It is amazing the things that make you go “yippee” every so often. Take for example the estimated 36 million pounds sterling, nearly 100 million Barbados dollars worth of publicity that this country received from the hosting of that celebrity polo match a few weeks ago.
There are those, including the Leader of the Opposition, who criticized the BDS$1 million contribution to the cause by the Barbados Tourism Authority. I used the word “contribution” because it is a bit tidier when used in this capacity, but we all know that it was an investment on the part of the BTA, and when it is juxtaposed against the value of what Barbados got in return, it was well worth the effort. I was a bit embarrassed for HRH the Prince of England when he slid off the horse during the game at Waterhall, but that single incident has been played more times on American and European television than the crowning of Miss Universe or any of the 30 second commercials that were in the Super Bowl a few days ago. This is the sort of thinking, outside of the box, that Barbados requires at this stage.
I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard Miss Mottley say at the St. Patricks meeting that “I ain’t got nothing against the two Princes but I am not sure Barbados could afford the $1 million that was spent on that polo match”. This was supposed to be a big expose on something that had gone wrong. The BTA did not make public that it had invested in the tournament but Mottley announced it in such a manner as to suggest that there was an attempt at cover up.
As Deputy Prime Minister she was not against the hundreds of millions that they spent on huge delegations flying all over the world and bringing back nothing to Barbados, neither did she criticize the $350 million and counting that was spent on Kensington Oval for Cricket World Cup. But because another administration spent $1 million on a celebrity polo match; aspects of which were viewed by scores of millions around the world, she has added it to her list of blotches against the government. Well, too bad for her!
The same can be said of her criticism of the decision by the David Thompson government to write off the debt of the Barbados Turf Club. Horse Racing is a popular sport in Barbados and it needed both a lifeline and a new lease on life. Leaving it strangling with that debt made absolutely no sense. There is vast potential in the revival of horse racing and I, for one, am very excited about the prospect of the introduction of night racing in Barbados. A paper debt that would probably never have been repaid was of absolutely no net worth to the average citizen of Barbados, but prospects of employment and economic opportunities as a result of this infusion of new hope and optimism, are immense. I really cannot understand why a Leader of the Opposition would want to go on record as criticizing such a life-saving gesture for local horse racing. It is almost as ridiculous as her criticism of the evening parade in honor of our National Independence Celebrations.
Equally disgusting was the criticism from that very Labour Party platform of this government’s support for the resuscitation of the so-called Four Season’s project. When the initial venture went under so abruptly there was the common view that whatever could be done had to be done to ‘bring back’ this project. Now the government came up with a brilliant way of supporting the venture with minimum upfront costs to taxpayers, you are hearing, from no lesser a place than the BLP’s platform, that government should not get involved in hotel developments and that the sovereign guarantee offered by local authorities was too much. This penchant for criticizing for the sake of criticizing, and saying “no”, merely because you are in opposition, is foreign to the political culture of Barbados. We are simply not accustomed to such “spoilt brat” behavior.
And what of the persistent criticisms of summer camps? What is wrong with a government setting aside a couple of dollars every holiday to bring relief to parents and a little excitement to children? What is wrong if a few hundred dollars are paid to a nice old lady in the village to cook some food for the children of the village? Shouldn’t poor people handle government cheques as well? You had no difficulty paying a single individual double what others were offering to supply a sanitation truck, a fire engine or second hand bulldozer proffered as new, but $350 to cook for 25 children for a whole week is too much for ordinary folks from Hillaby, College Savannah and Ellerton. Well, tough luck for those who oppose and “yippee” for those who get a chance to do something worthwhile for their community and make ‘a few coppers’ in the process.
The same applies to the Constituency Councils. It was okay and well for million dollar contracts to be awarded party supporters for projects that were always beyond their capacity, but to get a committee of 12 to oversee the spending of a couple hundred thousand dollars is an abomination. How do you explain that houses paid for by the UDC and RDC can to this day not be found? How can you justify road projects, paid for in full, hardly started or left abandoned for this new government to finish? Yet, the thought of priests, retired teachers, senior public officers and ordinary Joe The Plumbers overseeing a few community projects is so revolting that it has to be mentioned, in a derogatory manner, every few weeks. Well to those ordinary people now shaping their community’s destiny, I say “yippee”.
Finally, I am told a huge ceremony is planned for the handing over of keys to new homeowners at Marchfield in St. Philip and henceforth at all the new housing developments sponsored by this government across Barbados. I am happy for those hundreds of Barbadians who are getting a chance to own a piece of the rock. There is no greater feeling than knowing that the roof over your head is yours. Formally receiving the key to your first home is tear-jerking for many. Yet, I saw a headline in the papers recently where “The Party of No” was suggesting that this government had done nothing significant in the area of housing and that all these developments were inconsequential. Well, they may be inconsequential to persons born in Sandy Lane, but for us who were born and bred in villages and in houses along cart roads, it’s a phenomenal feeling that cannot be described in words.
I go “yippee” whenever I drive around the countryside and stumble on to one of those work sites of the National Housing Corporation or any of the public-private sector housing developments. I hear the heart wrenching stories of those who have been waiting for in excess of 30 years for a house and I say to myself ‘thank God for Michael Lashley and this DLP administration’.
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