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!
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?
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.
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.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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!
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.
The PEP is willing to work with the entertainers and artistes of Barbados to bring these ideas to fruition.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
A Black Barbadian Profile in Courage
In 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.
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.
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:-
(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;
(2) the Blacks were kept in a state of shock and awe by the fearsomeness, power and brutality of the slavery regime; and
(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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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.
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!
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!".
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".
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.
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:-
(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;
(2) the Blacks were kept in a state of shock and awe by the fearsomeness, power and brutality of the slavery regime; and
(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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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.
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!
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!".
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".
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Egypt Today, Barbados Tomorrow
The 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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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!
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!
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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!
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!
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!
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
IMPLICATIONS OF THE JOHN BEALE EXPOSE
The Nation Newspaper of 20th January 2011 featured an interview with Mr John Beale, the former President and Chief Executive Officer of RBTT Bank (Barbados) Ltd and Barbados’ current Ambassador in Washington D.C, in which he described the process through which banks in Barbados impose bank fees and other charges on their Barbadian customers.
Mr Beale’s reported words were as follows:-
"For example, every year a bank would sit down with their directors and their managers and they may say: ‘We made $1 million last year, we must make $1.1 million this year, where is it coming from?’ The guy may say the loans are not as many as we had in the past, and then somebody comes up with the bright idea - ‘let’s make some extra fees’, they go straight to bottom line, there is no cost to it. Someone may ask ‘how can we do that?’ The answer would be ‘Let’s tack on a $5 fee here or something and across the board that would give us another $200,000".
The Barbadian people should read this statement over and over again, and let it sink into their consciousness! Many of us suspected that our banks were unreasonably and exploitatively imposing bank fees and charges on us, and now we have express confirmation from a man who functioned at the highest level of the banking fraternity!
This is Capitalism at its very worst! This is a business system based on the principle of plundering the enterprise and its customers or constituents for the sole purpose of delivering ever increasing "profits" to people whose only connection to the enterprise is that they hold pieces of paper (shares) that entitle them to be considered a part owner of the enterprise.
Now, if Barbados had a properly functioning democratic Parliamentary system, Mr Beale’s statement would have elicited howls of outrage from our members of Parliament, and the setting up of a Parliamentary committee to investigate the banks, and to develop appropriate measures to protect the Barbadian public.
Needless-to-say, there will be no such response from the ineffectual ‘political eunuchs’ of the two political parties that are popularly known as "Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Bum".
The Peoples Empowerment Party, on the other hand, publicly addressed this issue last year as a component of the PEP’s programme to tackle the recession. The exact quote from our party document entitled ‘Time To Make A Move!’ is as follows:-
"One of our strategies must be to save our people from the suffocating effect of burdensome debt and oppressively high interest rates.
At the present time, many thousands of working class and middle class Barbadians find themselves in a debt trap - ensnared by high and oppressive levels of bank debt, mortgage debt, automobile based finance company debt, and credit card debt. Generally speaking, the interest charged on credit in Barbados is way too high. For example, Barbadians routinely pay an astronomical 22 per cent per annum on their credit card debt!
It is clear therefore that our Government needs to come to the rescue of the Barbadian people by ensuring that the Minister of Finance, a public official elected by the people and therefore accountable to the people, has the power to intervene and to determine maximum limits on interest rates charged by banks and other financial institutions, across the board.
There is also scope for the Minister of Finance and/or the Central Bank of Barbados to engage with the banking sector in working out a national ‘Code of Conduct’ that will guide the behaviour and actions of banks in relation to their imposition of interest and other user charges on Barbadians during this period of national response to the intensifying recession.
The bottom-line is that effective measures must be taken to extricate Barbadians from the crushing mounds of personal and household debt that so many of them are now struggling under. And this must be seen as a national priority".
What a comical people we Barbadians are. We refuse visionaries and patriots admission to our House of Assembly, but open the doors wide for the bogus queens, kings and jacks of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle dum!
Mr Beale’s reported words were as follows:-
"For example, every year a bank would sit down with their directors and their managers and they may say: ‘We made $1 million last year, we must make $1.1 million this year, where is it coming from?’ The guy may say the loans are not as many as we had in the past, and then somebody comes up with the bright idea - ‘let’s make some extra fees’, they go straight to bottom line, there is no cost to it. Someone may ask ‘how can we do that?’ The answer would be ‘Let’s tack on a $5 fee here or something and across the board that would give us another $200,000".
The Barbadian people should read this statement over and over again, and let it sink into their consciousness! Many of us suspected that our banks were unreasonably and exploitatively imposing bank fees and charges on us, and now we have express confirmation from a man who functioned at the highest level of the banking fraternity!
This is Capitalism at its very worst! This is a business system based on the principle of plundering the enterprise and its customers or constituents for the sole purpose of delivering ever increasing "profits" to people whose only connection to the enterprise is that they hold pieces of paper (shares) that entitle them to be considered a part owner of the enterprise.
Now, if Barbados had a properly functioning democratic Parliamentary system, Mr Beale’s statement would have elicited howls of outrage from our members of Parliament, and the setting up of a Parliamentary committee to investigate the banks, and to develop appropriate measures to protect the Barbadian public.
Needless-to-say, there will be no such response from the ineffectual ‘political eunuchs’ of the two political parties that are popularly known as "Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Bum".
The Peoples Empowerment Party, on the other hand, publicly addressed this issue last year as a component of the PEP’s programme to tackle the recession. The exact quote from our party document entitled ‘Time To Make A Move!’ is as follows:-
"One of our strategies must be to save our people from the suffocating effect of burdensome debt and oppressively high interest rates.
At the present time, many thousands of working class and middle class Barbadians find themselves in a debt trap - ensnared by high and oppressive levels of bank debt, mortgage debt, automobile based finance company debt, and credit card debt. Generally speaking, the interest charged on credit in Barbados is way too high. For example, Barbadians routinely pay an astronomical 22 per cent per annum on their credit card debt!
It is clear therefore that our Government needs to come to the rescue of the Barbadian people by ensuring that the Minister of Finance, a public official elected by the people and therefore accountable to the people, has the power to intervene and to determine maximum limits on interest rates charged by banks and other financial institutions, across the board.
There is also scope for the Minister of Finance and/or the Central Bank of Barbados to engage with the banking sector in working out a national ‘Code of Conduct’ that will guide the behaviour and actions of banks in relation to their imposition of interest and other user charges on Barbadians during this period of national response to the intensifying recession.
The bottom-line is that effective measures must be taken to extricate Barbadians from the crushing mounds of personal and household debt that so many of them are now struggling under. And this must be seen as a national priority".
What a comical people we Barbadians are. We refuse visionaries and patriots admission to our House of Assembly, but open the doors wide for the bogus queens, kings and jacks of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle dum!
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
PEP DENOUNCES NEGATIVE POLITICS IN ST JOHN BY-ELECTION
We have said it before and we will say it again - the two major Barbadian political parties that began their existences in the 1930's and 50's as institutions for the liberation of oppressed Barbadians are now in danger of becoming instruments for the degradation of our people!
The ‘Peoples Empowerment Party’ first made this observation in the aftermath of the 2008 General Election as we reflected on the crude manner in which both parties had sought to buy votes and to reduce Barbadians, particularly our youth, to insensible beings who only respond to the stimuli of entertainment and material bribes.
Now the St John By-Election is proving that these two political parties are also in the process of degrading their own members, inclusive of their leaders.
Take the case of former Prime Minister Owen Arthur! If there was one sphere in which Mr Arthur had distinguished himself during his fourteen years as Prime Minister, it was in the arena of Caribbean integration - all over the region, Caribbean people came to respect Mr Arthur as, perhaps, the leading integrationist of his generation.
What a disgraceful spectacle it is therefore to witness Owen Arthur attacking Mrs Mara Thompson on the basis of her St Lucian birth! How low and politically degraded has Mr Arthur sunk with his xenophobic appeals to Barbadians to reject Mrs Thompson because she was born and raised in a sister Caribbean territory!
The PEP’s simple and blunt message to Mr Arthur and the BLP is:- "Stop it! Stop it, before you completely destroy your reputation and do irreparable damage to the Caribbean integration movement!"
Our party is also not impressed with Prime Minister Freundel Stuart’s persistent personal attacks on Mr Arthur! Unfortunately, Mr Stuart seems to have bought into the notion that our national politics centres around a little personal ‘beauty contest’ between himself and Owen Arthur. Since coming to office, Mr Stuart has wasted time with too many speeches about who "shines like a lighthouse"; who hates themselves; who is the loneliest man and the list goes on, when what is required is nothing less than the establishment, by deeds and words, of a new, widely shared, sense of mission for our nation.
The times are too critical for an opportunity to set the nation on a new path to be wasted in that manner! The PEP is alerting Mr Stuart that if he does not act quickly to distinguish himself from the politically decadent, highly mythologised David Thompson brand of leadership, he will be drawn in and become complicit in the process of national degradation that is already in train.
Our party is also deeply concerned about the disservice that both the DLP and BLP are doing to the good people of St John. Contrary to what is being suggested by their platform effusions, the people of St John are not a backward, simple-minded, helpless group who require a nanny (female or male) to look after them!
Some 23 years ago PEP President, David Comissiong, wrote a Nation Newspaper column in which he acknowledged the vibrancy and worth of the youth of St John and noted that "these young people have made it unmistakeably clear that they are ready, willing and able to play a fully active role in every conceivable area of our national life.......... they are also imbued with a strong sense of national identity.......... these rural youth are not the type whose greatest ambition is to catch the earliest 747 aeroplane to New York City".
That was the calibre of the young people that the late David Thompson "inherited" in 1987. What did he do to unleash and facilitate those pent up abilities?
Are Mara and Hudson capable of doing any better? What message do they have for the youth of St John and Barbados? What role do they see for themselves in helping Barbados to find a way out of the ideological, economic, spiritual and cultural quagmire that our country finds itself in?
These are the types of questions they must be required to answer!
The ‘Peoples Empowerment Party’ first made this observation in the aftermath of the 2008 General Election as we reflected on the crude manner in which both parties had sought to buy votes and to reduce Barbadians, particularly our youth, to insensible beings who only respond to the stimuli of entertainment and material bribes.
Now the St John By-Election is proving that these two political parties are also in the process of degrading their own members, inclusive of their leaders.
Take the case of former Prime Minister Owen Arthur! If there was one sphere in which Mr Arthur had distinguished himself during his fourteen years as Prime Minister, it was in the arena of Caribbean integration - all over the region, Caribbean people came to respect Mr Arthur as, perhaps, the leading integrationist of his generation.
What a disgraceful spectacle it is therefore to witness Owen Arthur attacking Mrs Mara Thompson on the basis of her St Lucian birth! How low and politically degraded has Mr Arthur sunk with his xenophobic appeals to Barbadians to reject Mrs Thompson because she was born and raised in a sister Caribbean territory!
The PEP’s simple and blunt message to Mr Arthur and the BLP is:- "Stop it! Stop it, before you completely destroy your reputation and do irreparable damage to the Caribbean integration movement!"
Our party is also not impressed with Prime Minister Freundel Stuart’s persistent personal attacks on Mr Arthur! Unfortunately, Mr Stuart seems to have bought into the notion that our national politics centres around a little personal ‘beauty contest’ between himself and Owen Arthur. Since coming to office, Mr Stuart has wasted time with too many speeches about who "shines like a lighthouse"; who hates themselves; who is the loneliest man and the list goes on, when what is required is nothing less than the establishment, by deeds and words, of a new, widely shared, sense of mission for our nation.
The times are too critical for an opportunity to set the nation on a new path to be wasted in that manner! The PEP is alerting Mr Stuart that if he does not act quickly to distinguish himself from the politically decadent, highly mythologised David Thompson brand of leadership, he will be drawn in and become complicit in the process of national degradation that is already in train.
Our party is also deeply concerned about the disservice that both the DLP and BLP are doing to the good people of St John. Contrary to what is being suggested by their platform effusions, the people of St John are not a backward, simple-minded, helpless group who require a nanny (female or male) to look after them!
Some 23 years ago PEP President, David Comissiong, wrote a Nation Newspaper column in which he acknowledged the vibrancy and worth of the youth of St John and noted that "these young people have made it unmistakeably clear that they are ready, willing and able to play a fully active role in every conceivable area of our national life.......... they are also imbued with a strong sense of national identity.......... these rural youth are not the type whose greatest ambition is to catch the earliest 747 aeroplane to New York City".
That was the calibre of the young people that the late David Thompson "inherited" in 1987. What did he do to unleash and facilitate those pent up abilities?
