tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4857668410335253742024-03-13T00:39:32.021-04:00People's Empowerment PartyUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger63125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-485766841033525374.post-17810216342728219732011-02-14T19:10:00.001-04:002011-02-14T19:11:56.973-04:00BAJAN ENTERTAINERS - "ARISE!"The ‘Peoples Empowerment Party’ (PEP) is extremely concerned about the manner in which the powers-that-be in Barbados continue to disrespect and stifle the growth of our performing artistes!<br /> <br />Can you imagine that in the year 2011 some hotels in Barbados are still offering Barbadian entertainers the paltry and insulting sum of $150.00 for a night’s performance? Can you imagine that some entertainers are still being required to make do with a toilet as their changing room?<br /> <br />It is not surprising therefore that a number of Barbados’ leading veteran entertainers, such as Richard Stoute and Anthony "Gabby" Carter, have long since given up on the Barbadian hotel sector as a source of employment and income.<br /> <br />And what, other that utter disrespect, could be the reason for Barbadian radio stations to give the barest minimum of air-play to the recordings of outstanding, international quality Barbadian artistes? Just last year, veteran Barbadian songstress, Toni Norville, released a brilliant gospel album entitled "Reign" but sadly, one does not need more than the figngers of one hand to count the number of times this album has featured on local radio! And the same thing can be said for Arturo Toppin, with his majestic "Inside Out" album, and indeed for many other Barbadian artistes.<br /> <br />Every year in Barbados there is a lot of talk about what our local performing artistes need to do in order to make it on to the international scene. Every conceivable person, including sundry Ministers of government, take it upon themselves to lecture our entertainers as to what they must and must not do if they are to make it. But what is always conveniently overlooked is that the starting place must be the provision of a strong local support base for our artistes. Our performers must be able to satisfactorily commence their professional careers in Barbados and the Caribbean, before taking the next upward step to the international scene!<br /> <br />In the Caribbean island of Cuba, the biggest tourism attractions are the Cabaret shows at the Tropicana and the Hotel Nacional. Indeed, the Hotel Nacional stages no less than two fully sold out Cabaret shows a day, thereby providing employment for literally dozens of singers, musicians, dancers, marketing and administrative personnel, make-up artists, and stage, sound and lighting technicians! In other words the tourism industry of Cuba provides the basis of a professional career for the artistes of Cuba.<br /> <br />Well, in Barbados, we possess more than fifty 3, 4 and 5 star hotels that should be providing good paying, career starting jobs for hundreds of local singers, dancers, musicians, poets, comedians, writers and technicians. Tragically, this does not happen, and will never happen, if is left solely up the initiative of the hoteliers!<br /> <br />Indeed, Government must intervene! The State must take the initiative to establish a national union or association of certified professional performers and technicians; to establish minimum wage rates and working conditions for entertainers in the hotel sector; and to use all of the available instruments of government incentives to persuade or cajole hotels to factor local entertainment into their programmes and budgets in a significant manner.<br /> <br />And similar governmental action is required with the radio and television stations of Barbados! How can we reasonably expect Barbadian artistes to continue to invest their time and resources in creating products, when they can’t get airplay even in their home territory? Clearly, the time has come for the State to legislate and regulate!<br /> <br />We also need to turn our attention to the regional scene, and do what is necessary to establish a regional "circuit" for our performing artistes - and not just for our calypsonians and reggae performers! Just like the USA, we too must have a well established Caribbean touring circuit, stretching from Suriname in the south to Bermuda in the north. Of course, this will call for inter-governmental cooperation, and a mechanism to subsidize transportation expenses for certified artistes.<br /> <br />The PEP is willing to work with the entertainers and artistes of Barbados to bring these ideas to fruition.<br /> The Health Consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07753167275185942384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-485766841033525374.post-75944486769263417802011-02-08T18:53:00.002-04:002011-02-08T18:55:02.431-04:00A Black Barbadian Profile in CourageIn celebration of Black History Month, we would like to share with the Barbadian people a truly outstanding example of Black courage and heroism drawn from the annals of Barbadian history.<br /> <br />It was the year 1675, and the oppressive British slave colony of Barbados was celebrating its 50th year of existence. Indeed, by 1675, the island of Barbados had developed into the prized "jewel" in the British "crown" of colonial territories, and boasted a white population of 23,000 persons, and an enslaved black population of some 33,000 souls.<br /> <br />Furthermore, by 1675, the white slave-masters of Barbados had worked out a comprehensive system for keeping the enslaved Blacks or Africans in check and under control. According to the English writer, Francis Ligon, who published his "A True & Exact History of Barbadoes" in 1657, the slaveocracy’s method consisted of the following three components:-<br />(1) the Blacks were rigorously prevented from coming into contact with any weapons whatsoever, while, of course, the Whites were well armed with muskets and other firearms;<br /> <br />(2) the Blacks were kept in a state of shock and awe by the fearsomeness, power and brutality of the slavery regime; and<br /> <br />(3) the enslaved Blacks were drawn from various regions of Africa, and as a result spoke different languages and therefore experienced difficulty in communicating with each other.