Submitted by People’s Democratic Congress

 

Many Barbadians have been for a long time asking us – the PDC – questions about what would replace TAXATION, once the PDC takes over the reins of  government in this country, and proceeds in a gradual way to abolish TAXATION – this most evil dehumanistic irrational  unproductive scourge.

And time and time again we have responded to those questions by saying what are the social political financial revenue-generating corporate strategies and policies  that we will initiate to not only replace TAXATION, but also to undergird/facilitate the successful liberation emancipation of the Barbadian people from TAXATION.

Therefore, we have been long providing the necessary answers to those and many other persons who have been asking us such questions concerning the astronomical social political financial benefits to be derived for Barbados from the ABOLITION OF TAXATION, and have been providing answers concerning the  key support strategies for a Barbadian  people’s way of life that, in the future, will be  made substantially free from, and  insusceptible to, the worst diabolical effects of a  TAXATION SYSTEM that shall no longer be in this country.

Needless to say included among these strategies/policies would have been the strategy  that there must be a massive reduction in the size of the state government of this country; and another strategy would have been that the state/the government must look seriously at all areas within its provinces whereby it will be successfully able to earn revenues from the selling of many types of goods and services to the public of Barbados.

However, it is the former strategy – one of securing a massive but careful reduction in the size and political scope and responsibilities of the state government – that has been deeper delved into by hundreds of persons – including David on BU – more than in most of the other areas of this NO-TAXATION philosophy.

As that, to us it seems, that for these persons such remains a very critical question in furtherance of the solidification of this debate so far on this most axiomatic of people-centered PDC  policies.

Thus, it is with those salient points in mind, and, in particular, in recognition of the growing significance of this BU blog to many people on blogosphere, and in honor of the growth of the blogs as modern mass communication outlets for an increasing number of Barbadians,  that we herein seek to bring for the FIRST time greater clarity certainty and logicality to this question of what preexisting areas activities of the Barbados state  government a future PDC Government would most likely eliminate; would most likely keep and transform/reform; and would most probably bring into existence in facilitation of the successful abolition of TAXATION in Barbados.

Furthermore, we do so, keeping in mind many of the  fundamental propositions arising out of existing political theory on limited government, even, too, when we are crucially aware of the many central theses in western political literature supporting the emergence of the post-colonial Bonapartist state in many countries in the Caribbean and in some other places.

For those who might not know, these particular theses essentially posit the fact that such states, at independence, assumed the big unwieldy authoritarian semi-fascist centralized bureaucratic characteristics of the then colonial administrations in the particular territories, and, thus, because of those features would be strong enough to act relatively independently of the major political classes or any other contenders for the center of national political power in the respective independent countries.

Thus, we must remark that during and since the time of Barbados becoming independent, successive DLP and BLP leaders and managers of the Barbados state government would have been erring fundamentally in NOT outlining (NOT doing so would also have meant  preempting the possibility of NOT sticking very firmly to them) a number of basic areas within which the government should have ONLY sought to extend its outer intellectual moral political physical limits to – 9 basic areas of social human life material activity in this country.

In fact, no political party in Barbados has ever put such in their Election Manifestoes, and in other principal policy documents!!

These areas are:-

1) The provision of national emergency services;
2) The provision of national legislative, regulatory, judicial, and defense orders;
3) The provision, and proper regulation, of money;
4) The provision of social/welfare/infrastructural facilities, accesses and services;
5) The provision of national strategic intermediary balance BETWEEN private individual interests and public social interests in various social material productive financial spheres;
6) The provision of international/foreign services of a political diplomatic administrative nature in the trade, material, financial, humanitarian, development arenas, etc;
7) The provision of scientific/research/development facilities and programs on the behalf of public and private concerns;
8) The provision of legal administrative safeguards and facilities for the preservation, and if possible, for the development of the country’s most important natural and man-made resources, heritages and assets;
9) The use fairly of all means at its disposal to help sufficiently sustain itself ( NOT BY WHOLLY DEPENDING ON STEALING  FROM  AND  DISPOSSESSING  OF  THE   MEANS  OF  THE PUBLIC,  BUT  ITS OWN) people-wise,  financial-wise, commercial-wise, material-wise, productive-wise, etc., and in regard of the proper achievement of 1 to 8 above.