Are Mara and Hudson capable of doing any better? What message do they have for the youth of St John and Barbados? What role do they see for themselves in helping Barbados to find a way out of the ideological, economic, spiritual and cultural quagmire that our country finds itself in?
These are the types of questions they must be required to answer!
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
CRIME AND THE UNDER-DEVELOPMENT OF BARBADOS
No less than five young Barbadians were brutally murdered in the twelve day holiday period between the 22nd of December 2010 and the 2nd of January 2011 – supposedly a period of peace and goodwill.
The horror started three days before Christmas when young Roderick Jones and Christopher Charles literally stabbed each other to death, and continued with a 17 year old Barbadian teenager opening fire on a ZR van full of passengers and ending the life of Sheldon Taylor with a bullet.
We then proceeded to usher in our new year with the slaying of 29 year old Anderson Brathwaite in Cane Hill, St. George, and with the equally senseless and brutal shooting death of young Adrian Nervais at Sargeant’s Village, Christ Church.
Barbadians need to ponder long and hard on the significance of these cold, ugly and undeniable social facts!
The reality is that if the murder rate continues at such a pace for a whole year, we would rack up no less than 152 murders per annum. And this would be a per capita murder rate far in excess of Trinidad’s 500 per annum or Jamaica’s 1000 per annum!
These murders, coming in the wake of the horrific “Campus Trendz” mass homicide of September 3rd, 2010, in which the lives of six young Barbadian women were extinguished, should clearly tell us that something is fundamentally wrong in our country.
But if something is fundamentally wrong in our nation, why are we not hearing the voices of our official leaders – our Prime Minister, our Attorney-General, the leader of the Opposition, the Bishop of the Anglican Church, the head of the Christian Council, the chairman of our Private Sector Association and Congress of Trade Unions – addressing the sources and causes of the social disease and rallying Barbadians to mount a collective national response?
How is it that political parties and their functionaries can tell us that the major issue in the upcoming St .John By-Election will be the matter of the unfinished St. John Polyclinic, when Barbadian youth are murdering each other at an alarming rate? Does Hudson Griffith or Mara Thompson have anything at all to say on the issue of fratricidal violence and murder among the youth of Barbados?
Barbadians need to take their heads out of the sand and recognize that our nation has started to exhibit all of the social maladies associated with a society shaped by the value system and cultural imperatives of United States of America-based liberal Capitalism.
The self-centredness, the psychological alienation, the lack of human empathy, the breakdown of a sense of community, the contempt for persons who are considered to be weak or social failures, the seeming addiction to mindless entertainment, the consumerist life-style, the enjoyment of entertainment based on violence and sensation, the dissipation of belief in a spiritual dimension and in transcendental spiritual values, are all embedded in the social, cultural, business and governance structures that Barbados’ private and public sector establishment have either actively promoted or acquiesced in over the past quarter century.
We note that Mr. Darwin Dottin, our Commissioner of Police, has stated that the Police will be responding to the crime situation with a combination of “tough measures” and an intervention by the Ministry of Family.
We would just like to warn Commissioner Dottin that to date the Ministry of Family has not distinguished itself by demonstrating that it has any deep understanding of the predicament our society is in.
We would also like to remind him that for several years now our Peoples Empowerment Party (PEP) has been urging him to have the Royal Barbados Police Force stage a “National Consultation On Crime” through which the Police would seek to “ground” with our people in their communities, and to establish a greater rapport between grass-roots communities and the Police Force. We are confident that this approach will achieve much more success than the so-called “tough measures” that are being contemplated.
The bottom-line is that Barbados is facing a deeply rooted problem that goes to the very foundations of our society and nation. If it is to be solved, it will call for enlightened and informed leadership on the part of individuals and organizations that genuinely care about this country and its people.
The PEP is ready, willing and able to play its part in finding and implementing relevant solutions.
The horror started three days before Christmas when young Roderick Jones and Christopher Charles literally stabbed each other to death, and continued with a 17 year old Barbadian teenager opening fire on a ZR van full of passengers and ending the life of Sheldon Taylor with a bullet.
We then proceeded to usher in our new year with the slaying of 29 year old Anderson Brathwaite in Cane Hill, St. George, and with the equally senseless and brutal shooting death of young Adrian Nervais at Sargeant’s Village, Christ Church.
Barbadians need to ponder long and hard on the significance of these cold, ugly and undeniable social facts!
The reality is that if the murder rate continues at such a pace for a whole year, we would rack up no less than 152 murders per annum. And this would be a per capita murder rate far in excess of Trinidad’s 500 per annum or Jamaica’s 1000 per annum!
These murders, coming in the wake of the horrific “Campus Trendz” mass homicide of September 3rd, 2010, in which the lives of six young Barbadian women were extinguished, should clearly tell us that something is fundamentally wrong in our country.
But if something is fundamentally wrong in our nation, why are we not hearing the voices of our official leaders – our Prime Minister, our Attorney-General, the leader of the Opposition, the Bishop of the Anglican Church, the head of the Christian Council, the chairman of our Private Sector Association and Congress of Trade Unions – addressing the sources and causes of the social disease and rallying Barbadians to mount a collective national response?
How is it that political parties and their functionaries can tell us that the major issue in the upcoming St .John By-Election will be the matter of the unfinished St. John Polyclinic, when Barbadian youth are murdering each other at an alarming rate? Does Hudson Griffith or Mara Thompson have anything at all to say on the issue of fratricidal violence and murder among the youth of Barbados?
Barbadians need to take their heads out of the sand and recognize that our nation has started to exhibit all of the social maladies associated with a society shaped by the value system and cultural imperatives of United States of America-based liberal Capitalism.
The self-centredness, the psychological alienation, the lack of human empathy, the breakdown of a sense of community, the contempt for persons who are considered to be weak or social failures, the seeming addiction to mindless entertainment, the consumerist life-style, the enjoyment of entertainment based on violence and sensation, the dissipation of belief in a spiritual dimension and in transcendental spiritual values, are all embedded in the social, cultural, business and governance structures that Barbados’ private and public sector establishment have either actively promoted or acquiesced in over the past quarter century.
We note that Mr. Darwin Dottin, our Commissioner of Police, has stated that the Police will be responding to the crime situation with a combination of “tough measures” and an intervention by the Ministry of Family.
We would just like to warn Commissioner Dottin that to date the Ministry of Family has not distinguished itself by demonstrating that it has any deep understanding of the predicament our society is in.
We would also like to remind him that for several years now our Peoples Empowerment Party (PEP) has been urging him to have the Royal Barbados Police Force stage a “National Consultation On Crime” through which the Police would seek to “ground” with our people in their communities, and to establish a greater rapport between grass-roots communities and the Police Force. We are confident that this approach will achieve much more success than the so-called “tough measures” that are being contemplated.
The bottom-line is that Barbados is facing a deeply rooted problem that goes to the very foundations of our society and nation. If it is to be solved, it will call for enlightened and informed leadership on the part of individuals and organizations that genuinely care about this country and its people.
The PEP is ready, willing and able to play its part in finding and implementing relevant solutions.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
CHRISTMAS, COMISSIONG AND THE CHILDREN
This Christmas Column is dedicated to the memory of the late Rev. Vivian Comissiong, a veteran Minister of the Methodist Church of the Caribbean and the Americas, and a great son of our Caribbean Civilization.
Rev. Comissiong’s concept of God was that of the Heavenly Father - a Father of perfect goodness and love towards His earthly children. It is not surprising therefore that the "babe of Bethlehem" held a special place in his heart, and that he loved children - all children - and especially enjoyed the celebration of Christmas, which he regarded as the "Festival of the Child":-
"Tomorrow we celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Christ, who admonished the world to - "suffer the little children to come unto me, for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs." And yet, Christmas can be the cruelest time of year for many, many children!
The celebration of Christmas has come to be characterised by an excessive concentration on the commercial marketing of toys and other ‘goodies’, and the insistence that the commemoration of the birth of Jesus is centred around the giving and receiving of presents. And as a result, many of the children of the poor are devastated at Christmas time, as they witness a seemingly never-ending parade of toys and ‘goodies’ on their television screens and in the windows of department stores - toys and ‘goodies’ that are really for other children, and that they can only admire and wish for from afar.
Some of us have seen this scenario played out time and time again at Christmas - the little single parent child whose home is so wracked by poverty that ‘mummy’ simply cannot afford to buy the beautiful things in the store window.
And so, as we celebrate Christmas tomorrow, we should spare a thought for the poor children of our nation. Indeed there is no better time to seriously reflect on the welfare and well-being of our children, since Christmas - properly understood - is really the festival of the child. This is the perfect time therefore for us to give some thought to the duty that we owe to all the children of our nation, and more especially to the children of the poor!
The Peoples Empowerment Party (PEP), has always had a clear understanding that a set of duties is owed by society to the children of Barbados. These duties may be conceptualised as essential ‘foods’ for the bodies, intellects and souls of the nation’s children, and include the duty of respect; the duty to give our children a sense of a community and a culture that belongs to them; the duty to bestow upon them a significant role in society and a sense of accomplishment and importance; and the duty to convey to them a sense of the location of their lives in the scheme of eternity and a positive belief in the future.
Of course, the duty of respect implies and encompasses the duty to provide for the physical and material welfare of all of the children of our nation. All Barbadian children - regardless of the material wealth or social standing of their parents - must be properly fed, clothed, housed, educated and cared for medically - and our Government must ensure that this duty is fulfilled!
Let us all celebrate and mark this Christmas Festival with a collective resolution to orient our society towards the children and their future!"
Rev. Comissiong’s concept of God was that of the Heavenly Father - a Father of perfect goodness and love towards His earthly children. It is not surprising therefore that the "babe of Bethlehem" held a special place in his heart, and that he loved children - all children - and especially enjoyed the celebration of Christmas, which he regarded as the "Festival of the Child":-
"Tomorrow we celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Christ, who admonished the world to - "suffer the little children to come unto me, for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs." And yet, Christmas can be the cruelest time of year for many, many children!
The celebration of Christmas has come to be characterised by an excessive concentration on the commercial marketing of toys and other ‘goodies’, and the insistence that the commemoration of the birth of Jesus is centred around the giving and receiving of presents. And as a result, many of the children of the poor are devastated at Christmas time, as they witness a seemingly never-ending parade of toys and ‘goodies’ on their television screens and in the windows of department stores - toys and ‘goodies’ that are really for other children, and that they can only admire and wish for from afar.
Some of us have seen this scenario played out time and time again at Christmas - the little single parent child whose home is so wracked by poverty that ‘mummy’ simply cannot afford to buy the beautiful things in the store window.
And so, as we celebrate Christmas tomorrow, we should spare a thought for the poor children of our nation. Indeed there is no better time to seriously reflect on the welfare and well-being of our children, since Christmas - properly understood - is really the festival of the child. This is the perfect time therefore for us to give some thought to the duty that we owe to all the children of our nation, and more especially to the children of the poor!
The Peoples Empowerment Party (PEP), has always had a clear understanding that a set of duties is owed by society to the children of Barbados. These duties may be conceptualised as essential ‘foods’ for the bodies, intellects and souls of the nation’s children, and include the duty of respect; the duty to give our children a sense of a community and a culture that belongs to them; the duty to bestow upon them a significant role in society and a sense of accomplishment and importance; and the duty to convey to them a sense of the location of their lives in the scheme of eternity and a positive belief in the future.
Of course, the duty of respect implies and encompasses the duty to provide for the physical and material welfare of all of the children of our nation. All Barbadian children - regardless of the material wealth or social standing of their parents - must be properly fed, clothed, housed, educated and cared for medically - and our Government must ensure that this duty is fulfilled!
Let us all celebrate and mark this Christmas Festival with a collective resolution to orient our society towards the children and their future!"
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
PARTNERSHIPS FOR PROGRESS
At the very core of the plan to save our country from recession must be a strategy to re-energise production in Barbados’ agriculture, construction, manufacturing, tourism and international business sectors.
We have to start with the enterprises that currently exist in these crucial sectors of our economy, and bring to bear state sponsored initiatives that will lift them to higher levels of performance and cause them to multiply.
Firstly, there must be efforts by the governmental administration to establish a close and intimate ‘partnership’ between Government and these sectors - a ‘partnership’ in planning; a ‘partnership’ designed to literally invent comparative advantage for enterprises in these sectors by extending to them a wide range of incentives, priveleges, assistance and institutional support; and a ‘partnership’ in ensuring that the jointly constructed plans are carried out and actualized.