<br />It was in this milieu that a network of enslaved Blacks or Africans, residing on several plantations across Barbados, spent three years meticulously hatching a plot to over-power and destroy the white slave-master class, and to take over control of the island.<br /> <br />This momentous event in the history of Barbados was recorded in a 1676 United Kingdom publication entitled "Great Newes from the Barbadoes, or A True and Faithful Account of the Grand Conspiracy of the Negroes....". The author recorded that the African-Barbadians had chosen "an ancient Gold Coast Negro" called Cuffy to be crowned the new king of Barbados, and had designed an insurrection that was to commence with setting fire to the fields of sugar cane, and culminate in a general slaughter of the slave-masters.<br /> <br />Unfortunately for the network of revolutionaries, a female domestic slave by the name of Anna (alias Fortuna) overheard one of the rebels trying to persuade a reluctant teenager to join the plot. Anna spoke with the young slave, discovered that the uprising was due in two weeks’ time, and persuaded the youth to go with her to inform her slave-master, Judge Gyles Hall.<br /> <br />Judge Hall, in turn, went in haste to the Governor, Sir Jonathan Atkins, and he immediately mobilised his corps of military guards to arrest the known conspirators. Governor Atkins also declared Martial Law, and within days more than one hundred African-Barbadian suspects had been arrested and subjected to a barbaric process of interrogation, torture, trial and execution.<br /> <br />Seventeen of the Black suspects were immediately found guilty and sentenced to death, with six being burnt alive and eleven beheaded and dragged through the streets of Speightstown.<br /> <br />It was against this background of utter horror and barbarity that the shining, imperishable heroism of an African-Barbadian revolutionary hero known simply as "Tony" emerged!<br /> <br />Tony, described by his captors as "a sturdy rogue, a Jew’s Negro", was in the presence of another condemned rebel who was being prepared for death by burning. The "Provost Marshall" or superintendent of security was in attendance, and he proceeded to urge this unfortunate man to confess and to name others before he died. The obviously terrorised black man responded by calling for water - a sign that he was prepared to speak and to divulge information.<br /> <br />Thereupon, Tony immediately spoke up and admonished him as follows:- "Thou Fool, are there not enough of our Countrymen killed already? Art thou minded to kill them all? This rebuke caused the condemned man to remain silent! And, in obvious resentment, one of the white spectators shouted to Tony - "Tony, Sirrah, we shall see you fry bravely by and by!<br /> <br />Tony’s response to this threat of the most horrible death imaginable was to declare proudly and defiantly: - "If you Roast me today, you cannot roast me tomorrow!" - and to bid the execution to proceed.<br /> <br />Tony was burnt to death - one of forty-two heroes who were executed for having the audacity to claim their freedom and dignity. Five others committed suicide in jail, while seventy were either deported or sent back to their so-called "owners" after a savage flogging.<br /> <br />Tony’s example, and his immortal cry of courage and defiance - "If you roast me today, you cannot roast me tomorrow!" - should be remembered, honoured and cherished by every generation of Barbadians! What magnificent and exemplary courage, dignity, brotherhood and solidarity!<br /> <br />Indeed, our generation of Barbadians, would do well to look back to that fateful year of 1675, and to adopt as our second national motto, a ringing cry with which to confront our enemies - "If you roast me today, you cannot roast me tomorrow!".<br /> <br />We wish to implore the Barbadians of this generation to be ever conscious of their great heritage, and to carry themselves with such dignity, courage and self-respect, that they show themselves to be worthy sons and daughters of our magnificent and beloved "Tony".The Health Consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07753167275185942384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-485766841033525374.post-26640232333273378592011-02-02T17:25:00.001-04:002011-02-02T17:27:00.031-04:00Egypt Today, Barbados TomorrowThe crisis in Egypt that has caused millions of Egyptians - led by the educated youth - to engage in nine days of mass demonstrations, was ‘made ’ in the United States of America (USA) and Europe, and is coming to us right here in Barbados and the Caribbean!<br /> <br />The best way to conceptualize the situation in Egypt is to refer back to the labour rebellion that rocked the English-speaking Caribbean in the 1930's . In Barbados, for example , the masses of people found themselves contending with an oppressive, autocratic planter/merchant oligarchy that was reinforced and propped up by the power of imperialist "Great Britain" . And the critical spark was applied to this tinder box of social conditions when the international capitalist system plunged into a profound depression which inflicted the additional penalties of unemployment, scarcity, hunger and hopelessness on the already suffering people.<br /> <br />The result was an explosion of pent up revolutionary anger and energy that shook the very foundation of the quasi-feudal colonial order - not only in Barbados , but throughout the region.<br /> <br />Well, the Egyptian people are facing an almost identical scenario! For thirty long years they have suffered under the oppressive, autocratic rule of an oligarchy led by Hosni Mubarak, and propped up and financed by the imperialistic USA with billions of dollars in so-called "aid" every year.