A critical examination of the above 9 areas in the context of esp. private/personal sector commercial industrial financial activity, and in the context of the social welfare security infrastructural positives that could theoretically be deduced therefrom – would therefore certainly show why so-called political leaders and managers in Barbados should have in every minutiae of consideration strenuously hesitated to get involved in activities that would have been falling outside the parameter and scope outlined and defined by those basic areas – if they would have really and truly wished – along with a growing bunch of financial parasites from the private sector –  NOT to chalk up 44 years so far of burdening the people of this country with big, bloated, unwieldy, inefficient, irrational, costly government.

And, furthermore, a critical examination of these said areas would show too – notwithstanding the obvious tensions between state bonapartism/welfarism and the state being forced to retreat, why these said so-called leaders and managers should have unflinchingly refused primarily in the interests of good governance to perform work or business in the country, or to contract more state personnel from other areas of the Barbadian society, unless the state/government, first, were prepared to be efficient, rational, and productive in those 9 areas.

Let us go back to a period in the history of this country’s affairs right almost after the size of the government would have been substantially rightly reduced as a result of the 1991-1992 structural adjustment and stabilization program, when for the first time such alarming state expenditures were being undertaken – 1994 to 2008 – and see how the Bonapartist state in Barbados was performing at its promiscuous worst, in so many respects.

So, just take a critical look at how Arthur – during this period – unwisely increased the government’s payroll, and insensitively increased the size and role of the state government in the lives of the people – primarily at the altar of political expediency!! Critically look later on at how the former Arthur led BLP Government rebuilt the Hilton Hotel at huge money costs – much of it to be repaid  – and at great material resources costs, and still around that same time the Sanitation Service Authority had very few trucks to service the entire island!!  And look too at the fact that around that time too a large proportion of the Transport Board’s omnibus fleet became unoperationalized!! and at how the state of much of the QEH had left a lot to be desired.

And critically examine how the said former BLP government had redeveloped Kensington Oval at tremendous costs, built the Judicial Centre, Dodds Prisons, the ABC expansion Project, etc. at elaborate costs – again at tremendous borrowed costs – but at how many other crucial government properties – at the same time of those many capital projects were being undertaken  – were in a serious state of disrepair and dilapidation, and many of the road networks across the country were in terrible conditions.

Moreover, what is grossly unfortunate is that at this juncture, when it is has become fairly political acceptable to many Barbadian people  – including the  PDC – that the remnants of the old planter merchant class elite have taken a back seat in the parliamentary affairs of this country, what we have been seeing is another band of political thugs that has emerged and taken control over the reins of government of Barbados with no qualms of theirs about these massive failures in the state building project, in the democracy building process, in the  proper  allocation of national resources’ process, and in the entire development process of the country.

What is a perceptibly worse situation than the latter is whereby the IMF, the World Bank, and such like have in the most parts been wrongly blamed for putting forward draconian measures to combat the many extravagances excesses of  these political jokers within the DLP and BLP. Moreover, the great pity is that the poor masses and middle classes of Barbados – who have often felt the pain of these IMF, World Bank measures –  have failed to say to these political decrepits – these so-called leaders in this country, “you are taking us in the damn wrong political material financial direction”.

Well, the PDC has, since its inception in 2005, been trying to get many Barbadians to wake up to the reality that both the DLP and BLP have been demonstrating gross incompetence in managing the material productive and distribution and financial affairs of this country. Only recently have started to look past Arthur’s emotionalism and wonder why he continues to say he kicked out the IMF. Would the IMF have spoiled his show of reckless mismanagement of the affairs of this country, when he was prime minister, if he did not kick them out, as he said he had?