Secondly, there must be a governmental programme to make long term credit available at extremely low interest rates for productive investment in these sectors. Essentially, farmers, hoteliers and manufacturers must be able to secure loans for productive investment in their enterprises at nominal interest rates of 1 or 2 per cent per annum!
And when we speak about a ‘partnership’ we are contemplating a relationship that is much more profound than the ‘Social Partnership’ or than the Manufacturers Association meeting with the Minister of Finance and presenting him with a wish list two or three weeks before the annual Budget presentation!
Rather, we are talking about a process of intimate and institutionalized planning, in which the two parties routinely sit down together and work out in detail an expansionary and developmental strategy for each sector, undergirded by the deliberate and conscious use of the formidable power of the State.
In manufacturing, for example, we visualize a range of enhanced possibilities for Barbadian manufacturers in such fields as garments, furniture, metal fabrication, food and beverages, office equipment, scientific and medical instruments, solar technology, pharmaceuticals and plastic goods, provided the state plays a leading role in encouraging, directing and supporting the relevant initiatives!
Outlines of the prospects in agriculture, tourism and construction, may be found in the PEP’s 2008 election manifesto, and they all hinge upon a process of joint planning and the articulation of state support and power.
We now turn our attention to a possible source of financial resources to be used by the Government in providing long term credit at nominal interest rates.
The most obvious source is Venezuela’s "Petro Caribe Energy Cooperation Agreement’. If Barbados was to participate in and to purchase its petroleum supplies under this arrangement, we could convert almost one-half of our annual petroleum expenditures into a 25 year loan at a nominal interest rate of 1 per cent per annum. Our Government would therefore be in a position to utilize this deferred expenditure by using the freed up funds to make sound long term loans to local farmers, manufacturers and hoteliers at a similarly low interest rate.
Once the loans made by Government are sound loans which will be repaid to the Treasury over a period of years, there will be no danger of a national accumulation of debt!
Furthermore, overarching the ‘Petro Caribe’ agreement is the hemisphere-wide project known as the ‘Bolivarian Alternative For Latin America & the Caribbean’ (ALBA) with its emphasis on developmental cooperation and funding. Surely, Barbados needs to be a member of ALBA, and to utilize ALBA based resources to benefit our farmers, manufacturers and hoteliers.
We have to start with the enterprises that currently exist in these crucial sectors of our economy, and bring to bear state sponsored initiatives that will lift them to higher levels of performance and cause them to multiply.
Firstly, there must be efforts by the governmental administration to establish a close and intimate ‘partnership’ between Government and these sectors - a ‘partnership’ in planning; a ‘partnership’ designed to literally invent comparative advantage for enterprises in these sectors by extending to them a wide range of incentives, priveleges, assistance and institutional support; and a ‘partnership’ in ensuring that the jointly constructed plans are carried out and actualized.
Secondly, there must be a governmental programme to make long term credit available at extremely low interest rates for productive investment in these sectors. Essentially, farmers, hoteliers and manufacturers must be able to secure loans for productive investment in their enterprises at nominal interest rates of 1 or 2 per cent per annum!
And when we speak about a ‘partnership’ we are contemplating a relationship that is much more profound than the ‘Social Partnership’ or than the Manufacturers Association meeting with the Minister of Finance and presenting him with a wish list two or three weeks before the annual Budget presentation!
Rather, we are talking about a process of intimate and institutionalized planning, in which the two parties routinely sit down together and work out in detail an expansionary and developmental strategy for each sector, undergirded by the deliberate and conscious use of the formidable power of the State.
In manufacturing, for example, we visualize a range of enhanced possibilities for Barbadian manufacturers in such fields as garments, furniture, metal fabrication, food and beverages, office equipment, scientific and medical instruments, solar technology, pharmaceuticals and plastic goods, provided the state plays a leading role in encouraging, directing and supporting the relevant initiatives!
Outlines of the prospects in agriculture, tourism and construction, may be found in the PEP’s 2008 election manifesto, and they all hinge upon a process of joint planning and the articulation of state support and power.
We now turn our attention to a possible source of financial resources to be used by the Government in providing long term credit at nominal interest rates.
The most obvious source is Venezuela’s "Petro Caribe Energy Cooperation Agreement’. If Barbados was to participate in and to purchase its petroleum supplies under this arrangement, we could convert almost one-half of our annual petroleum expenditures into a 25 year loan at a nominal interest rate of 1 per cent per annum. Our Government would therefore be in a position to utilize this deferred expenditure by using the freed up funds to make sound long term loans to local farmers, manufacturers and hoteliers at a similarly low interest rate.
Once the loans made by Government are sound loans which will be repaid to the Treasury over a period of years, there will be no danger of a national accumulation of debt!
Furthermore, overarching the ‘Petro Caribe’ agreement is the hemisphere-wide project known as the ‘Bolivarian Alternative For Latin America & the Caribbean’ (ALBA) with its emphasis on developmental cooperation and funding. Surely, Barbados needs to be a member of ALBA, and to utilize ALBA based resources to benefit our farmers, manufacturers and hoteliers.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
PEP’S RESPONSE TO THE BUDGET
Yesterday, the Democratic Labour Party administration and their new Minister of Finance forgot that Barbados is a society and not merely an economy!
More particularly, they forgot that poor people are human beings too, and are subject to the same material needs and aspirations as the upper middle class and wealthy of our society.
Furthermore, they forgot that the dominant organising principle of modern civilization is "democracy", with its emphasis on engineering a gradual equalisation in economic enjoyments across social class lines.
We are convinced that they ‘forgot’ all of these fundamental principles because how else can one rationalize a Budget that makes virtually no effort to require the wealthy and comfortable members of society to bear the burden of fiscal adjustment, but instead places the burden squarely on the backs of the large mass of working-class Barbadians.
There are tens of thousands of poor, working-class Barbadians who are barely surviving on wages of less than $300.00 per week and minimum pensions of less than $160.00 per week. And yet, Mr Sinckler and his colleagues now expect them to bear the additional burden of a 2.5 per cent increase in VAT, a one-third increase in bus fares, and an increase in gasoline prices that will bring in its wake an additional across-the-board inflation in local consumer prices.
In the DLP’s new vision of Barbados they apparently see no difficulty in asking a Barbadian earning $160.00 per week and a Barbadian earning $1,600.00 per week to bear the same additional financial burdens!
Indeed, not even advanced age seems to make a difference any more, for they have now decided that impoverished old age pensioners suffering from chronic and other diseases will henceforth be required to pay substantial sums of money for their medication. Either that, or they will have to find the taxi fare, bus fare, time, strength and effort to make their way to one of the few and far between government dispensaries to get their on going medication. Surely, Mr Sinckler must know that this will prove to be extremely difficult if not impossible for many poor, elderly Barbadians who now find it difficult enough to make their way to the private neighbourhood pharmacy!
The fundamental point that the Peoples Empowerment Party wishes to make is that if additional tax revenue had to be raised, then the first place to go for such revenue should have been the wealthy and comfortable sectors of the society.
Some three weeks ago we issued a Press Release in which we advised as follows:-
"The sectors that must be asked to bear the increased tax burden must be the wealthy and the big corporate sector.
Indeed, what we would simply need to do is to roll back a portion of the tax cuts that former Prime Minister Owen Arthur gave to the wealthy and to the corporate sector during his 14 year reign.
We refer to Mr Arthur’s 1995 "Group Tax Relief" which permitted tax losses incurred by a company that was a member of a group of companies to be set off against the taxable income of other members of the group. We also refer to the reduction of Corporation Tax from 40 per cent to 25 per cent, the reduction of income tax on the wealthy from 25 per cent to 20 per cent, the 35 to 60 per cent reduction of income tax on personnel employed in International Business companies, and to the removal or reduction of taxes on yachts, marinas and luxury cars.
The wealthy individuals and corporations that benefitted from these "Owen Arthur tax cuts" must now be called upon to give back some of this wealth, in the national interest!"
This would have been the correct place to start. Unfortunately, it does not seem that Mr Sinckler even gave any thought to this option.
The late Errol Barrow and the old DLP understood the concept of "progressive taxation" under which the wealthy is required to bear the brunt of the burden, and the concept of "regressive taxation" under which the poor masses bear the brunt. Sadly, it seems that Mr Sinckler and the current DLP have forgotten the concept of "progressive taxation".
More particularly, they forgot that poor people are human beings too, and are subject to the same material needs and aspirations as the upper middle class and wealthy of our society.
Furthermore, they forgot that the dominant organising principle of modern civilization is "democracy", with its emphasis on engineering a gradual equalisation in economic enjoyments across social class lines.
We are convinced that they ‘forgot’ all of these fundamental principles because how else can one rationalize a Budget that makes virtually no effort to require the wealthy and comfortable members of society to bear the burden of fiscal adjustment, but instead places the burden squarely on the backs of the large mass of working-class Barbadians.
There are tens of thousands of poor, working-class Barbadians who are barely surviving on wages of less than $300.00 per week and minimum pensions of less than $160.00 per week. And yet, Mr Sinckler and his colleagues now expect them to bear the additional burden of a 2.5 per cent increase in VAT, a one-third increase in bus fares, and an increase in gasoline prices that will bring in its wake an additional across-the-board inflation in local consumer prices.
In the DLP’s new vision of Barbados they apparently see no difficulty in asking a Barbadian earning $160.00 per week and a Barbadian earning $1,600.00 per week to bear the same additional financial burdens!
Indeed, not even advanced age seems to make a difference any more, for they have now decided that impoverished old age pensioners suffering from chronic and other diseases will henceforth be required to pay substantial sums of money for their medication. Either that, or they will have to find the taxi fare, bus fare, time, strength and effort to make their way to one of the few and far between government dispensaries to get their on going medication. Surely, Mr Sinckler must know that this will prove to be extremely difficult if not impossible for many poor, elderly Barbadians who now find it difficult enough to make their way to the private neighbourhood pharmacy!
The fundamental point that the Peoples Empowerment Party wishes to make is that if additional tax revenue had to be raised, then the first place to go for such revenue should have been the wealthy and comfortable sectors of the society.
Some three weeks ago we issued a Press Release in which we advised as follows:-
"The sectors that must be asked to bear the increased tax burden must be the wealthy and the big corporate sector.
Indeed, what we would simply need to do is to roll back a portion of the tax cuts that former Prime Minister Owen Arthur gave to the wealthy and to the corporate sector during his 14 year reign.
We refer to Mr Arthur’s 1995 "Group Tax Relief" which permitted tax losses incurred by a company that was a member of a group of companies to be set off against the taxable income of other members of the group. We also refer to the reduction of Corporation Tax from 40 per cent to 25 per cent, the reduction of income tax on the wealthy from 25 per cent to 20 per cent, the 35 to 60 per cent reduction of income tax on personnel employed in International Business companies, and to the removal or reduction of taxes on yachts, marinas and luxury cars.
The wealthy individuals and corporations that benefitted from these "Owen Arthur tax cuts" must now be called upon to give back some of this wealth, in the national interest!"
This would have been the correct place to start. Unfortunately, it does not seem that Mr Sinckler even gave any thought to this option.
The late Errol Barrow and the old DLP understood the concept of "progressive taxation" under which the wealthy is required to bear the brunt of the burden, and the concept of "regressive taxation" under which the poor masses bear the brunt. Sadly, it seems that Mr Sinckler and the current DLP have forgotten the concept of "progressive taxation".
SAVING BARBADOS FROM RECESSION (PART 5)
At the very core of the plan to save our country from recession must be a strategy to re-energise production in Barbados’ agriculture, construction, manufacturing and tourism sectors!
It goes without saying that we have to be realistic and practical, and that we must therefore start with the enterprises and production capacity that currently exist in these four crucial sectors of our economy, and bring to bear state sponsored initiatives that will lift them to higher levels of performance and cause them to multiply.
The state sponsored initiatives that we have in mind fit into two broad categories.
The first category would consist of efforts by the governmental administration to establish a close and intimate ‘partnership’ between Government and these four sectors - a ‘partnership’ in planning; a ‘partnership’ designed to literally invent comparative advantage for enterprises in these four sectors by extending to them a wide range of incentives, priveleges, assistance and institutional support; and a ‘partnership’ in ensuring that the plans jointly constructed by Government and the representatives of these sectors are carried out and actualized.
The second category would consist of a governmental programme to make available long term credit at extremely low interest rates for productive investment in agriculture, manufacturing, tourism and construction. Essentially, we are talking about farmers, hoteliers and manufacturers being able to secure loans for productive investment in their enterprises at nominal interest rates of 1 or 2 per cent per annum!
