of our national life.......... they are also imbued with a strong sense of national identity.......... these rural youth are not the type whose greatest ambition is to catch the earliest 747 aeroplane to New York City".
That was the calibre of the young people that the late David Thompson "inherited" in 1987. What did he do to unleash and facilitate those pent up abilities?
Are Mara and Hudson capable of doing any better? What message do they have for the youth of St John and Barbados? What role do they see for themselves in helping Barbados to find a way out of the ideological, economic, spiritual and cultural quagmire that our country finds itself in?
These are the types of questions they must be required to answer!
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
CRIME AND THE UNDER-DEVELOPMENT OF BARBADOS
No less than five young Barbadians were brutally murdered in the twelve day holiday period between the 22nd of December 2010 and the 2nd of January 2011 – supposedly a period of peace and goodwill.
The horror started three days before Christmas when young Roderick Jones and Christopher Charles literally stabbed each other to death, and continued with a 17 year old Barbadian teenager opening fire on a ZR van full of passengers and ending the life of Sheldon Taylor with a bullet.
We then proceeded to usher in our new year with the slaying of 29 year old Anderson Brathwaite in Cane Hill, St. George, and with the equally senseless and brutal shooting death of young Adrian Nervais at Sargeant’s Village, Christ Church.
Barbadians need to ponder long and hard on the significance of these cold, ugly and undeniable social facts!
The reality is that if the murder rate continues at such a pace for a whole year, we would rack up no less than 152 murders per annum. And this would be a per capita murder rate far in excess of Trinidad’s 500 per annum or Jamaica’s 1000 per annum!
These murders, coming in the wake of the horrific “Campus Trendz” mass homicide of September 3rd, 2010, in which the lives of six young Barbadian women were extinguished, should clearly tell us that something is fundamentally wrong in our country.
But if something is fundamentally wrong in our nation, why are we not hearing the voices of our official leaders – our Prime Minister, our Attorney-General, the leader of the Opposition, the Bishop of the Anglican Church, the head of the Christian Council, the chairman of our Private Sector Association and Congress of Trade Unions – addressing the sources and causes of the social disease and rallying Barbadians to mount a collective national response?
How is it that political parties and their functionaries can tell us that the major issue in the upcoming St .John By-Election will be the matter of the unfinished St. John Polyclinic, when Barbadian youth are murdering each other at an alarming rate? Does Hudson Griffith or Mara Thompson have anything at all to say on the issue of fratricidal violence and murder among the youth of Barbados?
Barbadians need to take their heads out of the sand and recognize that our nation has started to exhibit all of the social maladies associated with a society shaped by the value system and cultural imperatives of United States of America-based liberal Capitalism.
The self-centredness, the psychological alienation, the lack of human empathy, the breakdown of a sense of community, the contempt for persons who are considered to be weak or social failures, the seeming addiction to mindless entertainment, the consumerist life-style, the enjoyment of entertainment based on violence and sensation, the dissipation of belief in a spiritual dimension and in transcendental spiritual values, are all embedded in the social, cultural, business and governance structures that Barbados’ private and public sector establishment have either actively promoted or acquiesced in over the past quarter century.
We note that Mr. Darwin Dottin, our Commissioner of Police, has stated that the Police will be responding to the crime situation with a combination of “tough measures” and an intervention by the Ministry of Family.
We would just like to warn Commissioner Dottin that to date the Ministry of Family has not distinguished itself by demonstrating that it has any deep understanding of the predicament our society is in.
We would also like to remind him that for several years now our Peoples Empowerment Party (PEP) has been urging him to have the Royal Barbados Police Force stage a “National Consultation On Crime” through which the Police would seek to “ground” with our people in their communities, and to establish a greater rapport between grass-roots communities and the Police Force. We are confident that this approach will achieve much more success than the so-called “tough measures” that are being contemplated.
The bottom-line is that Barbados is facing a deeply rooted problem that goes to the very foundations of our society and nation. If it is to be solved, it will call for enlightened and informed leadership on the part of individuals and organizations that genuinely care about this country and its people.
The PEP is ready, willing and able to play its part in finding and implementing relevant solutions.
The horror started three days before Christmas when young Roderick Jones and Christopher Charles literally stabbed each other to death, and continued with a 17 year old Barbadian teenager opening fire on a ZR van full of passengers and ending the life of Sheldon Taylor with a bullet.
We then proceeded to usher in our new year with the slaying of 29 year old Anderson Brathwaite in Cane Hill, St. George, and with the equally senseless and brutal shooting death of young Adrian Nervais at Sargeant’s Village, Christ Church.
Barbadians need to ponder long and hard on the significance of these cold, ugly and undeniable social facts!
The reality is that if the murder rate continues at such a pace for a whole year, we would rack up no less than 152 murders per annum. And this would be a per capita murder rate far in excess of Trinidad’s 500 per annum or Jamaica’s 1000 per annum!
These murders, coming in the wake of the horrific “Campus Trendz” mass homicide of September 3rd, 2010, in which the lives of six young Barbadian women were extinguished, should clearly tell us that something is fundamentally wrong in our country.
But if something is fundamentally wrong in our nation, why are we not hearing the voices of our official leaders – our Prime Minister, our Attorney-General, the leader of the Opposition, the Bishop of the Anglican Church, the head of the Christian Council, the chairman of our Private Sector Association and Congress of Trade Unions – addressing the sources and causes of the social disease and rallying Barbadians to mount a collective national response?
How is it that political parties and their functionaries can tell us that the major issue in the upcoming St .John By-Election will be the matter of the unfinished St. John Polyclinic, when Barbadian youth are murdering each other at an alarming rate? Does Hudson Griffith or Mara Thompson have anything at all to say on the issue of fratricidal violence and murder among the youth of Barbados?
Barbadians need to take their heads out of the sand and recognize that our nation has started to exhibit all of the social maladies associated with a society shaped by the value system and cultural imperatives of United States of America-based liberal Capitalism.
The self-centredness, the psychological alienation, the lack of human empathy, the breakdown of a sense of community, the contempt for persons who are considered to be weak or social failures, the seeming addiction to mindless entertainment, the consumerist life-style, the enjoyment of entertainment based on violence and sensation, the dissipation of belief in a spiritual dimension and in transcendental spiritual values, are all embedded in the social, cultural, business and governance structures that Barbados’ private and public sector establishment have either actively promoted or acquiesced in over the past quarter century.
We note that Mr. Darwin Dottin, our Commissioner of Police, has stated that the Police will be responding to the crime situation with a combination of “tough measures” and an intervention by the Ministry of Family.
We would just like to warn Commissioner Dottin that to date the Ministry of Family has not distinguished itself by demonstrating that it has any deep understanding of the predicament our society is in.
We would also like to remind him that for several years now our Peoples Empowerment Party (PEP) has been urging him to have the Royal Barbados Police Force stage a “National Consultation On Crime” through which the Police would seek to “ground” with our people in their communities, and to establish a greater rapport between grass-roots communities and the Police Force. We are confident that this approach will achieve much more success than the so-called “tough measures” that are being contemplated.
The bottom-line is that Barbados is facing a deeply rooted problem that goes to the very foundations of our society and nation. If it is to be solved, it will call for enlightened and informed leadership on the part of individuals and organizations that genuinely care about this country and its people.
The PEP is ready, willing and able to play its part in finding and implementing relevant solutions.
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