Indeed, it does not take many analyses coming from international credit rating agency – Standard and Poor’s – and referable to the dangerous way in which the DLP and BLP Government have been managing the affairs of this country, for the PDC to know, for instance, that there have at least five defined levels of monumental excesses in which the government in Barbados has over the years been wrongly deliberately  caught up with, and of which, even though the areas over which such excess activity have properly fallen into the 9 areas presented above, it – the government – should NEVER EVER have gotten caught up with, to the very HUGE  EXTENT that it has been, in view of the fact of the huge governmental debt implications, the fact that the government does not EARN any where near what it spends, and in view of the fact of THE HUGE UNWHOLESOME  DEBILITATING TAXATION NATIONAL INCOME EFFECTS on the far more efficient productive rational private personal sectors – consistent with such extravagant semi-fascist state government behavior.

Thus, the extent to which the government would have been getting  deeper and deeper involved in those areas has thus shown that it has been doing far, far above and beyond what has been necessary for it to carry out its true basic roles and mandates.

These 5 levels of monumental excesses are defined as:

1) The huge extent to which it has been providing health, education, national assistance, housing, transport, which clearly shows that it has been doing so for primarily political financial purposes – directly or indirectly – for TAXATION, BORROWING PURPOSES; that it has been doing so for political control influence purposes – again directly or indirectly – e.g. for electoral support purposes – and massively without regard to many of those private personal sector enterprises that have been established in these areas or that were once established in these areas. Thus, the introduction of mass education by the government has  effectively helped to destroy many prestigious and not so prestigious private primary and secondary schools, esp as it relates to church schools. Wakefield High, Federal High, Green Lynch, Christ Church High, many Moravian schools, Montgomery Boys.

Only recently has there been a slight resurgence in church schools in Barbados. A similar thing happened to the mass transit public transport service in the 70s and 80s, with the increased involvement by government in this sector. So, the Rocklyn Bus Company, Elite Bus Company, etc. have had to go by the wayside. It would have been better that the government did simply continue to set the rules and standards, with room for minimum active social welfare intervention in these many social/commercial  sectors concerned rather than help to destroy much private sector involvement in these social/commercial sectors.
2) The  big extent to which there has been too much  governmental accumulation of land space possession and too much building ownership, too much providing of government housing, and too many public roads  over the years, which at the same time are not in any way related to the overall productive use of these things for the benefit of the Barbadian citizenry, but which are seemly for the sake of exercising arbitrary and  excessive use ( abuse/misuse) of state/government power and authority over many others in this country, for the sake of creating more political electoral support bases, and for the sake of preserving many status quo relationships between the elite rulers/the pseudo-elite supervisors and the masses of underlings, but altogether at tremendous money costs/alternative costs to the said general citizenry – mainly the masses and middle classes. Many persons who have been the “owners” of small land space rights in this country have been effectively wrongly disenfranchised and dispossessed by DLP and BLP Governments over the years using the evil Compulsory Acquisition of Land Act, evil TAXATION  MONETARY policies, Land Valuation policies. Now, what about C O Williams!! Has similar treated ever been meted out to him before by these joke governments??? What is it with the Ministry of Housing and Jada Construction today???
3) The considerable extent to which the government goes and foolishly establishes itself too much in areas where the private sectors and private individuals have long over the years established or acquired “natural” advantages – experience, know how, business customs, in their modest fair share of dealings with their customers/clients, markets – and who on top of those facts that they carry essentialist pro-nature, anti-society outlooks. Thus, whenever the state government decides to get into “their domains”, other than for purposes of 1 to 9 above, it would find itself out competed completely by them, e.g. in banking, insurance, hotel, housing sectors.