<br /> <br />But this alone does not explain the hundred of thousands out on the streets of Cairo and Alexandria! The other critical contributing factor is the fundamental breakdown in the system of international capitalism that has manifested itself since the 2007.<br /> <br />The reality is that the "vampires" of finance capitalism in the USA and Western Europe engaged in such an excessive , prolonged and parasitical plundering of the resources of the world that by 2007 it had become clear that they had caused fundamental damage to the world economic system.<br /> <br />Compelling evidence of their greed and parasitism is reflected in the fact that they created a quantity of largely fictitious financial derivatives that is equivalent to ten times the "Gross Domestic Product" of all the countries of the world combined ! And , particularly since 2007 , they have been forcing national governments to save and bail out these fraudulent financial instruments at the expense of the welfare of their own people.<br /> <br />Egypt has not been spared the ravages of this international capitalist crisis, and the Egyptian people have been rocked by steeply rising levels of youth unemployment and a hyper-inflationary increase in food prices . Indeed , the price of simple bread in Egypt has increased by 10 per cent each month since last year, motivating the demonstrators to coin the slogan -"Bread ,Freedom, Dignity".<br /> <br />The young educated Egyptians who are driving these demonstrations are acting out of frustration and anxiety about their future ! They are seeing signs of a civilizational collapse all around them and are deeply concerned about their rapidly diminishing future prospects. It is not simply about Mubarak - it is much deeper and wider than any one leader, no matter how powerful or autocratic he might be!<br /> <br />The truth is that an economic and political system is dying , and if nations and leaders do not recognise this reality and take concrete steps to distance themselves from the effects of the death throes , they will be dragged down as well!<br />The Barbados and Caribbean governments need to wake up! If they simply continue to do what they are doing now their young people will soon come to sense that their future prospects are diminishing rapidly, and they too will eventually take matters into their own hands - in the streets of Bridgetown and every other Caribbean capital!The Health Consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07753167275185942384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-485766841033525374.post-87637784231107110482011-02-02T13:52:00.000-04:002011-02-02T13:52:20.052-04:00Professor James Smalls Interview pt. 2 of 3<iframe width="425" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/R4rW01nzzO0?fs=1" frameborder="0" allowFullScreen=""></iframe>The Health Consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07753167275185942384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-485766841033525374.post-62306833613726634182011-01-26T19:23:00.002-04:002011-01-26T19:26:25.122-04:00IMPLICATIONS OF THE JOHN BEALE EXPOSEThe 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.<br /> <br />Mr Beale’s reported words were as follows:-<br />"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".<br />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!<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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".<br /> <br />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:-<br />"One of our strategies must be to save our people from the suffocating effect of burdensome debt and oppressively high interest rates.<br /> <br />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!<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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".<br />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!The Health Consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07753167275185942384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-485766841033525374.post-84817036961578270912011-01-12T14:20:00.002-04:002011-01-12T14:22:13.975-04:00PEP DENOUNCES NEGATIVE POLITICS IN ST JOHN BY-ELECTIONWe 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!<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /><br /> <br />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!<br /> <br />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!"<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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!<br /> <br />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".<br /> <br />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?<br /> <br />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?<br /> <br />These are the types of questions they must be required to answer!The Health Consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07753167275185942384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-485766841033525374.post-53229677603123846732011-01-05T11:31:00.003-04:002011-01-05T11:34:37.652-04:00CRIME AND THE UNDER-DEVELOPMENT OF BARBADOSNo 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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />Barbadians need to ponder long and hard on the significance of these cold, ugly and undeniable social facts! <br /><br />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! <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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? <br /><br />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? <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />The PEP is ready, willing and able to play its part in finding and implementing relevant solutions.The Health Consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07753167275185942384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-485766841033525374.post-75914298043230857132010-12-30T11:37:00.000-04:002010-12-30T12:40:21.648-04:00CHRISTMAS, COMISSIONG AND THE CHILDRENThis 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.<br /><br />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":-<br /><br />"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!