Many accuse BU of being too negative because there is a heavy focus on what is wrong as we see it. We do reflect sometimes to ask if such is the case. So far the consensus in the BU household is that we represent an alternative view not often found in traditional media. We will soldier on!
Three events in the news in recent days have reinforced our view that Barbados is like a rudderless ship which lacks clear leadership. This has been the case for the last twenty years which coincidentally straddles DLP and BLP governments.
The first event in the news was that several government websites were hacked. The Internet is used to facilitate the sharing of information and financial transactions. The lack of a serious reaction to the hacking speaks volumes. The government of Barbados in 2011 is obviously not a serious user of the Internet to facilitate financial transactions. Barbados we are told aspires to be first world which does not accord with the lazy way we have embraced the Internet to facilitate business development. How can we expect to fan entrepreneurial development if the Internet is not used by government to facilitate financial transactions? LIME and Digicel are about to roll out 4G and 3G respectively and for what? No doubt LIME and Digicel will continue to rake in the revenues from recreational activities by a population intoxicated by Facebook, Twitter, streaming videos and texting to the VOB show, ‘the things we do for love’.
The second event is the news that the Barbados international business sector has contracted. Today (25/11/2011) on local radio the head of Invest Barbados approximated that five hundred million dollars and 2700 jobs have been lost to Barbados because of our inability to compete. One of the key reasons cited by the Wayne Kirton of Invest Barbados is the archaic procedures within the civil service which makes decision making a very slow process. Do you believe documents for input and review by players in the Civil Service are circulated in a manila file and according to Wayne Kirton can take over six months to reach the decision makers? There was mention that some of our legislation may require tweaking. Why would we not do an audit of the pieces of legislation which impact the international business sector and throw all the resources at it to ensure that we remain competitive? Why would we continue business as usual and be surprised by the result? Why not take Andy Armstrong’s suggestion that if the CPC Office is overworked why not outsource the drafting of legislation?
The third news item was the revelation by the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW) it will not entertain any wage freeze talk at this time. Remember this is a government which is printing money to honour its day to day obligations. What we have is a ‘pissing contest’ between the NUPW whose membership is mainly government workers and the Barbados Workers Union (BWU) which represents private sector workers. The more important point is the reluctance by government and the unions to agree that our civil service is not configured to allow Barbados to be competitive in the international business sector. In fact if we take Wayne Kirton seriously – and there is no reason to doubt him – the civil service has become a serious drag.
There are several other examples we can list which reinforces the view that a lack of strategy execution finds us in a place where all and sundry are picking our bones and we seem helpless to respond. While all this is happening the country is being governed by the largest Cabinet in our history whose eagerness to jetset across the globe in austere times exhibits unacceptable insensitivity.
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