When we speak about a ‘partnership’ between Government and these four sectors of the economy we are contemplating a relationship that is much more profound and intimate than the Social Partnership or than the manufacturers association or the Chamber of Commerce meeting with the Minister of Finance and presenting him with a wish list two or three weeks before the annual Budget presentation!
Rather, we are talking about a process of intimate and institutionalized planning, in which the two parties routinely sit down together and work out in detail an expansionary and developmental strategy for each sector, undergirded by the deliberate and conscious use of the formidable power of the State.
In the Peoples Empowerment Party’s 2008 general election manifesto we provided brief sketches of the developmental prospects that exist in these four productive sectors of our economy. In manufacturing, for example, we visualized a range of possibilities for Barbadian manufacturers in such fields as garments, furniture, metal fabrication, food and beverages, office equipment, scientific and medical instruments, solar technology, pharmaceuticals and plastic goods, provided the state played a leading role in encouraging, directing and supporting the relevant initiatives.
Limitations of space would not permit us to provide similar outlines of the prospects in agriculture, tourism and construction, but these details may be found in the PEP's 2008 election manifesto, and they all hinge upon a process of joint planning and the articulation of state support and power.
We now turn our attention to a possible source of financial resources to be used by the Government in providing long term credit at nominal interest rates.
The most obvious source is Venezuela’s ‘Petro Caribe Energy Cooperation Agreement’. If Barbados was to participate in and to purchase its petroleum supplies under this arrangement, we could convert almost one-half of our annual petroleum expenditures into a 25 year loan at a nominal interest rate of 1 per cent per annum. Our Government would therefore be in a position to utilize this deferred expenditure by using the freed up funds to make sound long term loans to local farmers, manufacturers and hoteliers at a similarly low interest rate.
Once the loans made by Government are sound loans which will be repaid to the Treasury over a period of years, there will be no danger of a national accumulation of debt!
This helpful Venezuelan offer has been available to us since 2005 and we have failed to take it up. If it is that we do not intend to shift our petroleum purchases from Trinidad & Tobago, then we should at least be pressing Trinidad & Tobago to extend similarly attractive credit arrangements to us!
With such planning and credit provision mechanisms in place, Barbados would be in a position to forge ahead with such new developmental initiatives as:-
(1) Substantial investment in collectively owned national agro-processing facilities designed to exploit the commercial and export potential of our locally produced ground provisions, fruit, vegetables and fish;
(2) A new thrust in "Cultural Tourism’, centred on properly developed locally owned hotels and guest houses that radiate the unique culture and hospitality of Barbados and Barbadians;
(3) A major investment in the retooling of our manufacturing sector, and the provision of critical international market research services for export oriented enterprises.
(4) A major ‘national’ lower income housing construction and urban renewal programme that pulls together and synergizes inputs from the Ministry of Housing, National Housing Corporation, National Insurance Scheme, the Credit Unions, Churches, Mutual Funds, Insurance companies, the trade unions and building contractors.
(5) The facilitation of the overseas expansion of Barbadian companies that possess the potential to spread their wings beyond the confines of our island nation.
It goes without saying that we have to be realistic and practical, and that we must therefore start with the enterprises and production capacity that currently exist in these four crucial sectors of our economy, and bring to bear state sponsored initiatives that will lift them to higher levels of performance and cause them to multiply.
The state sponsored initiatives that we have in mind fit into two broad categories.
The first category would consist of efforts by the governmental administration to establish a close and intimate ‘partnership’ between Government and these four sectors - a ‘partnership’ in planning; a ‘partnership’ designed to literally invent comparative advantage for enterprises in these four sectors by extending to them a wide range of incentives, priveleges, assistance and institutional support; and a ‘partnership’ in ensuring that the plans jointly constructed by Government and the representatives of these sectors are carried out and actualized.
The second category would consist of a governmental programme to make available long term credit at extremely low interest rates for productive investment in agriculture, manufacturing, tourism and construction. Essentially, we are talking about farmers, hoteliers and manufacturers being able to secure loans for productive investment in their enterprises at nominal interest rates of 1 or 2 per cent per annum!
When we speak about a ‘partnership’ between Government and these four sectors of the economy we are contemplating a relationship that is much more profound and intimate than the Social Partnership or than the manufacturers association or the Chamber of Commerce meeting with the Minister of Finance and presenting him with a wish list two or three weeks before the annual Budget presentation!
Rather, we are talking about a process of intimate and institutionalized planning, in which the two parties routinely sit down together and work out in detail an expansionary and developmental strategy for each sector, undergirded by the deliberate and conscious use of the formidable power of the State.
In the Peoples Empowerment Party’s 2008 general election manifesto we provided brief sketches of the developmental prospects that exist in these four productive sectors of our economy. In manufacturing, for example, we visualized a range of possibilities for Barbadian manufacturers in such fields as garments, furniture, metal fabrication, food and beverages, office equipment, scientific and medical instruments, solar technology, pharmaceuticals and plastic goods, provided the state played a leading role in encouraging, directing and supporting the relevant initiatives.
Limitations of space would not permit us to provide similar outlines of the prospects in agriculture, tourism and construction, but these details may be found in the PEP's 2008 election manifesto, and they all hinge upon a process of joint planning and the articulation of state support and power.
We now turn our attention to a possible source of financial resources to be used by the Government in providing long term credit at nominal interest rates.
The most obvious source is Venezuela’s ‘Petro Caribe Energy Cooperation Agreement’. If Barbados was to participate in and to purchase its petroleum supplies under this arrangement, we could convert almost one-half of our annual petroleum expenditures into a 25 year loan at a nominal interest rate of 1 per cent per annum. Our Government would therefore be in a position to utilize this deferred expenditure by using the freed up funds to make sound long term loans to local farmers, manufacturers and hoteliers at a similarly low interest rate.
Once the loans made by Government are sound loans which will be repaid to the Treasury over a period of years, there will be no danger of a national accumulation of debt!
This helpful Venezuelan offer has been available to us since 2005 and we have failed to take it up. If it is that we do not intend to shift our petroleum purchases from Trinidad & Tobago, then we should at least be pressing Trinidad & Tobago to extend similarly attractive credit arrangements to us!
With such planning and credit provision mechanisms in place, Barbados would be in a position to forge ahead with such new developmental initiatives as:-
(1) Substantial investment in collectively owned national agro-processing facilities designed to exploit the commercial and export potential of our locally produced ground provisions, fruit, vegetables and fish;
(2) A new thrust in "Cultural Tourism’, centred on properly developed locally owned hotels and guest houses that radiate the unique culture and hospitality of Barbados and Barbadians;
(3) A major investment in the retooling of our manufacturing sector, and the provision of critical international market research services for export oriented enterprises.
(4) A major ‘national’ lower income housing construction and urban renewal programme that pulls together and synergizes inputs from the Ministry of Housing, National Housing Corporation, National Insurance Scheme, the Credit Unions, Churches, Mutual Funds, Insurance companies, the trade unions and building contractors.
(5) The facilitation of the overseas expansion of Barbadian companies that possess the potential to spread their wings beyond the confines of our island nation.
SAVING BARBADOS FROM RECESSION (PART 4)
Our "Rescue Plan" to save Barbados from recession began with proposals for absolutely essential measures to re-establish the soundness of the finances of our Government and to restore the purchasing power of the Barbadian people.
But even while this foundation of financial reforms is being put in place, our Government must bestir itself and come to the assistance of citizens who are facing unemployment or are otherwise in poverty and distress!
To begin with, our Government must commit itself to preserving and maintaining all of our nation’s existing welfare services and programmes! And of course, this is no mere academic matter. Our new Minister of Finance will shortly be delivering his first Budget presentation, and we are therefore publicly calling on him not to touch Government’s existing welfare programmes! If cuts are to be made to the national budget, let them be made elsewhere!
We Barbadians must insist on Barbados being a ‘civilized’ society. And in a civilized society, when economic conditions become difficult, the poor and destitute are not abandoned! In fact, it is precisely in such difficult times that Government must show its true worth as the principal defender of the ‘general welfare’ of the people.
The services and programmes that we consider to be absolutely sacrosanct are as follows - the Welfare Department, National Assistance Board, National Disabilities Unit, Barbados Council for the Disabled, the Child Care Board, Poverty Alleviation Bureau, National Drug Service, the Geriatric and District Hospitals, National HIV/AIDS Commission, Children’s Development Centre and the School Meals Department. All together, these agencies and programmes comprise approximately $180 million out of Government’s total estimated expenditure of $3.6 Billion for fiscal year 2009 - 10, an extremely modest proportion indeed.
But preserving the funding of these essential welfare services is not all that is demanded of Mr Sinckler and the current Democratic Labour Party administration. They must also go on to establish a public works programme that will come to the rescue of the rising number of unemployed Barbadians!
The specific public works programme that we have in mind is an environmental programme directed towards dealing with such pressing environmental issues as flooding and soil and beach erosion. We envisage a number of labour intensive projects devoted to creating new drainage infrastructure, re-establishing critical suck wells and protective vegetation cover, as well as a variety of beach and reef protection measures. And needless-to-say the persons to be employed in this public works programme would be drawn primarily from the ranks of the currently unemployed.
But where, you may ask, is the funding to come from? Well, we believe that the Barbados Government can access international grant funding for such an environmental protection project under the broad international "global warming and climate change agenda".
Left to us, we would bring together the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Environment & Drainage and put them to work on accessing international funding for Barbados from such entities as the ‘Global Environmental Fund’ established under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Control.
Of course, the argument to be made is that as a low lying small island Caribbean state vulnerable to the effects of global warming and climate change, Barbados needs to proactively strengthen its environmental defences.
But, of course, not only will we be addressing a genuine environmental problem, we will also be combating unemployment and alleviating human distress, as part of a comprehensive strategy to save Barbados from recession.
But even while this foundation of financial reforms is being put in place, our Government must bestir itself and come to the assistance of citizens who are facing unemployment or are otherwise in poverty and distress!
To begin with, our Government must commit itself to preserving and maintaining all of our nation’s existing welfare services and programmes! And of course, this is no mere academic matter. Our new Minister of Finance will shortly be delivering his first Budget presentation, and we are therefore publicly calling on him not to touch Government’s existing welfare programmes! If cuts are to be made to the national budget, let them be made elsewhere!
We Barbadians must insist on Barbados being a ‘civilized’ society. And in a civilized society, when economic conditions become difficult, the poor and destitute are not abandoned! In fact, it is precisely in such difficult times that Government must show its true worth as the principal defender of the ‘general welfare’ of the people.
The services and programmes that we consider to be absolutely sacrosanct are as follows - the Welfare Department, National Assistance Board, National Disabilities Unit, Barbados Council for the Disabled, the Child Care Board, Poverty Alleviation Bureau, National Drug Service, the Geriatric and District Hospitals, National HIV/AIDS Commission, Children’s Development Centre and the School Meals Department. All together, these agencies and programmes comprise approximately $180 million out of Government’s total estimated expenditure of $3.6 Billion for fiscal year 2009 - 10, an extremely modest proportion indeed.
But preserving the funding of these essential welfare services is not all that is demanded of Mr Sinckler and the current Democratic Labour Party administration. They must also go on to establish a public works programme that will come to the rescue of the rising number of unemployed Barbadians!
The specific public works programme that we have in mind is an environmental programme directed towards dealing with such pressing environmental issues as flooding and soil and beach erosion. We envisage a number of labour intensive projects devoted to creating new drainage infrastructure, re-establishing critical suck wells and protective vegetation cover, as well as a variety of beach and reef protection measures. And needless-to-say the persons to be employed in this public works programme would be drawn primarily from the ranks of the currently unemployed.
But where, you may ask, is the funding to come from? Well, we believe that the Barbados Government can access international grant funding for such an environmental protection project under the broad international "global warming and climate change agenda".
Left to us, we would bring together the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Environment & Drainage and put them to work on accessing international funding for Barbados from such entities as the ‘Global Environmental Fund’ established under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Control.
Of course, the argument to be made is that as a low lying small island Caribbean state vulnerable to the effects of global warming and climate change, Barbados needs to proactively strengthen its environmental defences.
But, of course, not only will we be addressing a genuine environmental problem, we will also be combating unemployment and alleviating human distress, as part of a comprehensive strategy to save Barbados from recession.
SAVING BARBADOS FROM RECESSION (PART 3)
The "Rescue Plan" to save Barbados from recession and to lift the stagnant economy out of the doldrums begins with the re-establishment of the soundness of the finances of our Government. But once we have taken those measures we must then move with haste to deal with that part of the problem that concerns the finances and credit of the tens of thousands of ordinary citizens!
