We loyal sons and daughters all

Do hereby make it known

These fields and hills beyond recall

Are now our very own

We write our names on history’s page

With expectations great,

Strict guardians of our heritage

Firm craftsmen of our fate

National Anthem of Barbados (chorus)

The failure of Almond Beach Village has fuelled feeling in some quarters that Neal & Massey is shedding assets to rebalance the acquisition of BS&T a few years ago. This has caused tongues to wag about whether Barbados has a viable land use policy. It is no secret our land space is known to be approximately 166sq miles. The absence of a robust land use policy should make this a concern for all Bajans at home and abroad.

Regrettably, it is inevitable that an issue as important as a land use policy will easily become politicised. Any attempt to direct common sense (not to be confused with nationalistic fervour or jingoism) thought at this matter is too often swamped by the prospect of those who see access to foreign direct investment as the overriding consideration. Those of us who preach caution are labelled anti foreign investment. How myopic! Greedy and lazy politicians are prepared to sell our navel string and we remain silent.

Here is an example of an investor (Harlequin) who has been attracting bad media across the world. Here is an investor who has targeted Barbados and the Caribbean for investment. What due diligence did local authorities engage in before approval? Yes we should welcome foreign direct investment but it should be done between the boundary of a robust due diligence framework.


  1. @Hants

    Please be specific to allow for proper research.

    What is happening at your end?


  2. After I have typed a few lines

    The window goes behind the log in window

    I will try to duplicate the problem. It seems to happen if i type a long paragraph like I am trying to do now so I duplicate the problem. I must be my long fishing stories. this line is hidden behind the email address window so I have to type without seeing what I am typing.

    This line is now below the website pane.

    I will just be careful until a fix is found.


  3. old onion bags wrote “Bushie ent kno nuttin bout fishin”.

    Bushie can barter provisions and veggies for fish.


  4. @Hants

    Will scan the Support Forum when time allows to see if this is an issue.

    In the meantime type your comment in word or some other application and then copy it over to the comments box on the blog.


  5. @ Old onions
    LOL … Bushie was wondering how long it would take you to get over the hangover from East Coast Road last night 🙂

    ….what do you want to bet that when things get tight tight bout here – Bushie will be eating fresh fish…?
    Bushie grew up on the coast skippa….


  6. Hants; I have the same problem but there is an easy solution. Just click in one of the small windows with your email address or pseudonym and those windows move down the page away from covering your typing. When they come back up (if it is a long post) click in one of them again.

    Or you could try fox.


  7. I meant Firefox above, not fox


  8. Thanks Checkit-Out. Will try your recommendation.


  9. Bushie when I wrote you know everything I like I was right.

    Here I thinking I could come to Barbados, catch some fish and barter with you for some fruit and veggies.


  10. It might be useful to use a Caribbean example to see where a land use policy that facilitates the temporary, long term or otherwise transfer of land to foreign enterprises might take us. The Cayman islands is a good example.

    There, the locals constitute a minority (at least visibly) of the population.

    Foreigners from the USA, Australia, the Philipines, etc. carry out practically all the visible tasks from Hotel clerks to professionals in the Offshore Banking industry. Teaching is still the province of Caribbean nationals many from Barbados. Menial tasks appear to be reserved, in the main for Jamaicans, Cubans and Hondurans, but there are a number of rich Jamaicans also in many areas of endeavour.

    Top Government Jobs are predominantly held by foreigners (many from the Caribbean, but a significant number from extraregional countries) except for Immigration where Caymanians maintain an excessively strict immigration policy

    There is no appreciable agriculture except for a Juice processing plant (citrus) owned and operated by a foreigner. But there are some beautiful prize winning cattle reared primarily for exhibitions by rich Caymanians.

    Practically all agricultural produce is shipped in on a daily basis from nearby Miami. There is not even a bakery in Grand Cayman There are no agro-industries in Cayman.

    The police, that used to have a significant Barbadian component but is now declining, has a number of uniformed Bobbies from England no less, doing such stuff as traffic control (Speed limit 40ish km/hr.)

    There is little crime in comparison with the rest of the Caribbean.

    Unions are definitely not encouraged. The extranationals put down any strikes with extreme violence.

    Several locals have become millionaires from the sale / lease of their land to rich foreigners and have adopted a life of leisurely fishing, etc.

    Caymanians fish for turtles and receive rents for their properties rented to foreigners.

    Political practice appears to be particularly effete and milquetoast in Cayman as compared with the robust politics practiced in Barbados. But there seems to be some evidence of corruption rearing its ugly head in the body politic nowadays.

    The country appears to be very prosperous, with perhaps just one little enclave of apparent poverty. People do most of their shopping in Miami which is just hop away by Cayman Airlines.

    The Caymanian model (the Bahamas and Bermuda is similar) appears to be very attractive to our politicians who spout support for agriculture to the press and at political meetings but act totally differently as viewed from relative allocations to agriculture over the decades.

    .


  11. @enuff

    You asked in your 5:14 pm 28 April 2012 blog: And what does leasing and local investor involvement accomplish besides preventing foreign ownership? How does it engender a ‘robust’ land use policy?

    Such will somewhat achieve what is not already achieved or enuffly achieved, e.g.,

    1) Lessening the political power and influence that foreigners who have substantial land rights ownership have in certain affairs of this country – look what is happening in relationship to the Almond Beach debacle involving Neal and Massy, and how three non-Barbados born, local land rights owning business people are fighting to get more of these rights while many Barbadian born people – those whose navel strings are buried right here have very litttle say in what is happening there. Truth is many of us must feel like real outsiders in “our own” country.

    .

    2) Accreting greater power and responsibility to a national governmental political legal regime that will ensure that the owning of such rights become more in pursuance of a strong nation society building integrationist agenda, and not the continuation with such a land right ownership regime that cares very litttle about such a strong nation society building integrationist agenda, but more about the very greedy selfish economic agendas of those who have substantial political financial wherewithal as veritablydrawn from this very extant and backward land right owning oligarchic financially bank supporting architecture.

    3) Such a regime will surely inspire and exalt many more Barbadians into owning their own lands space rights for productive residential commercial purposes – hence the great possibility of substantial real saving and investment being carried out by such Barbadians to help make sure that these ventures are enabled.

    We will not go on without saying the following – that where a future PDC Government is concerned, rights over such lands shall only be bought sold or leased at nominal administrative costs. Such will help make sure that the substantial amounts of unproductive money and underused resources and services that have long been going into such low level/ productive activity go where better use will be made of them in a significantly evolved productive sectors of this country.

    PDC


  12. @ Hants
    Bushie when I wrote you know everything I like I was right.
    ******************
    LOL if Bushie knew everything then the entity formerly known as CH would be explainable…
    .de body you REALLY mean is BU David….. now THERE is a man who knows everything… 🙂


  13. Well, …. I gave it almost a whole day to see if the answers to the simple questions I asked would have been fortcoming.

    The reluctance of bloggers to answer them speaks volumes.

    Figured they would not be answered and I was not disappointed.

    Just one more for BT.

    Can you show the link between David Shorey, Owen Arthur and the old planters to substantiate the claim made of the top of your head earlier in thread?

    My bet is there will be more persoanal attacks ….. and no answers!!

    Not a problem for me!!

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