<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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!<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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!<br /><br />Let us all celebrate and mark this Christmas Festival with a collective resolution to orient our society towards the children and their future!"The Health Consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07753167275185942384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-485766841033525374.post-61656387765388868392010-12-15T12:34:00.000-04:002010-12-15T12:36:25.493-04:00PARTNERSHIPS FOR PROGRESSAt 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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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!<br /> <br />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!<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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!<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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!<br /> <br />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.The Health Consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07753167275185942384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-485766841033525374.post-47712529320259420192010-12-05T19:59:00.002-04:002010-12-05T20:03:29.586-04:00PEP’S RESPONSE TO THE BUDGETYesterday, the Democratic Labour Party administration and their new Minister of Finance forgot that Barbados is a society and not merely an economy! <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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! <br /><br />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! <br /><br />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. <br /><br />Some three weeks ago we issued a Press Release in which we advised as follows:-<br /><br />"The sectors that must be asked to bear the increased tax burden must be the wealthy and the big corporate sector.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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!"<br /><br />This would have been the correct place to start. Unfortunately, it does not seem that Mr Sinckler even gave any thought to this option.<br /><br />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".<br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> The Health Consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07753167275185942384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-485766841033525374.post-56877666410254383762010-12-05T19:56:00.002-04:002010-12-05T19:59:53.173-04:00SAVING 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!<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />The state sponsored initiatives that we have in mind fit into two broad categories.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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!<br />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!<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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!<br /> <br />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!<br /> <br />With such planning and credit provision mechanisms in place, Barbados would be in a position to forge ahead with such new developmental initiatives as:-<br />(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;<br /> <br />(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;<br /> <br />(3) A major investment in the retooling of our manufacturing sector, and the provision of critical international market research services for export oriented enterprises.<br /> <br />(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.<br /> <br />(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.<br /> <br /> The Health Consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07753167275185942384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-485766841033525374.post-73380446860186356102010-12-05T19:53:00.001-04:002010-12-05T19:56:35.267-04:00SAVING 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.<br /> <br />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!<br /> <br />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!<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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!<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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".<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> The Health Consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07753167275185942384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-485766841033525374.post-6048060137715457542010-12-05T19:45:00.001-04:002010-12-05T19:53:33.466-04:00SAVING 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! <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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! <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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!<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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! <br /><br />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 Health Consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07753167275185942384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-485766841033525374.post-73545036346088575692010-12-05T19:43:00.001-04:002010-12-05T19:45:36.722-04:00SAVING 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!<br /> <br />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!<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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!<br /> <br />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?<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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!<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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!