The mission that we must set out to accomplish is to restore the purchasing power and the confidence of the masses of our people, so that they can once again engage in commercial activity and socially useful consumer spending at a level that will set the internal machinery of our economy humming.
One of our strategies must be to save our people from the suffocating effect of burdensome debt and oppressively high interest rates. And a second strategy must be to clear away the encumbrances that are inhibiting socially useful spending.
At the present time, many thousands of working class and middle class Barbadians find themselves in a debt trap - ensnared by high and oppressive levels of bank debt, mortgage debt, automobile based finance company debt, and credit card debt.
Generally speaking, the interest charged on credit in Barbados is way too high. For example, Barbadians routinely pay an astronomical 22 per cent per annum on their credit card debt!
We are convinced that a significant proportion of the drying up of discretionary consumer spending by the Barbadian people is tied to the level of indebtedness that they currently find themselves in, and the high interest rates that they are forced to bear.
It is clear therefore that our Government needs to come to the rescue of the Barbadian people by ensuring that the Minister of Finance, a public official elected by the people and therefore accountable to the people, has the power to intervene and to determine maximum limits on interest rates charged by banks and other financial institutions, across the board. Clearly, this is not a matter that can be left up to so-called "market forces"! And in any event, in Barbados, "market forces" usually amounts to three or four large entities coming together to agree things among themselves.
Our Government also needs to exert itself to do more - much more - to save Barbadian consumers from an unnaturally high cost of living inflicted upon them by an oligopolistic elite merchant class that has a 300 year old record of price gouging.
The present governmental administration has made many vain promises on this matter. Surely, the time has now come for serious action based on a combination of price controls and direct governmental involvement in the importation of some strategically important consumer items. We must act now to increase the power of the currency in the hand of the consumer by reducing the overall level of prices!
Government must also act now to come to come to the assistance of micro businesses in the working-class sector of the economy - corner shops, mini-marts, seamstresses, wayside vendors, and the list goes on.
Many of these small working-class entrepreneurs have experienced a significant decline in sales. Of course, there are many reasons for this, but a major reason that is overlooked is that tens of thousands of Barbadians have diverted their discretionary spending away from these working-class businesses towards Lotto tickets, other forms of gambling and cell phones! Literally millions of dollars that would otherwise have been spent with the community corner shop, are now ploughed into gambling and cell phones by working-class Barbadians, on a weekly basis.
We therefore say - moderate cell phone use and impose an outright ban on gambling in Barbados, and permit this discretionary consumer spending to revert back to more socially useful purposes!
We also recommend that financial resources be freed up by adopting Muhammad Nassar’s often repeated proposal that Government off set the delay that small business persons routinely experience in receiving payment of State funds owed to them, by issuing Government backed guarantee certificates that the small businessman can take to the bank and exchange for cash or use as security for credit.
The mission that we must set out to accomplish is to restore the purchasing power and the confidence of the masses of our people, so that they can once again engage in commercial activity and socially useful consumer spending at a level that will set the internal machinery of our economy humming.
One of our strategies must be to save our people from the suffocating effect of burdensome debt and oppressively high interest rates. And a second strategy must be to clear away the encumbrances that are inhibiting socially useful spending.
At the present time, many thousands of working class and middle class Barbadians find themselves in a debt trap - ensnared by high and oppressive levels of bank debt, mortgage debt, automobile based finance company debt, and credit card debt.
Generally speaking, the interest charged on credit in Barbados is way too high. For example, Barbadians routinely pay an astronomical 22 per cent per annum on their credit card debt!
We are convinced that a significant proportion of the drying up of discretionary consumer spending by the Barbadian people is tied to the level of indebtedness that they currently find themselves in, and the high interest rates that they are forced to bear.
It is clear therefore that our Government needs to come to the rescue of the Barbadian people by ensuring that the Minister of Finance, a public official elected by the people and therefore accountable to the people, has the power to intervene and to determine maximum limits on interest rates charged by banks and other financial institutions, across the board. Clearly, this is not a matter that can be left up to so-called "market forces"! And in any event, in Barbados, "market forces" usually amounts to three or four large entities coming together to agree things among themselves.
Our Government also needs to exert itself to do more - much more - to save Barbadian consumers from an unnaturally high cost of living inflicted upon them by an oligopolistic elite merchant class that has a 300 year old record of price gouging.
The present governmental administration has made many vain promises on this matter. Surely, the time has now come for serious action based on a combination of price controls and direct governmental involvement in the importation of some strategically important consumer items. We must act now to increase the power of the currency in the hand of the consumer by reducing the overall level of prices!
Government must also act now to come to come to the assistance of micro businesses in the working-class sector of the economy - corner shops, mini-marts, seamstresses, wayside vendors, and the list goes on.
Many of these small working-class entrepreneurs have experienced a significant decline in sales. Of course, there are many reasons for this, but a major reason that is overlooked is that tens of thousands of Barbadians have diverted their discretionary spending away from these working-class businesses towards Lotto tickets, other forms of gambling and cell phones! Literally millions of dollars that would otherwise have been spent with the community corner shop, are now ploughed into gambling and cell phones by working-class Barbadians, on a weekly basis.
We therefore say - moderate cell phone use and impose an outright ban on gambling in Barbados, and permit this discretionary consumer spending to revert back to more socially useful purposes!
We also recommend that financial resources be freed up by adopting Muhammad Nassar’s often repeated proposal that Government off set the delay that small business persons routinely experience in receiving payment of State funds owed to them, by issuing Government backed guarantee certificates that the small businessman can take to the bank and exchange for cash or use as security for credit.
SAVING BARBADOS FROM RECESSION (PART 2)
The foundation upon which any national effort to lift Barbados out of recession must be built iS the re-establishment of the soundness of the finances and credit of our Government!
Make no mistake about it, the institution known as "Government" has to take the lead in addressing the recession and bringing the nation out of the economic doldrums. Simply put, our government has to lead, and the private sector and the people will follow!
However, if Government is to be able to provide such leadership, Government must begin by re-structuring and strengthening its own finances and credit, because without that no real leadership is possible.
A Government whose finances are in disarray will simply not be in a position to go on to tackle the other aspects of the rescue plan such as restoring the purchasing power of the Barbadian people, securing welfare services, providing employment in essential public works projects, and re-energising the major productive sectors of the economy.
The fundamental problem we are facing with Government’s finances is that for several years now our government has not been living within its income. And this fact, along with the recent decline in Government’s tax intake caused by the recession, has created a $500 million annual structural deficit in Government’s finances.
Over the past year or so, concrete evidence of a cancerous structural deficit in Barbados’ traditional Government budget has emerged. Indeed, compelling evidence of a structural 10 per cent decline in our Government’s annual tax intake has manifested itself, in tandem with a naturally increasing expenditure bill.
The immediate task therefore must be to bring our Government’s annual regular or recurrent expenditures within the limits of Government’s annual income. And this must be done even in a situation where Government, in dealing with a recessionary situation, may actually need to be borrowing and spending many millions of dollars to energize economic growth and development in the country.
So what we are proposing is the seeming paradoxical situation of Government rigorously tailoring its regular or recurrent expenditure to fit within its annual income, while at the same time borrowing and spending in an effort to energize and build the economy.
Of course, the key to this is that the great majority of this emergency money or capital resources that is borrowed and spent must be paid out by Government in the form of sound loans which will be repaid to the Treasury over a period of years. In addition, if any such borrowed funds don’t fit the criteria of "sound loans" then Government must ensure that they are covered by new taxes that will take care of repayment of the interest and the periodic instalments!
Now to the most critical issue - how can the Barbados Government go about closing a $500 million gap between its annual recurrent expenditure and its annual income?
Well, the most painless place to start would be with a rationalization of existing Government departments, projects and programmes, with a view to cutting down duplication, inefficiencies and non-essential spending. An effort also has to be made to restructure the management of the statutory corporations, with a view to making them more efficient and less costly to finance.
But when all efforts at rationalization and restructuring are exhausted, it may still become necessary to increase Government’s tax intake. And if this becomes necessary, the sectors that must be asked to bear the increased tax burden must be the wealthy and the big corporate sector!
Indeed, what we would simply need to do is to roll back a portion of the tax cuts that former Prime Minister Owen Arthur gave to the wealthy and to the corporate sector during his 14 year reign.
We refer to Mr Arthur’s 1995 "Group Tax Relief" which permitted tax losses incurred by a company that was a member of a group of companies to be set off against the taxable income of other members of the group. We also refer to the reduction of Corporation Tax from 40 per cent to 25 per cent, the reduction of income tax on the wealthy from 25 per cent to 20 per cent, the 35 to 60 per cent reduction of income tax on personnel employed in International Business companies, and to the removal or reduction of taxes on yachts, marinas and luxury cars.
The wealthy individuals and corporations that benefitted from these "Owen Arthur tax cuts", must now be called upon to give back some of this wealth, in the national interest!
Make no mistake about it, the institution known as "Government" has to take the lead in addressing the recession and bringing the nation out of the economic doldrums. Simply put, our government has to lead, and the private sector and the people will follow!
However, if Government is to be able to provide such leadership, Government must begin by re-structuring and strengthening its own finances and credit, because without that no real leadership is possible.
A Government whose finances are in disarray will simply not be in a position to go on to tackle the other aspects of the rescue plan such as restoring the purchasing power of the Barbadian people, securing welfare services, providing employment in essential public works projects, and re-energising the major productive sectors of the economy.
The fundamental problem we are facing with Government’s finances is that for several years now our government has not been living within its income. And this fact, along with the recent decline in Government’s tax intake caused by the recession, has created a $500 million annual structural deficit in Government’s finances.
Over the past year or so, concrete evidence of a cancerous structural deficit in Barbados’ traditional Government budget has emerged. Indeed, compelling evidence of a structural 10 per cent decline in our Government’s annual tax intake has manifested itself, in tandem with a naturally increasing expenditure bill.
The immediate task therefore must be to bring our Government’s annual regular or recurrent expenditures within the limits of Government’s annual income. And this must be done even in a situation where Government, in dealing with a recessionary situation, may actually need to be borrowing and spending many millions of dollars to energize economic growth and development in the country.
So what we are proposing is the seeming paradoxical situation of Government rigorously tailoring its regular or recurrent expenditure to fit within its annual income, while at the same time borrowing and spending in an effort to energize and build the economy.
Of course, the key to this is that the great majority of this emergency money or capital resources that is borrowed and spent must be paid out by Government in the form of sound loans which will be repaid to the Treasury over a period of years. In addition, if any such borrowed funds don’t fit the criteria of "sound loans" then Government must ensure that they are covered by new taxes that will take care of repayment of the interest and the periodic instalments!
Now to the most critical issue - how can the Barbados Government go about closing a $500 million gap between its annual recurrent expenditure and its annual income?
Well, the most painless place to start would be with a rationalization of existing Government departments, projects and programmes, with a view to cutting down duplication, inefficiencies and non-essential spending. An effort also has to be made to restructure the management of the statutory corporations, with a view to making them more efficient and less costly to finance.
But when all efforts at rationalization and restructuring are exhausted, it may still become necessary to increase Government’s tax intake. And if this becomes necessary, the sectors that must be asked to bear the increased tax burden must be the wealthy and the big corporate sector!
Indeed, what we would simply need to do is to roll back a portion of the tax cuts that former Prime Minister Owen Arthur gave to the wealthy and to the corporate sector during his 14 year reign.
We refer to Mr Arthur’s 1995 "Group Tax Relief" which permitted tax losses incurred by a company that was a member of a group of companies to be set off against the taxable income of other members of the group. We also refer to the reduction of Corporation Tax from 40 per cent to 25 per cent, the reduction of income tax on the wealthy from 25 per cent to 20 per cent, the 35 to 60 per cent reduction of income tax on personnel employed in International Business companies, and to the removal or reduction of taxes on yachts, marinas and luxury cars.
The wealthy individuals and corporations that benefitted from these "Owen Arthur tax cuts", must now be called upon to give back some of this wealth, in the national interest!
Saving Barbados From Recession (Part 1)
No representative of the Peoples Empowerment Party(PEP) has ever been invited to attend, much less participate, in any of the Government or Private Sector sponsored economic ‘powwows’ that have been periodically held in Barbados!
It is as if the people charged with piloting the economic affairs of our country only want to hear from people who share and subscribe to their own ideas. It would appear that they fear having their ideas challenged by persons or organizations outside of their little incestuous in-group.
