Submitted by Looking Glass
You know election is around the corner when the opposition and its supporters have nothing good to say about the current government. Quite often the purported facts and figures produced have little to do with reality. Preaching falsehood in robes of tattered narrowness becomes standard. According to Mr. Austin (Not Hal Austin) the DLP government “lacks” innovative thinking, effective leadership, fiscal and innovative thinking, and ability to reduce spending and grow national revenue. He claims the BLP Rescued and Rebuilt Barbados. This of a government who could not even repair the West Wing of Parliament. As I said before we were in what amounts to recession long before the global recession
The last BLP government sold the Port, Airport, the National Bank, the northern hospital, land etc and left a national debt of $60bn (the sum-total of “all-budget” loan guarantees and contingencies) that was greater than the GDP. The debt constitutes a “lien” against the people and the unborn. In the process a few benefited and were rescued. A few were given jobs and a handful became ‘shareholders’ in an oil company which even today produces nothing. A few souls do not constitute the population. Does on rescue and rebuild a country by selling its most profitable resources and committing its people and the next generation to prolong indebtedness?
1- We are told that domestic exports rose by 49.2 % between 2003 and 2006. That may indeed be true. For that we have to thank the private sector not the BLP. Government has no business in the private sector.
2- That deposits rose from $1.9bn in 1993 to $7.3bn in 2003. This may include the money they borrowed from non-banks like the NIS etc to put in the foreign reserve and deposited in the bank. (On The Road To Perdition). That apart those deposits belong to individuals and businesses not the government. The government does not own the people
3- 10,474 youths benefited from training in leadership, marketing and accounting. Really? Then we are about the only country in the western world with a programme to formally train youths in leadership and marketing.
4- 32.000 souls were unemployed in 1994 and the BLP created more than 30.500 jobs as promised. It is very unlikely those jobs were in the government/public sector. Government has no business in the private sector and as such does not create jobs. For the private sector to create that many jobs it would have had to start from scratch.
Full employment is a theoretical concept. Modern society demands that there will always be a reserve army of both the unemployed and the underemployed. Full employment restricts development and expansion growth in the high-tech age. Technology is a two edged sword. It enables the production of products at cheaper cost with less labour. Further it usually requires investment and skills which in our case was and is not readily available. That was the main why Intel and Donnelly came and left.
Government cannot legislate job creation; neither can it subsidize imports indefinitely. Only with rising productivity and earnings, much of which must be spent on domestically made products will we generate sufficient jobs to accommodate the unemployed.
Unemployment/underemployment need not be a reflection of low levels of per capita income or the unequal distribution of income. Unless and until we produce locally more of what we consume a higher and better distribution of income will result in much more leakage and marginalisation
Quantifying unemployment often lacks a descriptive base and rest on inadequate and unreliable statistical information which does not include non-market factors such as:1) people who are unable or incapable of performing useful work because of permanent mental, physical or other disability 2) Those unemployed due to the low productivity of unskilled labour 3) the unskilled and those with limited education 4) the self-employed without clients 5) those unwilling to work in the low wage/status sector. For this reason conclusions about employment and unemployment depend on the definition and is characterized by diversity and in some cases mobility. Given the above the figures on unemployment and job creation cited by Mr. Austin are at best exaggerated. That said there has always been unemployment in Barbados. Given population increase and relatively closed migration it will increase. The economy as structured cannot absorb the growing labour force.
Tourism
We are told that tourism policies led to sustained growth and generated significant foreign exchange. Tourism was a successful self-generating business with little government input long before the last BLP came to power (Tourism In Perspective). That changed under the last BLP. Apart from selling the scarce land they did little else to promote the industry. In the process we destroyed the picturesque characteristic of the island. Canadians visitors increased substantially after Errol Barrow set up the tourism office in Toronto. Under the BLP tourism marketing and promotion was to put it mildly a bad word. We were also told that the Tourism Act facilitated more than $2bn in new investment and a further $4bn pledged. Exactly what the author means only he knows
Tourism returns since about 1993-4 have been exaggerated. When one buys a package the airline, foreign agent/wholesaler and hotel costs are all included in the price. Most hotels have overseas bank account which means that none of the price paid comes toBarbados. All we get is departure tax and what the visitor spends on the island, most of which goes to pay for the imported products used to service them. A long time ago it was estimated that only about 25 cents of every dollar the tourists spend remains on the island.
Returns of cruise ship passengers are also exaggerated. It was reported that cruise passengers spend $70.00 per day per port. It assumes that all passengers go ashore and spend that much at each port. We are usually the last port of call. UnlikeBarbadosthere is so much to see and do in the other islands and on the ships passengers are likely broke by the time they reach the Rock.
According to the CEO of the BTA over 700.000 visitors arrived in the first half of 2011 of which 58.270 arrived in June (Advocate8/11/2011). Last month another source reported we had well over 5000 visitors last year. If that were indeed the case hotels would not be closing. Check how many hotels closed in the last 15 years. We are by far the most expensive destination in the region with little more than sea and sun to attract tourists. Marketing and promoting tourism has been and remains a bad word. Even today one is hard pressed to find anything about us in the North American andUKtravel or other media apart fromAlmondBeach. That apart an immediate problem which we so far has neglected or ignored is competition. West Jet and other airlines have and are increasing flights to the other islands in the region all of whom are cheaper, more picturesque and offer more to see and do that we do. Until the problem is addressed we will have to create statistics as more hotels close.
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