<br /> The Health Consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07753167275185942384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-485766841033525374.post-20554303075243885272010-12-05T19:39:00.002-04:002010-12-05T19:43:17.241-04:00Saving 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! <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />In his May 2001 Facing Reality column in the Nation Newspaper, Mr.Comissiong wrote as follows, under the headline – ‘A Word to the Wise”:-<br /><br />“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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.” <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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”. <br /><br />The PEP’s blue print for ‘Saving Barbados from Recession” will be based on a foundation of policies and measures to:-<br /><br />(i) Re-establish the soundness of the finances and credit of the Barbados Government;<br /><br />(ii) Restore the purchasing power of the masses of Barbadian people;<br /><br />(iii) Secure and shore up welfare services and programmes that prevent or alleviate human distress;<br /><br />(iv) Provide employment through essential environmental public works programmes;<br /><br />(v) Re-energise production in Barbados’ Agriculture, Construction, Manufacturing and Tourism sectors; and<br /><br />(vi) Engineer a new social contract based on a greater degree of equality and sharing of resources in Barbados. <br /><br />Stay tuned for a series of submissions from the PEP on this critical issue over the coming weeks!The Health Consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07753167275185942384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-485766841033525374.post-39015827825983790162010-12-05T19:35:00.002-04:002010-12-05T19:39:09.374-04:00OH BARBADOS!Oh Barbados! This is our season of affliction and lamentation! In the words of our national poet, Kamau Brathwaite:-<br /><br />"Ev’ry day you see the sun<br /><br />Rise, the sun<br /><br />Set; God sen’ ev’ry month<br /><br />A new moon. Dry season<br /><br />Follow wet season again<br /><br />An’ the green crop follow the rain<br /><br />An’ then suddenly so<br /><br />Widdout rhyme<br /><br />Widdout reason<br /><br />You crops start to die<br /><br />You can’t even see the sun in the sky;<br /><br />An’ suddenly so, without rhyme,<br /><br />Without reason, all you hope gone<br /><br />Ev’rything look like it comin’ out wrong.<br /><br />Why is that? What it mean?" <br /><br />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? <br /><br />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? <br /><br />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? <br /><br />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! <br /><br />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. <br /><br />But in the midst of the darkness there are several points of light, evidence of something good and strong within the national character! <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />We witness self-less citizens joining together to memorialize our nation’s six<br />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! <br /><br />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! <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />Again, Kamau Brathwaite speaks for us:- <br /><br />"let my children<br /><br />rise<br /><br />in the path<br /><br />of the morning<br /><br />up and go forth<br /><br />on the road<br /><br />of the morning<br /><br />run through the fields<br /><br />in the sun<br /><br />of the morning,<br /><br />see the rainbow<br /><br />of Heaven:<br /><br />God’s curved<br /><br />mourning<br /><br />calling."The Health Consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07753167275185942384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-485766841033525374.post-79319438857648595992010-12-05T19:33:00.001-04:002010-12-05T19:35:15.276-04:00THE BARBADOS TRAGEDYVirtually 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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />Mr Arthur has seemingly gotten what he wanted, but will it all turn to ashes in his opportunistic hands? Time will tell!<br /> <br />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!<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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"!The Health Consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07753167275185942384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-485766841033525374.post-16613914803137312802010-12-05T19:31:00.001-04:002010-12-05T19:33:47.533-04:00THERE 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?"<br /> <br />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!<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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:-<br /><br /> * "Massive public education programme to explain the benefits of market forces....and that the country is living beyond its means"<br /> * "Establish a task force to construct a private sector agenda"<br /> * "Prepare and publish alternative Estimates"<br /> * "Encourage opposition parties to present pro-business Bills in the House"<br /> * "Establish a "Call In" programme"<br /> * "Reduce scope of welfare services including health"<br /> * "Eliminate free tertiary education"<br /> * "Reduce scope of government regulation"<br /> * "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..."<br /><br />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 :-<br />1. The recent establishment of the Peter Boos led "Barbados Entrepreneurship Foundation" ;<br /> <br />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;<br /> <br />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;<br /> <br />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;<br /> <br />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<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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!The Health Consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07753167275185942384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-485766841033525374.post-50967773256603185322010-12-05T19:24:00.001-04:002010-12-05T19:30:56.096-04:00BARBADOS 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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".