Now-a-days, these self-proclaimed economic gurus are fond of declaring that no-one could have predicted or anticipated the international economic recession that has so affected Barbados. But this is simply not true! There was at least one Barbadian thinker who went on the public record as long ago as the year 2001, and predicted, with precision, the calamitous economic events that unfolded in 2007. And that ‘thinker’ was the current president of the PEP, Mr. David Comissiong.
In his May 2001 Facing Reality column in the Nation Newspaper, Mr.Comissiong wrote as follows, under the headline – ‘A Word to the Wise”:-
“The world has become enmeshed in a global monetary and financial quagmire, the tentacles of which reach into Western and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia, and indeed as far as the allegedly all-powerful New York Stock Exchange …One result of this unfortunate trend is that it is now estimated that the sum total value of purely financial instruments known as ‘derivatives’ in the world today is over US$140 trillion - a figure far in excess of the total real Gross National Products of all the nations of the world combined.
In other words, the financial tycoons of the world have built a global financial bubble that will eventually explode violently … And the bubble will burst – there can be no doubt about that. Indeed, you can only escape reality for so long.
When the financial bubble explodes and deep recession hits the North American and European tourist and financial service markets that Barbados depends so heavily upon, what will become of us? … The global crisis is coming to us here in Barbados. Let us ensure that we are prepared to face it.”
Mr. David Comissiong wrote those prophetic words in May 2001, and publicly repeated his warnings several times thereafter! But Barbados’ supposed economic gurus probably never heard - they would have been too busy indulging in their usual facile in-group intellectual self-congratulations.
Well, with an intransigent economic recession threatening to suffocate our Barbadian economy, our Party now proposes to lay out a practical, people-centred blue print for ‘Saving Barbados from Recession”.
The PEP’s blue print for ‘Saving Barbados from Recession” will be based on a foundation of policies and measures to:-
(i) Re-establish the soundness of the finances and credit of the Barbados Government;
(ii) Restore the purchasing power of the masses of Barbadian people;
(iii) Secure and shore up welfare services and programmes that prevent or alleviate human distress;
(iv) Provide employment through essential environmental public works programmes;
(v) Re-energise production in Barbados’ Agriculture, Construction, Manufacturing and Tourism sectors; and
(vi) Engineer a new social contract based on a greater degree of equality and sharing of resources in Barbados.
Stay tuned for a series of submissions from the PEP on this critical issue over the coming weeks!
It is as if the people charged with piloting the economic affairs of our country only want to hear from people who share and subscribe to their own ideas. It would appear that they fear having their ideas challenged by persons or organizations outside of their little incestuous in-group.
Now-a-days, these self-proclaimed economic gurus are fond of declaring that no-one could have predicted or anticipated the international economic recession that has so affected Barbados. But this is simply not true! There was at least one Barbadian thinker who went on the public record as long ago as the year 2001, and predicted, with precision, the calamitous economic events that unfolded in 2007. And that ‘thinker’ was the current president of the PEP, Mr. David Comissiong.
In his May 2001 Facing Reality column in the Nation Newspaper, Mr.Comissiong wrote as follows, under the headline – ‘A Word to the Wise”:-
“The world has become enmeshed in a global monetary and financial quagmire, the tentacles of which reach into Western and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia, and indeed as far as the allegedly all-powerful New York Stock Exchange …One result of this unfortunate trend is that it is now estimated that the sum total value of purely financial instruments known as ‘derivatives’ in the world today is over US$140 trillion - a figure far in excess of the total real Gross National Products of all the nations of the world combined.
In other words, the financial tycoons of the world have built a global financial bubble that will eventually explode violently … And the bubble will burst – there can be no doubt about that. Indeed, you can only escape reality for so long.
When the financial bubble explodes and deep recession hits the North American and European tourist and financial service markets that Barbados depends so heavily upon, what will become of us? … The global crisis is coming to us here in Barbados. Let us ensure that we are prepared to face it.”
Mr. David Comissiong wrote those prophetic words in May 2001, and publicly repeated his warnings several times thereafter! But Barbados’ supposed economic gurus probably never heard - they would have been too busy indulging in their usual facile in-group intellectual self-congratulations.
Well, with an intransigent economic recession threatening to suffocate our Barbadian economy, our Party now proposes to lay out a practical, people-centred blue print for ‘Saving Barbados from Recession”.
The PEP’s blue print for ‘Saving Barbados from Recession” will be based on a foundation of policies and measures to:-
(i) Re-establish the soundness of the finances and credit of the Barbados Government;
(ii) Restore the purchasing power of the masses of Barbadian people;
(iii) Secure and shore up welfare services and programmes that prevent or alleviate human distress;
(iv) Provide employment through essential environmental public works programmes;
(v) Re-energise production in Barbados’ Agriculture, Construction, Manufacturing and Tourism sectors; and
(vi) Engineer a new social contract based on a greater degree of equality and sharing of resources in Barbados.
Stay tuned for a series of submissions from the PEP on this critical issue over the coming weeks!
OH BARBADOS!
Oh Barbados! This is our season of affliction and lamentation! In the words of our national poet, Kamau Brathwaite:-
"Ev’ry day you see the sun
Rise, the sun
Set; God sen’ ev’ry month
A new moon. Dry season
Follow wet season again
An’ the green crop follow the rain
An’ then suddenly so
Widdout rhyme
Widdout reason
You crops start to die
You can’t even see the sun in the sky;
An’ suddenly so, without rhyme,
Without reason, all you hope gone
Ev’rything look like it comin’ out wrong.
Why is that? What it mean?"
What does it mean when the conventional wisdom of all the supposedly great economic gurus is proven to be mere folly, and the world plunges into a recession that grabs a still dependent Barbados by its throat?
Why is it that young men born and bred in Barbados can show themselves capable of wantonly and callously causing the deaths of six of their young Barbadian sisters?
What does it mean when naked greed, ambition and arrogance can so dominate our social life that not even a venerable 70 year old political party is spared the ravaging and demoralizing effects of a blind pursuit of narrow self-interest?
But most of all, why did our 48 year old Prime Minister, in the full bloom of his maturity and intellectual powers, have to die - so sudden, so young, without rhyme, without reason!
Truly, this is the dark time - a period in which it seems that we will be tested as a nation and profound questions will be posed to us.
But in the midst of the darkness there are several points of light, evidence of something good and strong within the national character!
We see, for example, a young widow and her three beautiful daughters bearing their loss and the tremendous crush of national scrutiny with exemplary dignity and grace.
We witness self-less citizens joining together to memorialise our nation's six newest martyrs, and pledging themselves to wok for Barbados in such a way that what happened on September 3rd will never happen again.
We witness self-less citizens joining together to memorialize our nation’s six
We see an acting Prime Minister negotiating the succession process in a throughly democratic manner, with transparency and constitutional rectitude. Surely, congratulations are in order for new Prime Minister Freundel Stuart for giving Barbadians, including Sir Lloyd Sandiford, a lesson in democracy and constitutional correctness!
We see a people mourning for their fallen leader with fortitude, dignity, graciousness and profound genunineness of human feeling! Truly, it seems that adversity brings out the best in the Barbadian spirit!
And so, in keeping with this imperishable spirit, we in the Peoples Empowerment Party (PEP) pledge to our fellow citizens that in the midst of darkness the PEP will always be found searching for the points of light.
We believe in Barbados and in the Barbadian people, and are imbued with the confidence that Barbados and its fellow Caribbean nations possess all the resources requied to solve their problems and to establish a civilization that will amaze the world.
Again, Kamau Brathwaite speaks for us:-
"let my children
rise
in the path
of the morning
up and go forth
on the road
of the morning
run through the fields
in the sun
of the morning,
see the rainbow
of Heaven:
God’s curved
mourning
calling."
"Ev’ry day you see the sun
Rise, the sun
Set; God sen’ ev’ry month
A new moon. Dry season
Follow wet season again
An’ the green crop follow the rain
An’ then suddenly so
Widdout rhyme
Widdout reason
You crops start to die
You can’t even see the sun in the sky;
An’ suddenly so, without rhyme,
Without reason, all you hope gone
Ev’rything look like it comin’ out wrong.
Why is that? What it mean?"
What does it mean when the conventional wisdom of all the supposedly great economic gurus is proven to be mere folly, and the world plunges into a recession that grabs a still dependent Barbados by its throat?
Why is it that young men born and bred in Barbados can show themselves capable of wantonly and callously causing the deaths of six of their young Barbadian sisters?
What does it mean when naked greed, ambition and arrogance can so dominate our social life that not even a venerable 70 year old political party is spared the ravaging and demoralizing effects of a blind pursuit of narrow self-interest?
But most of all, why did our 48 year old Prime Minister, in the full bloom of his maturity and intellectual powers, have to die - so sudden, so young, without rhyme, without reason!
Truly, this is the dark time - a period in which it seems that we will be tested as a nation and profound questions will be posed to us.
But in the midst of the darkness there are several points of light, evidence of something good and strong within the national character!
We see, for example, a young widow and her three beautiful daughters bearing their loss and the tremendous crush of national scrutiny with exemplary dignity and grace.
We witness self-less citizens joining together to memorialise our nation's six newest martyrs, and pledging themselves to wok for Barbados in such a way that what happened on September 3rd will never happen again.
We witness self-less citizens joining together to memorialize our nation’s six
We see an acting Prime Minister negotiating the succession process in a throughly democratic manner, with transparency and constitutional rectitude. Surely, congratulations are in order for new Prime Minister Freundel Stuart for giving Barbadians, including Sir Lloyd Sandiford, a lesson in democracy and constitutional correctness!
We see a people mourning for their fallen leader with fortitude, dignity, graciousness and profound genunineness of human feeling! Truly, it seems that adversity brings out the best in the Barbadian spirit!
And so, in keeping with this imperishable spirit, we in the Peoples Empowerment Party (PEP) pledge to our fellow citizens that in the midst of darkness the PEP will always be found searching for the points of light.
We believe in Barbados and in the Barbadian people, and are imbued with the confidence that Barbados and its fellow Caribbean nations possess all the resources requied to solve their problems and to establish a civilization that will amaze the world.
Again, Kamau Brathwaite speaks for us:-
"let my children
rise
in the path
of the morning
up and go forth
on the road
of the morning
run through the fields
in the sun
of the morning,
see the rainbow
of Heaven:
God’s curved
mourning
calling."
THE BARBADOS TRAGEDY
Virtually every where one looks in Barbados these days, one sees deeply flawed national leaders and institutions sinking - almost inexorably - into tragedy! It is almost as if a "tragic flaw" has become lodged in the bosom of the national body politic.
In January 2006, the then opposition Member of Parliament, David Thompson, executed a most cynical and opportunistic political manoeuver, and displaced his long time colleague, Clyde Mascoll, from the leadership of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP). Having basically used Mascoll’s leadership to get the DLP through a difficult period, Thompson decided that he wanted the beckoning political glory, and did what was necessary to unseat his friend and take back the reins of power.
Well, Thompson got what he wanted - the leadership of the D.L.P and ultimately the leadership of the entire country - but, almost like the unfolding of a Greek tragedy, he has not been able to enjoy the winning of his long sought after prize.
Now, in October 2010, another opposition Member of Parliament has done a similar thing to his long time colleague and political side-kick! After having used Mia Mottley to get the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) through the difficult first years of a stint in opposition, Owen Arthur now senses that political glory is in the offing, and had decided that such glory must fall to him and be used to rebuild his image in the historical annals of Barbados.
Mr Arthur has seemingly gotten what he wanted, but will it all turn to ashes in his opportunistic hands? Time will tell!
But the sense of tragedy also extends to institutions and entire social classes as well. Take the case of the wealthy, traditional, white, big business elite of Barbadian society. Clearly, they have realized that recession-mired Barbados is on the verge of a major economic and fiscal adjustment, and they are now making their moves behind the scenes to ensure that the adjustment does not touch them, but is borne instead by the working and lower middle classes. And, of course, a critical part of this scheme involves getting their agents into positions of leadership in the two major political parties!
The tragedy in all this is that after 44 years of ‘Independence’, the white Barbadian sector of the population still see themselves as a separate minority group with one foot out and one foot in the nation building process, determined to hold on tight to their traditional position of economic domination, ambivalent towards the new emerging national culture, and forever seeking opportunities to extract wealth from the society.
This is a tragic, unhealthy situation that should have been rectified years ago! There is no reason why - with enlightened national leadership - the white community could not be led to reorient themselves; to establish a meaningful relationship with the masses of black Barbadians; and to adopt a constructive nationalist role in the building of a new economy.
The large black working and lower middle classes also face the tragedy of political parties that are getting ready to sell them out! Listen carefully to the noises coming out of the DLP, and you will see that they are readying themselves to decimate the National Drug Service and the system of free tertiary education.
