@true to form.

Your form, like Owen’s, is clearly only temporary.

Pray tell us how he retooled the sugar industry. Three years after he was dumped, the sugar industry is on the verge of collapse. I know the BLP had plans, most of which the Dems are finally bringing on stream, (perhaps too late) but Owen dilly dallied on sugar agriculture for far too long.

Same thing with International Business. Much more could have been done to keep Barbados on the cutting edge and cut out some of the bureaucratic red tape. Again we have fallen behind the curve here and the Dems have not helped the situation. Did you hear Connie Smith’s comments?

Tourism was only slightly better off, but still not in a position to withstand the current recession and several properties have in fact closed. Or are you talking about GEMS?

Restructured manufacturing? You got to be living someplace else.

I agree that he reformed the personal tax system and I give him full marks for this.

Restructuring means diversification and new economic activity. New and more efficient ways of doing old things. Where are the examples of this? In may ways we are worse off than we were in the 70’s and 80’s. I agree that the BLP encouraged micro business through grant funding, but how many of these people are still in business today?

Honest, impartial economists will tell you that his last five years in office were unimaginative and regressive as far as economic progress is concerned.

The man did a good job for almost two terms before arrogance, greed and sloth took over. You have not convinced me that he still has the energy or the interest to take us beyond where he ended and without Mia Mottley as a back up he will continue to be nothing more than a good memory – a piece of nostalgia.

And before you decry my judgement of Mottley as his back up, I heard a former BLP Senator publicly recall that for the final term she chaired not only most of the Cabinet Meetings, but the Parliamentary Party meetings as well. We ordinary folk would not have known this, but we do know that his attendance at Parliament was spotty to put the best complexion on it.

SImply put I do not want an old man with questionable health looking after my future, no matter how much experience he has. How is his experience going to help me when he can’t even make it into the office.

The problem with the present administration is that they have taken far too long to get up to speed. So we Bajans are really between a rock and a hard place. Who will be the lesser of two evils? That is one of the reasons why people who can think for themselves feel betrayed by Payne and Arthur’s ouster of Miss Mottley. She proved, and continues to do so, that she had her finger on the pulse with the deficit and CLICO. Her speech to the Chamber of Commerce is the only example to date of fresh ideas and new ways of doing old things better.

You may be able to fool some of the people with your talk of experience, but I been in town too long to believe that you can teach an old dog new tricks. All of Arthur’s recent pronouncements have been down the same old line, when we live in a very different world from 1994.

I pray every night that my children will be alright, but the future of our country does not look rosy given either of our present choices of Prime Minister.

@jfor jerome
It is clear that there are somethings on which we can agree. But i wish to go back to the question of restructuring and re-tooling the economy. A government can only do so much . A government is not an investor ,it is simply there to provide the enabling environment for the investors and then for these investors should run with the ideas . Let me state up front it is impossible to expect that in an economy the size of Barbados,and with a tootal value of only about 10 billion dollars to radically change our export base . We are in competition with a host of countries which can do every thing we do at a greater comparative advantage so we have to be selective in our re-structuring. I think that the word re structuring is to strong a word. We have to tinker, change , modify in small bits to make any real change We simply do not have the finances to make a full restructing work. The Arthur government in its limited way tried to make some changes and you MUIST give him credit for it.
One of tthe biggest contoversial decisions was the decision on Gems. The state of the hotel plants on the South Coast was run down , room stock was depressed while tourism on the West Coast was moving up, .The government took a decision to refurbish hotels and guest houses by governmnet injecting new investment on the South Coast. This did not work wiell but I want you to understand it caused many hotel owmners to retool and bring their properties up to date, That is the work of government, to facilitate and bring to parties to a place where more investment is coming,. the govbernment knocked down the old Hiliton as a means of ensuring that it remains current and attratctive to the type of visitor. That move paid dividends. so that small changes have been made. We had begun to attract brand name hotel chains but it seems that the recession has put a hold on that .

I think that if George Hutson has any decency ,he would have tendered his resignation already. The international Business Sector was the fast area of international growth in this economy. The last govbernment negotiatiated the European Partnership Agreement EPA and with it come some important strictures. This governemnt had a great advantage over the rest of the Caribbean but the advantage was going to be short lived so we had to move quickly. The minister has been able to do nothing so far. This is horendous and the blame has to laid fully at the feet of the minister .This was building out the exconomy when the last government was so aggressive on this front Credit must be given here and we must not pooh pooh this . I accept that in Agriculture and in the Cultural Iindusties Barbados was only iin the crawling steps of the change and some would say we did not even get tthat far .you will have to say that these would have been controversial areas given the capital to be expanded and the possble returns on these investments bearing iin mind we we going to a one factory option. It will take a brave man to give a Governmnent over 200 million dollars to sustain moves in a cane industry when it is not even breaking even. In the present economic climate many of these plan must be put on hold. even in good times some of the plans would have been risky. .

On the question of leadership I repeat you cannot lead yourself and when callled upon by your colleagues you have a duty to answer the call. .Mr Arthur is competent capable and has a record second to none in the area of economic policy and success , You cannot bring ihealth into this. PM Stuart fel ill in St John in the Byelection. You may feel concern but if you are a not a doctor then it is a non point. Wish them well in ther endeavpours I will return to the other points in another post. Think on these things