<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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!<br /><br />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!<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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!<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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,<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.The Health Consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07753167275185942384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-485766841033525374.post-16634659989180455232010-12-05T19:21:00.001-04:002010-12-05T19:24:34.645-04:00A 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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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".<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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!The Health Consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07753167275185942384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-485766841033525374.post-68772512443335850292010-12-05T19:16:00.002-04:002010-12-05T19:21:51.805-04:00LET 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! <br /><br />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! <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />The questions that we all need to ask ourselves are - "What does this mean?...." "What does this say about out nation?" <br /><br />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? <br /><br />And most importantly - "Who or what is to blame?" <br /><br />Should any blame be ascribed to the politicians<br />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? <br /><br />Should any blame be ascribed to the various pastors and priests<br />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? <br /><br />And how about the educators<br />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? <br /><br />And why have all of us<br />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? <br /><br />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. <br /><br />The time for Barbadians to wake up, bestir themselves and make a monumental effort to save their nation has come!The Health Consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07753167275185942384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-485766841033525374.post-76086229036488642602010-12-05T19:12:00.002-04:002010-12-05T19:16:46.132-04:00A NEW MANAGEMENT MODEL FOR Q.E.H AND OTHER STATUTORY CORPORATIONSThe 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!<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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? <br /><br />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".<br /><br />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". <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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! <br /><br />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! <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />If this is to be the role for the<br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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 Health Consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07753167275185942384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-485766841033525374.post-71391874265379336132010-12-05T19:08:00.001-04:002010-12-05T19:12:18.228-04:00WE 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!<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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".<br /><br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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?<br /> <br />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?<br /> <br />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 Health Consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07753167275185942384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-485766841033525374.post-40243549218150665362010-06-20T00:33:00.001-04:002010-06-20T00:34:29.791-04:00DISPATCHING DR HILAIRE’S LONG HOP!Dr Ernest Hilaire, chief executive officer of the West Indies Cricket Board, has publicly confirmed that the members of the West Indies Cricket team possess less formal education than the members of any other Test team. Why should anybody take offense at this statement? Indeed, what Dr Hilaire is doing, albeit unwittingly, is paying tribute to one of the great strengths of West Indies cricket! <br /> <br />The truth of the matter is that cricket is almost exclusively the game of the social elite in every single Test playing country, with the admirable exception of the West Indies! In England, the original home of cricket, football is the game of the working-class, rugby is the game of middle class, and cricket is the game of the upper-class elite. In such former British colonies as India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, the highly intellectual game of cricket is the preserve of the wealthy, leisure class. And in South Africa, cricket is the game not just of the elite, but of the still narrower "white" elite. <br /> <br />It is only in the West Indies that the masses of working class people have been able to take hold of the game of cricket and throughly democratise it. As a result, the West Indies Cricket team, since at least the 1950's, has tended to be dominated by young working-class men, who, in spite of their undoubted mental sharpness, were less likely to have access to tertiary level education than their wealthy, elite counterparts in England, New Zealand, India and Pakistan. <br /> <br />Cricket is one of the most intellectual of games, and requires of its practitioners a capacity for sustained deep, sophisticated thought and calculation. And from the early 1960's right through to the 1990's, the elementary and secondary school educated