The BLP, for their part, are pushing notions of privatisation - even of the airport and seaport - and can see no further than a servile "off shore" economy based on tax avoidance and evasion.
The major losers in all of this are the working and lower middle class people of Barbados, who, unfortunately, can see no further than the DLP / BLP circus show. And this is the ultimate "Barbados Tragedy"!
In January 2006, the then opposition Member of Parliament, David Thompson, executed a most cynical and opportunistic political manoeuver, and displaced his long time colleague, Clyde Mascoll, from the leadership of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP). Having basically used Mascoll’s leadership to get the DLP through a difficult period, Thompson decided that he wanted the beckoning political glory, and did what was necessary to unseat his friend and take back the reins of power.
Well, Thompson got what he wanted - the leadership of the D.L.P and ultimately the leadership of the entire country - but, almost like the unfolding of a Greek tragedy, he has not been able to enjoy the winning of his long sought after prize.
Now, in October 2010, another opposition Member of Parliament has done a similar thing to his long time colleague and political side-kick! After having used Mia Mottley to get the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) through the difficult first years of a stint in opposition, Owen Arthur now senses that political glory is in the offing, and had decided that such glory must fall to him and be used to rebuild his image in the historical annals of Barbados.
Mr Arthur has seemingly gotten what he wanted, but will it all turn to ashes in his opportunistic hands? Time will tell!
But the sense of tragedy also extends to institutions and entire social classes as well. Take the case of the wealthy, traditional, white, big business elite of Barbadian society. Clearly, they have realized that recession-mired Barbados is on the verge of a major economic and fiscal adjustment, and they are now making their moves behind the scenes to ensure that the adjustment does not touch them, but is borne instead by the working and lower middle classes. And, of course, a critical part of this scheme involves getting their agents into positions of leadership in the two major political parties!
The tragedy in all this is that after 44 years of ‘Independence’, the white Barbadian sector of the population still see themselves as a separate minority group with one foot out and one foot in the nation building process, determined to hold on tight to their traditional position of economic domination, ambivalent towards the new emerging national culture, and forever seeking opportunities to extract wealth from the society.
This is a tragic, unhealthy situation that should have been rectified years ago! There is no reason why - with enlightened national leadership - the white community could not be led to reorient themselves; to establish a meaningful relationship with the masses of black Barbadians; and to adopt a constructive nationalist role in the building of a new economy.
The large black working and lower middle classes also face the tragedy of political parties that are getting ready to sell them out! Listen carefully to the noises coming out of the DLP, and you will see that they are readying themselves to decimate the National Drug Service and the system of free tertiary education.
The BLP, for their part, are pushing notions of privatisation - even of the airport and seaport - and can see no further than a servile "off shore" economy based on tax avoidance and evasion.
The major losers in all of this are the working and lower middle class people of Barbados, who, unfortunately, can see no further than the DLP / BLP circus show. And this is the ultimate "Barbados Tragedy"!
THERE IS AN OPEN CONSPIRACY IN BARBADOS!
Whenever there is a serious crisis in a country, and a major economic adjustment is required, the central issue that comes to the fore is--'Which class or grouping of the population will be made to bear the brunt of the cost or burden of the adjustment?"
Well, Barbados is at the stage where we are on the verge of making fundamental decisions about a major economic and fiscal adjustment for the country, and all the signs are there that a massive right wing, big business, elitist conspiracy is underway to ensure that the working class and lower middle class sectors of Barbados bear the brunt of the adjustment!
If we want to understand how such a conspiracy works in Barbados, then we have to go back to the last serious crisis that the country faced--- the crisis of 1990 to 1992.
At that time--- in March 1990 to be precise--- under the coordination of Mr. Peter Boos, the Barbados Chamber of Commerce and Industry joined forces with the accounting firm of Ernst & Young, in a so-called National Resource Mobilisation Conference, to develop a plan to steer Barbados along a big business, private sector oriented path of economic adjustment.
Those Barbadians who were fortunate enough to get their hands on a copy of the "Post Conference" document discovered that the agreed upon modus operandi was as follows:-
* "Massive public education programme to explain the benefits of market forces....and that the country is living beyond its means"
* "Establish a task force to construct a private sector agenda"
* "Prepare and publish alternative Estimates"
* "Encourage opposition parties to present pro-business Bills in the House"
* "Establish a "Call In" programme"
* "Reduce scope of welfare services including health"
* "Eliminate free tertiary education"
* "Reduce scope of government regulation"
* "Targets for privatisation should include both profitable and unprofitable enterprises and be extended to central government services....including...CBC, IDC factories, revenue collection, Port Authority..."
Those of us who have been following recent developments in Barbados closely would have noted the outlines of a very similar agenda in the following events :-
1. The recent establishment of the Peter Boos led "Barbados Entrepreneurship Foundation" ;
2. The recent effort made by the Chairman of government's Council of Economic Advisors to float the idea that Barbados can no longer afford free secondary and tertiary education;
3. Sir Courtney Blackman's highly publicised prescription of a public sector wage freeze, and his violent rejection of price controls on the private sector;
4. The termination of Marilyn Rice- Bowen, who, as Chairperson of the National Housing Corporation, publicly complained about the Minister steering virtually all major contracts to one or two big, elite,construction companies;
5. The recent enhanced power of right wing elements within the Democratic Labour Party, leading to the installation of the pliable Chris Sinckler in the Ministry of Finance, and efforts to subvert the position and strength of the ideologically strong Freundel Stuart;and
6. The recent similar efforts within the Barbados Labour Party aimed at ressurecting the political fortunes of Owen Arthur--- a veritable front man for big, elite, business interests--- at the expense of the more intrinsically nationalist Mia Mottley.
What is taking shape here is a major push by the traditional local big business elite and their foreign allies to impose an adjustment on Barbados that will leave them virtually unscathed, but that--- similar to 1991--- will see the masses of working class people hit with terrible blows of wage stagnation, lay offs, and welfare and social service cuts.
It is now becoming more and more clear that the real political divide in Barbados is not between the various political parties, but between persons and organisations that line up on opposite sides of a central ideological divide.
The Peoples Empowerment Party (PEP) stands on the side of the Social Democratic consensus that has been at the heart of whatever social progress Barbados has made over the years, with ambitions to shift that Consensus further to the left, in a gradual and organic manner.
There is no need for a harsh right wing response to the crisis in Barbados! There are many alternative Social Democracy and Democratic Socialist solutions that will preserve principles of fairness, justice and human dignity!
Well, Barbados is at the stage where we are on the verge of making fundamental decisions about a major economic and fiscal adjustment for the country, and all the signs are there that a massive right wing, big business, elitist conspiracy is underway to ensure that the working class and lower middle class sectors of Barbados bear the brunt of the adjustment!
If we want to understand how such a conspiracy works in Barbados, then we have to go back to the last serious crisis that the country faced--- the crisis of 1990 to 1992.
At that time--- in March 1990 to be precise--- under the coordination of Mr. Peter Boos, the Barbados Chamber of Commerce and Industry joined forces with the accounting firm of Ernst & Young, in a so-called National Resource Mobilisation Conference, to develop a plan to steer Barbados along a big business, private sector oriented path of economic adjustment.
Those Barbadians who were fortunate enough to get their hands on a copy of the "Post Conference" document discovered that the agreed upon modus operandi was as follows:-
* "Massive public education programme to explain the benefits of market forces....and that the country is living beyond its means"
* "Establish a task force to construct a private sector agenda"
* "Prepare and publish alternative Estimates"
* "Encourage opposition parties to present pro-business Bills in the House"
* "Establish a "Call In" programme"
* "Reduce scope of welfare services including health"
* "Eliminate free tertiary education"
* "Reduce scope of government regulation"
* "Targets for privatisation should include both profitable and unprofitable enterprises and be extended to central government services....including...CBC, IDC factories, revenue collection, Port Authority..."
Those of us who have been following recent developments in Barbados closely would have noted the outlines of a very similar agenda in the following events :-
1. The recent establishment of the Peter Boos led "Barbados Entrepreneurship Foundation" ;
2. The recent effort made by the Chairman of government's Council of Economic Advisors to float the idea that Barbados can no longer afford free secondary and tertiary education;
3. Sir Courtney Blackman's highly publicised prescription of a public sector wage freeze, and his violent rejection of price controls on the private sector;
4. The termination of Marilyn Rice- Bowen, who, as Chairperson of the National Housing Corporation, publicly complained about the Minister steering virtually all major contracts to one or two big, elite,construction companies;
5. The recent enhanced power of right wing elements within the Democratic Labour Party, leading to the installation of the pliable Chris Sinckler in the Ministry of Finance, and efforts to subvert the position and strength of the ideologically strong Freundel Stuart;and
6. The recent similar efforts within the Barbados Labour Party aimed at ressurecting the political fortunes of Owen Arthur--- a veritable front man for big, elite, business interests--- at the expense of the more intrinsically nationalist Mia Mottley.
What is taking shape here is a major push by the traditional local big business elite and their foreign allies to impose an adjustment on Barbados that will leave them virtually unscathed, but that--- similar to 1991--- will see the masses of working class people hit with terrible blows of wage stagnation, lay offs, and welfare and social service cuts.
It is now becoming more and more clear that the real political divide in Barbados is not between the various political parties, but between persons and organisations that line up on opposite sides of a central ideological divide.
The Peoples Empowerment Party (PEP) stands on the side of the Social Democratic consensus that has been at the heart of whatever social progress Barbados has made over the years, with ambitions to shift that Consensus further to the left, in a gradual and organic manner.
There is no need for a harsh right wing response to the crisis in Barbados! There are many alternative Social Democracy and Democratic Socialist solutions that will preserve principles of fairness, justice and human dignity!
BARBADOS AND THE "CUBAN FIVE"
The "Cuban Five" are five patriotic Cuban men - Gerardo Nordelo, Ramon Salazar, Rene Sehweret, Fernando Llort and Antonio Rodriguez - who are currently locked away in a number of prisons in the United States of America, serving sentences ranging from 15 years to life in prison, imposed upon them by the Federal court of Miami in the state of Florida, USA for the alleged crime of espionage against the U.S.A and other associated alleged offences.
Over the past twelve years these five men have been treated by the judicial authorities of the U.S.A as if they are the most vile criminals, and yet, in the Republic of Cuba itself, and in numerous countries all around the world, these men are regarded as heroes and have been the subject of a multiplicity of campaigns and petitions demanding their release.
When one examines the backgrounds of the "Cuban Five", one discovers that they are all married family men between the ages of 45 years and 54 years, and that their occupations range from engineer, to pilot, to writer, cartoonist and economist. In addition, prior to their arrests and convictions by the U.S. criminal justice system they enjoyed shining and unblemished reputations.
The American establishment claim that they are guilty of some substantial crime, but at the same time , all around the world, tens of thousands of fair minded and justice loving persons, including no less than ten Nobel Prize winners have formed themselves into committees and are demanding the release of the "Cuban Five".
Indeed, right here in Barbados there is a small "Cuban Five Defence Committee" under the chairmanship of Mr Eddie Douglas! Furthermore, our very own "Clement Payne Movement" has also done some considerable work on bringing the plight of the Cuban Five to the attention of the legal fraternity of Barbados and in petitioning the government of the USA to release these unjustly convicted and imprisoned fighters against US based terrorist attacks on the Republic of Cuba.
And this is as it should be! In fact, Barbados should be playing an even greater role in the international campaign to free the Cuban Five, because, in a very real sense, the journey of these five Cuban patriots to their imprisonment in the USA began right here in Barbados, almost 25 years ago!
It was on the 6th day of October 1976 that, within minutes of a Cuban civilian airliner taking off from Seawell Airport in Barbados, a bomb planted in the cabin of the aircraft exploded, causing the Cubana airplane to plunge into the waters of the Caribbean sea, in close proximity to the west coast of Barbados. Every single one of the 73 Cubans, Guyanese and North Koreans on board perished in this precedent setting act of terrorism!
One week later - on 14th October 1976 - the government of Barbados appointed a Commission of Enquiry under the chairmanship of High Court judge, Denys Williams, to investigate the causes and circumstances of this tragic event.
In its report issued some four months later, the Commission noted that substantial evidence existed to identify Ricardo Lozano and Freddie Lugo--- two passengers who had joined the Cubana flight in Trinidad and who had disembarked when the plane landed at Seawell Airport in Barbados--- as the two functionaries who had been responsible for placing the bomb on the Cubana plane. And significantly, in his evidence before the Commission, the representative of the Cuban government, Senior Martinez, explained that the Cuban government’s own investigation had determined that Lozano and Lugo were subordinates of the anti-Cuban CIA supported terrorist organisations known as CORU and ICICA and run by arch-terrorists Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles respectively.