Hence, what were the real fundamental reasons for the government establishing the BNB years ago.  To stymie the logical growth progress in the credit unions then? To nonsensically compete with the other commercial retail banks, all of whom would have seen a burgeoning middle income class coming about in Barbados? Did the government  want greedily a share of that pie? Yet who would only want to talk about those many within the private sector who are greedy? What about the ICB? GEMS Project?? Where are these today? What reasons did the NHC have in building the NHC Warrens offices complex when, so many poor people wished basic low cost housing amenities in the  country?
4) The great extent to which the government has often been abusing certain political means tools – laws and regulations – many of which are very illogical, unreasonable, and irrelevant, to disrupt and displace legitimate and rightful business – the trampling on the rights of, say, Outdoor Vendors in Bridgetown and some other places over the years by the police and who have been supported by DLP and BLP regimes over the years; the BLP Government’s neutralizing of the new used car dealers in mid 2000s; in the afore-going and many other similar cases in support of elite businesses indiscretions and prejudices. And,
5) The tremendous extent to which the public tendering contract process of the government has become too much undemocratically used by government, and in ways whereby the vast majority/those from whom income is TAXED, do NOT have a say in how these so-called public tenders/contracts are awarded, and furthermore whereby such a process is inevitably too often questioned, with piles of allegations of corruption and cronyism many times being directed at it.

So, it is these 5 areas that have far outweighed the government’s gradually recklessly stupidly expanding in a linear way horizontally, in every governmental area that is covered by those 9 basic responsibilities, that have helped brought the government of Barbados to the point where it has been at now, in 2010, with such massive fiscal deficits, such big fiscal deficits to GDP ratios, a soaring gross government debt, with such sustainable gross government debt to GDP ratios, massive inefficiencies in government, and widespread malaise in the affairs of government.

What we want to say quite briefly before we state almost all of those areas of activities of government that would be eliminated, kept or created by a future PDC Government, is this, that we have been finding out that primarily because the following joint state/private sector business organizational strategies have been dangerously used by DLP and BLP Governments over the years to make sure that the government goes far too deep into those five areas in which it ought never to go/to have gone,  that this palaver of mixed state private sector ownership/control of companies/businesses in Barbados has become exceedingly operationally financially problematic.

So, never mind the half spurious, half fallacious reasons advanced by some persons, esp. ones like: such a stake by the government is to ensure that the government secures an interest on the behalf of the people of this country, in such strategic sectors as the electricity, telecommunications sectors, etc. – in as  much as to bring government’s influence, its type of social thinking to these sectors – many such joint relationships are seriously eventually undermined not only because of the fact that that the fiscal debt policies of the government would have been serving ultimately to undermine its part ownership in these enterprises, but also because of the fact that these type of relationships in the long term do not work very well, because these two components are naturally by necessity informed by, and have emerged from, essentially contradictory opposing circumstances.

For, one (the private sector component) is pro-nature/anti-society, the other ( the government  sector) is anti-nature/pro-society.   Hence, what would the government have socially or commercially got out of owning so many shares in Bartel, BET years ago, the BL &P still ? Can this type of ownership be still achieved now in times of fiscal indiscipline on the part of government, and under what pretext??

Anyhow, having looked at some of the philosophical rationalizations as to why the size of the state/government must be reduced in Barbados,  we now come to the question of which of the many areas in government  – based on what governmental bureaucratic areas that generally exist right now and on what takes place in them –  that we as a future PDC Government would do with or do with out, pursuant to the use of the strategy of reducing the size of the government as a means of supporting this TAX liberation project for Barbados. At a later time we shall give approximate figures – based on today’s prices – on the cost savings and benefits that would most likely derive to Barbadians as a result of this entire rationalization and restructuring program in this country. So, here we go –

