Prime Minister David Thompson for the third time in nine months, and not unlike the father of his Democratic Labour Party, engaged in a fire side chat with members of the media. He was assisted by Minister Darcy Boyce who has responsibility for energy. In his preamble he communicated a third reduction in fuel price at the pump in under two weeks. The gist of his early preamble was to stress that government is doing all that it can to facilitate a reduction especially in food prices but he was obviously irritated that enough is not being done by the private sector to reduce prices.
Prime Minister Thompson and rightly so was very critical of the passive role the media has played to date to amplify the concerns of Barbadians in the current climate. We felt a deep sense of sadness at the lack of depth to the questions which were lobbed by local journalists. We would have thought that our journalists would have thoroughly quizzed the Prime Minister and Minister Boyce on economic issues given the onset of the biggest economic challenge which Barbados will have to confront in the current global climate. While a question or two were posed about the possible impact on tourism and the international business sector caused by the global turbulence, we were disappointed that a more rigorous query was not offered by the journalists on show. Is it not agreed by many that the current financial meltdown is being compared to the time of the Great Depression?
It was interesting to note the obvious annoyance expressed by VOB’s Stetson Babb who childishly reacted to moderator Richard Cox shutting him down on one occasion. If this is the mentality of our media workers it is no wonder that Prime Minister felt inclined to issue them with a tongue lashing tonight.
We were pleased to hear the Prime Minister recommit his government to a managed migration policy by declaring very rational and plausible reasons for doing so. We wonder what Peter Wickham and Kerrie Symmonds will have to say. Already we are starting to see cracks across our social landscape whether in our schools, hospital, housing, escalating rents etc caused by a large influx of immigrants legal and illegal. What the blind refuse to see is that the attraction of Barbados will easily be compromised if we open the floodgates. We will not forgive the media in Barbados on this issue who has engaged in self-censorship to a degree which begs the question: Prime Minister Thompson was forced to ask are we a practicing democracy?
The Prime Minister again threatened to allow new players into the market supported by price controls if the establishment in the distribution sector doesn’t respond to his government’s prodding. On this point we do believe that the PM is bluffing because he knows that price control is a mechanism which can be manipulated by the private sector as they have done in the past. We however give the Prime Minister eight out of ten for his willingness to come to the public and discuss the issues.
We hope that next time he will allow blog questions!
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