black and Indian working-class young men of the West Indies demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were the intellectual superiors of the wealthy, university trained cricketers of all of the other Test playing nations. <br /> <br />If therefore we ever come to a stage in which the West Indies Cricket team is dominated by university graduates, let such a development not be a function of social elitism, but rather, the ineluctable consequence of having established a socialist society in which all the sons and daughters of the working-class are guaranteed access to tertiary education. <br /> <br />Dr Hilaire also made the very noteworthy disclosure that almost half of the cricketers on the West Indies under 19 team could barely read or write! <br /> <br />But what seems to have escaped Dr Hilaire is the very obvious fact that these illiterate young men would have competed against and bested thousands of highly literate and well educated young cricketers in order to make it onto the West Indies under 19 team! Furthermore, these semi-literate West Indian youth cricketers recently competed against the cream of the youth cricketing world and acquitted themselves extremely well. It is clear therefore that these illiterate young cricketers possess substantial innate mental and intellectual capacities, and are therefore not incapable of being taught to read and write! <br /> <br />The question we should therefore be asking ourselves is - why do we remain so content with a deeply flawed educational system that is persistently failing tens of thousands of innately talented working-class boys and girls? <br /> <br />The culprits in all of this are not the young cricketers - not even the underachieving ones who currently play for the senior West Indies Test team. Rather, the real culprits are to be found in a self-centred, decrepit, visionless leadership class, that populates virtually every institution of "official society" in the Caribbean, inclusive of the West Indies Cricket Board.The Health Consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07753167275185942384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-485766841033525374.post-48797773800169915032010-06-20T00:32:00.001-04:002010-06-20T00:33:18.081-04:00'Bloc Against Crime'Barbados and the rest of the Caribbean are in danger of being destroyed by crime! We have therefore developed the ‘Bloc Against Crime’ - a collective plan that has a role in it for all major institutions of society. And we now present components of it for your consideration. <br />The function of the family <br />is vital! As the Ashanti proverb says, ‘the ruin of a nation begins in the homes of its people’. For the community to heal it’s ‘wounds, the families of the nation must get involved to end the violence. Our children need to see role models all around them who can inspire them to become successful citizens with strong Christian and other positive values. And this must begin in the home and family <br />Civil participation is the foundation of democracy. The culture of civic participation must therefore be restored to the level of vibrancy that was evident in Barbados in the 1960's if we are to be successful in our efforts to stop the increasing violence in our homes, schools, workplaces and communities. Civic education is needed to prepare people, especially the youth, to carry out their duty as citizens and to help them to understand the importance of political participation. Civic education also helps the youth to understand that electing a government is not about creating ‘election beggars’, but rather , is about participating in the political process and understanding why one is choosing to vote for a particular person. <br />Professional sportsmen and women <br />also have a role to play. Not only do they have access to the people at the top levels of society, but they are also looked up to by the youth of our nation. These persons are therefore in an extremely powerful position to make a positive impact on the youth of the nation, and to steer them away from violence and crime. <br />The business and corporate community <br />should also have a strong interest in improving the quality of life for every one in the society. Business leaders in our communities have a responsibility to impact the violence by providing and creating economic opportunities that will improve the conditions of those who are badly disadvantaged. The business sector has the responsibility to set goals that include the development, implementation and maintenance of community-based businesses, as well as employment initiatives that will deliver a decent "liveable wage" to their employees. <br />In living up to its responsibility to the community, the business sector should seriously consider coming together to establish a "Community Supermarket" that will provide the poorest segment of our community with the basic necessities, at the lowest possible prices. This will create employment and also relieve some of the social pressure that is currently leading to violence and crime. <br />The recognition of the value of spiritual development within each human being is essential to the building of relationships that can ultimately reduce crime and violence, by increasing self respect and respect for and tolerance of others. Practicing spiritual disciplines can help people, especially youth, to understand the meaning of the suffering and frustrations of others, thereby enabling them to better control and channel anger. <br />Education is the foundation for financial success, the expansion of one’s mind and ability and the making of responsible citizens. When one looks at the history of our people, one can discern that lack of education has often led to the absence of hope, to wasted lives, violence, incarceration, and even death. The entire educational system, from pre-school to university, must be held accountable and made to promote a conducive environment for learning at the mass level.The Health Consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07753167275185942384noreply@blogger.com0