Totally Eliminated –

a) ALL TAX Departments including the NIS – the exception to this the Barbados Licensing Department.
b) The National Housing Corporation
c) The Rural and Urban Development Commissions
d) All statutory corporations and other government enterprises which deal PURELY in financial affairs – Fund Access, Enterprise Growth Fund, CRL limited, etc. except those that are in pursuance of 9 above
e) All part-ownership in public companies.
f) The Ministry of Public Works and Transport
g) The Ministry of Housing and Lands
h)  The Ministry of Tourism
i) The Ministry of International Business
j) The Ministry of Labor
k) Constituency Councils
l) The Office of Ombudsman
m) The Office of Public Sector Reform
n) The Police Complaints Authority ( law enforcement officers dealt with in the ordinary courts of the land and by the own internal disciplinary
procedures)
o) The Securities Commission
p) The Barbados Stock Exchange ( ought really be left to the private sector)
q) The Financial Services Commission ( to come on stream some time in the near future)

Kept and Substantially Reformed

a) Barbados Tourism Authority
b) The Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation
c) The Barbados Transport Board
d) The Central Bank
e) Caves of Barbados
f) The Electoral and Boundaries Commission
g) The Fair Trading Commission
h) The Government Information Service
i) The Town and Country Planning Department
j) The Barbados Licensing Authority
k) The Meteorological Department
l) The National Cultural Foundation
m) The National Disabilities Unit
n) The National Nutrition Centre
o) The National Council on Substance Abuse
p) The National Sports Council
q) The Sanitation Service Authority
r) The National Registration Department
s)  The Welfare Department
t) The National Assistance Board
u) The Child Care Board

To be Kept and Reconstituted

a) As the Division of Health, Education, Community Development, Family, Sports
b) The Division of Agriculture, Food, Fisheries
c) The Division of Trade, Commerce, Industry, Innovation, Empowerment and International Transport
d) The Division of Legal/Home Affairs of the Government
e) The Division of Finance/Accounting
f) The Division of Partnership Affairs ( takes over from the Ministry of the Civil Service, Personnel Administration Department)
g) The Division of the Executive Coalition Cabinet of Barbados
h) The Division of National Defense, Civil Aviation, Security
i) The Division of the Environment and Coastal and Marine Resources
j) Division of Foreign Affairs
k) An entirely new legislative arrangement for Barbados – Constituency Assemblies
l) The National Bureau of Investigations

All other ministries of government and their existing departments offices will be reconstituted as Divisions/Subsidiaries of the State Partnership Enterprise, which will be owned by present day workers in government and which itself will be responsible for profitably successfully managing the business of the government of Barbados, and for wheresoever possible selling their services and products at reasonable “prices” to the public.

To be Kept and Upgraded as some of the country’s leading productive
commercial enterprises

a) The National Petroleum Corporation
b) The Barbados National Terminal Co Ltd
c) The Barbados Water Authority
d) The Barbados Industrial Development Corporation
e) The Barbados Agricultural Management Company
f) The Barbados Port Authority
g) The Caves of Barbados
h)The Grantley Adams International Airport Authority
i) The Barbados Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation
j) Barbados Conference Services Ltd
k) Barbados Tourism Investment Incorporated
l) The Commission for Pan African Affairs
m) National Conservation Commission ( merged with Beautify Barbados)
n) The Barbados Postal Service
o)  The Youth Entrepreneurial Scheme
p) The Barbados Statistical Department

To be Created

a) The National Currency Board
b) The National Export Business Academy
c) The National Institutional Non-Repayable Productive Loans Scheme – which shall allow the government and all other qualifying natural and legal person the right to borrow a maximum amount of money per year from the core financial system and not repay it.
d) A National Money Value System
e) The Hire Purchase Relief Fund
f) The Division of Science and Technology
g) Trial On the Spot Offences Courts ( the Office of Public Counsel
merged into these courts)
h) A University of Barbados
i) A System of Specialized School Academies
j) Rapid Intervention Force ( To intervene between the Police and
Citizens of Barbados on the behalf of the citizens)
k) National Food Service Department ( evolved from the Schools Meals
Department)
l) A new medium sized acute care Hospital for the North

Finally, with many regional and international health humanitarian technical financial organizations establishing over the years offices in Barbados, there will be the need by a future PDC Government to continue with such for the primary purpose of building harmonious and productive relationships between such a government and those organizations themselves.

So there we go.