Needless-to-say, the Cubana mass murder in Barbados shocked the entire Cuban nation and brought about a national realization that the campaign of terrorism that had been launched in 1960 against the Cuban Revolution by the Cuban-American mafia and their United States backers had now reached a new level of barbarity, and that bolder measures would have to be taken in the future to foil the U S based terrorists.
Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carilles were never brought to justice for their high crimes against the Cuban nation, and in fact continued to be given comfort, succor and support in the USA by the plethora of Cuban-American counter- revolutionary organisations stationed in the city of Miami.
Indeed, Carilles and Bosch became so emboldened by their US based support that in the mid 1990's Bosch embarked upon a new conspiracy to assassinate Fidel Castro, and Carilles masterminded a terrorist campaign to blow up hotels in Cuba. And so, operating out of Miami, counter-revolutionary terrorists found their way into Cuba and set off explosions at no less than six Cuban hotels in the year 1997!
In fact, so brazen and arrogant had the counter-revolutionary forces become that the Miami Herald newspaper actually openly reported that Carilles was at the heart of these bombing operations, while Carilles himself, in a 1998 New York Times interview, publicly admitted to having organized the bombing campaign.
It was this intensification of terrorist attack on Cuba that led five Cuban patriots to station themselves in Miami in order to infiltrate the various terrorist organisations, and to collect advance intelligence that could be used to forestall pending attacks on their homeland.
Indeed, so open and well-meaning were the Cuban authorities, that in June 1998 Cuba’s Ministry of Home Affairs provided the FBI with dossiers of information on the acts of violence being planned in Miami, together with audio and video tapes which explicitly identified the malefactors. Ironically,
it was this honest and constructive overture that the American authorities pounced upon and used as a springboard to launch arrests against– not the Miami based terrorists – but against the five Cuban patriots who had helped to ferret out the information.
And so, on 12th. September 1998 the "Cuban Five" were arrested in Miami, subjected to a biased and deeply flawed political trial, and sentenced to unjust and inordinately long prison terms.
We all have a duty to help to get them released, and the best way we can do so is by raising our voices in condemnation of this egregious injustice, and by lobbying our government and fellow citizens to get involved in the international campaign to free the Cuban Five. Please feel free to contact the Peoples Empowerment Party for further information.
Over the past twelve years these five men have been treated by the judicial authorities of the U.S.A as if they are the most vile criminals, and yet, in the Republic of Cuba itself, and in numerous countries all around the world, these men are regarded as heroes and have been the subject of a multiplicity of campaigns and petitions demanding their release.
When one examines the backgrounds of the "Cuban Five", one discovers that they are all married family men between the ages of 45 years and 54 years, and that their occupations range from engineer, to pilot, to writer, cartoonist and economist. In addition, prior to their arrests and convictions by the U.S. criminal justice system they enjoyed shining and unblemished reputations.
The American establishment claim that they are guilty of some substantial crime, but at the same time , all around the world, tens of thousands of fair minded and justice loving persons, including no less than ten Nobel Prize winners have formed themselves into committees and are demanding the release of the "Cuban Five".
Indeed, right here in Barbados there is a small "Cuban Five Defence Committee" under the chairmanship of Mr Eddie Douglas! Furthermore, our very own "Clement Payne Movement" has also done some considerable work on bringing the plight of the Cuban Five to the attention of the legal fraternity of Barbados and in petitioning the government of the USA to release these unjustly convicted and imprisoned fighters against US based terrorist attacks on the Republic of Cuba.
And this is as it should be! In fact, Barbados should be playing an even greater role in the international campaign to free the Cuban Five, because, in a very real sense, the journey of these five Cuban patriots to their imprisonment in the USA began right here in Barbados, almost 25 years ago!
It was on the 6th day of October 1976 that, within minutes of a Cuban civilian airliner taking off from Seawell Airport in Barbados, a bomb planted in the cabin of the aircraft exploded, causing the Cubana airplane to plunge into the waters of the Caribbean sea, in close proximity to the west coast of Barbados. Every single one of the 73 Cubans, Guyanese and North Koreans on board perished in this precedent setting act of terrorism!
One week later - on 14th October 1976 - the government of Barbados appointed a Commission of Enquiry under the chairmanship of High Court judge, Denys Williams, to investigate the causes and circumstances of this tragic event.
In its report issued some four months later, the Commission noted that substantial evidence existed to identify Ricardo Lozano and Freddie Lugo--- two passengers who had joined the Cubana flight in Trinidad and who had disembarked when the plane landed at Seawell Airport in Barbados--- as the two functionaries who had been responsible for placing the bomb on the Cubana plane. And significantly, in his evidence before the Commission, the representative of the Cuban government, Senior Martinez, explained that the Cuban government’s own investigation had determined that Lozano and Lugo were subordinates of the anti-Cuban CIA supported terrorist organisations known as CORU and ICICA and run by arch-terrorists Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles respectively.
Needless-to-say, the Cubana mass murder in Barbados shocked the entire Cuban nation and brought about a national realization that the campaign of terrorism that had been launched in 1960 against the Cuban Revolution by the Cuban-American mafia and their United States backers had now reached a new level of barbarity, and that bolder measures would have to be taken in the future to foil the U S based terrorists.
Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carilles were never brought to justice for their high crimes against the Cuban nation, and in fact continued to be given comfort, succor and support in the USA by the plethora of Cuban-American counter- revolutionary organisations stationed in the city of Miami.
Indeed, Carilles and Bosch became so emboldened by their US based support that in the mid 1990's Bosch embarked upon a new conspiracy to assassinate Fidel Castro, and Carilles masterminded a terrorist campaign to blow up hotels in Cuba. And so, operating out of Miami, counter-revolutionary terrorists found their way into Cuba and set off explosions at no less than six Cuban hotels in the year 1997!
In fact, so brazen and arrogant had the counter-revolutionary forces become that the Miami Herald newspaper actually openly reported that Carilles was at the heart of these bombing operations, while Carilles himself, in a 1998 New York Times interview, publicly admitted to having organized the bombing campaign.
It was this intensification of terrorist attack on Cuba that led five Cuban patriots to station themselves in Miami in order to infiltrate the various terrorist organisations, and to collect advance intelligence that could be used to forestall pending attacks on their homeland.
Indeed, so open and well-meaning were the Cuban authorities, that in June 1998 Cuba’s Ministry of Home Affairs provided the FBI with dossiers of information on the acts of violence being planned in Miami, together with audio and video tapes which explicitly identified the malefactors. Ironically,
it was this honest and constructive overture that the American authorities pounced upon and used as a springboard to launch arrests against– not the Miami based terrorists – but against the five Cuban patriots who had helped to ferret out the information.
And so, on 12th. September 1998 the "Cuban Five" were arrested in Miami, subjected to a biased and deeply flawed political trial, and sentenced to unjust and inordinately long prison terms.
We all have a duty to help to get them released, and the best way we can do so is by raising our voices in condemnation of this egregious injustice, and by lobbying our government and fellow citizens to get involved in the international campaign to free the Cuban Five. Please feel free to contact the Peoples Empowerment Party for further information.
A FUNDAMENTAL BREAKDOWN!
They are not criminal deportees from North America! Neither are they migrants from some other Caribbean country! In fact, they are not foreigners at all. No! They are born and bred Barbadians, and when you look at their photographs in the newspaper, they look no different from tens of thousands of other Barbadian young men.
When they were born - in 1979 and 1981 - the supposedly great contemporary European philosophers were proclaiming that the projects that we Barbadians had embarked upon back in the 1930's, of seeking to establish a nation of our own, and pursuing the ideal of a society characterised by justice and righteousness, were no longer valid.
They told us that those projects were part of the "Modern" phase of mankind’s development, and that human history had advanced beyond the "Modern" era into so-called "Post Modernity".
Furthermore, they described the Post Modern society as one in which the old human quest for truth, for universal and eternal values, and the construction of collective forms of existence that transcend narrow, individualistic desires and wants had become irrelevant.
And from the U.S.A. came the voice of the historian and former State Department functionary, Francis Fukhuama, assuring us that history itself had come to an end, and that there was no form of human existence to be sought for beyond the Western liberal capitalist society, festooned with its narrow individualism, hyper-active materialism and crass commercialism.
If we Barbadians wish to comprehend why we are producing young men and women who are so atomised, alienated, lacking in empathy and so devoid of any sense of a connection between themselves and their fellow citizens that they are capable of committing callous fire bombings and public open-air executions, then we need to acquire an understanding of the extremely powerful political, cultural, psychological and economic forces that have reshaped the great centres of international capitalism in North America and Western Europe, and that are sedulously undermining our intrinsically weak neo-colonial society.
Take some time to reflect on the vast number of Barbadian politicians, business gurus, and sundry social leaders who mindlessly prate on about the alleged wonders and benefits of Post Modern society, Post Industrial economy, Globalisation, neo-Liberalism, the Information Age, the services economy and other Western capitalist nostrums of the past quarter century.
Back in the late 1960's and early 70's, if you asked typical Barbadian secondary school students what life was all about in Barbados, and where they were heading with their individual lives, they would give you sensible and coherent answers rooted in the collective national mission of independence and the construction of a new independent nation, and in the still vibrant effort to establish a multi-territory Caribbean nation and civilization.
Ask the same questions to the Barbadian students of today and they cannot give you a meaningful answer! But it is not their fault! The current generation of official Barbadian adult leaders has failed to establish and set before our people any meaningful collective or national mission that is rooted in our own history and culture.
These "mis-leaders", having facilely jumped on the Western capitalist bandwagon of globalising Post Modern society, have permitted a socio-cultural vacuum to develop, and this vacuum is now gradually being filled with all of the diseased new cultural, political and economic secretions of the great centres of Northern capitalism.
It is not a simple question of reintroducing hanging, corporal punishment or Sunday school! The very fundamentals of our society have to be dealt with!
When they were born - in 1979 and 1981 - the supposedly great contemporary European philosophers were proclaiming that the projects that we Barbadians had embarked upon back in the 1930's, of seeking to establish a nation of our own, and pursuing the ideal of a society characterised by justice and righteousness, were no longer valid.
They told us that those projects were part of the "Modern" phase of mankind’s development, and that human history had advanced beyond the "Modern" era into so-called "Post Modernity".
Furthermore, they described the Post Modern society as one in which the old human quest for truth, for universal and eternal values, and the construction of collective forms of existence that transcend narrow, individualistic desires and wants had become irrelevant.
And from the U.S.A. came the voice of the historian and former State Department functionary, Francis Fukhuama, assuring us that history itself had come to an end, and that there was no form of human existence to be sought for beyond the Western liberal capitalist society, festooned with its narrow individualism, hyper-active materialism and crass commercialism.
If we Barbadians wish to comprehend why we are producing young men and women who are so atomised, alienated, lacking in empathy and so devoid of any sense of a connection between themselves and their fellow citizens that they are capable of committing callous fire bombings and public open-air executions, then we need to acquire an understanding of the extremely powerful political, cultural, psychological and economic forces that have reshaped the great centres of international capitalism in North America and Western Europe, and that are sedulously undermining our intrinsically weak neo-colonial society.
Take some time to reflect on the vast number of Barbadian politicians, business gurus, and sundry social leaders who mindlessly prate on about the alleged wonders and benefits of Post Modern society, Post Industrial economy, Globalisation, neo-Liberalism, the Information Age, the services economy and other Western capitalist nostrums of the past quarter century.
Back in the late 1960's and early 70's, if you asked typical Barbadian secondary school students what life was all about in Barbados, and where they were heading with their individual lives, they would give you sensible and coherent answers rooted in the collective national mission of independence and the construction of a new independent nation, and in the still vibrant effort to establish a multi-territory Caribbean nation and civilization.
Ask the same questions to the Barbadian students of today and they cannot give you a meaningful answer! But it is not their fault! The current generation of official Barbadian adult leaders has failed to establish and set before our people any meaningful collective or national mission that is rooted in our own history and culture.
These "mis-leaders", having facilely jumped on the Western capitalist bandwagon of globalising Post Modern society, have permitted a socio-cultural vacuum to develop, and this vacuum is now gradually being filled with all of the diseased new cultural, political and economic secretions of the great centres of Northern capitalism.
It is not a simple question of reintroducing hanging, corporal punishment or Sunday school! The very fundamentals of our society have to be dealt with!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
