Introduction:
When the voters of Barbados enter the polling booths on Thursday, it will be an enormous challenge for them to abandon old political tribal loyalties and objectively put the nation, future generations and their own futures before irrationally supporting a party or candidate they have always supported, while suspending reason. The harsh truth is that this is the most testing general election, not only since November 30, 1966, but since the early 1950s and the introduction of internal self-government.

In the new globalised world, there is no turning back for small nation states such as Barbados. New global organisations, such as the World Trade Organisation and the newly re-energised International Monetary Fund, now have power over small states, mostly wrapped up in international treaties, that they have never had before. At the same time, rich and powerful nations are subsidising their farmers and industrialists, such as car manufacturing and farming in the US, farming in the EU, and a long list of state-owned or controlled industries in China, which put further pressure on small states. But we are not just economic people, as a nation we are rounded with equal value given to our social relations, our civic and moral responsibilities and our cultural and creative environment.

Increasing Government Productivity:
One of the biggest drags on growth in Barbados is public sector efficiency, from improvements in technology, competent management to output per person. One only has to read the annual report of the auditor-general to see the extent of public sector incompetence. Take a simple, but important example, uncollected VAT. Value added tax is a sales tax paid by consumers and collected by trades and service people. For convenience, that money is paid to the government at pre-set dates – monthly, quarterly etc. However, in Barbados, there is a huge backlog of payments, of business people failing to handover to government monies collected on its behalf.

It is clear that many of these business people are using that VAT as part of their business cash flow, yet for some unknown reason, laziness, connivance or simply misguided unofficial decision to allow these people to have these unapproved “loans”, the Inland Revenue and the ministry of finance have, together, failed to collect this revenue on time and in full. Resolution, of course, is rather simple: give the firm proper notice of collection and if it fails then prosecute the owners/directors for embezzlement. But public sector reforms must go beyond the introduction of technology and the proper collection of taxation; it must also include a re-negotiation of individual contracts of employment and a new relationship with the powerful trade unions.

Economic Rebalancing:
Barbadians are being misled, often by the very top public servants and politicians that should be providing leadership for the nation. Given the importance of the economy at this historical juncture, the most unforgiving of this deception is about the economy. Ordinary people are regularly told that the economy is now stabilising; it is not. They are told that there will be economic growth this year, but nowhere do these ‘experts’ give any credible sources of this growth. Ignoring for the time being the observation by the late J.K.Galbraith that economic forecasting was invented to make astrology look respectable, the fact is that the very premises that the central bank, in its analysis, are at best bogus, and at worst deliberately deceptive.

To return to basic economics, the three key drivers of any economy are consumer spending, corporate investments or public sector spending. It is clear that with an historically high debt to earnings ratio, households are not in a position to drive any economic stimulation; it is also clear that with a growing lack of confidence in the management of the economy private firms are not prepared to invest in an atmosphere of such uncertainty.

One misguided policy, encouraged by senior economic advisers, is the accumulation of a massive stockpile of foreign exchange reserves and, even worse, the cultivation of economically semi-literate people who go around like born-again religious converts reaching this blatantly misleading idea [highlighted by BU]. It is like having a larder full of food, while children are sulking around hungry and bored – like the large numbers of unemployed young men and women on the block. There are as number or examples of misguided financial economic and regulatory policymaking. A good example, in fact a classic example of its kind, was when the governor of the central bank, Dr DeLisle Worrell, said: “Barbados is fortunate to have a banking system composed entirely of foreign banks.” (August 9, 2011). Nothing more has to be said about this spectacular demonstration of regulatory ignorance.

First, there is moral hazard; if the local banking system is under the control of a foreign banking regulator, that means that they take their orders and guidance from foreigners, of the local regulator, the central bank governor. Without going in to technical arguments about the regulation of branches and subsidiaries, here we have an example of the governor quite clearly abandoning his moral responsibility. Or, let us take his statement on the performing of the economy in 2012, a further example of an inventory of decline and deception.

After the misleading statement that foreign reserves held up because of Bds$165m received for the NIS shares in the Barbados National Bank, the rest of the 14-page press release read like a work of fiction. First, that was a one-off inflow which does not avoid the urgent need for structural reform because the problem remains. Second, and just as important, those were shares held in the BNB by the national insurance scheme and should have gone in to its pension pot, not the coffers of the consolidated fund or the central bank. The statement goes on: “Real economic growth for Barbados in 2013 is forecast at 0.7 per cent. This projection is based on the most recent IMF forecast of average growth of 1.7 per cent for Barbados’ major trading partners (the US, UK and Canada), as well as an improvement in consumer expenditure in these markets of 1.2 per cent.”

Apart from the fact, as JK Galbraith has warned us, this is disingenuous, under-performed global growth during the boom years (2002-7) when global wealth grew at a compound rate of 11 per cent. Barbados has also under-performed emerging markets and, most of all the Latin America and Caribbean region. It has also under-performed since. It is a story of steady decline, and lying and cheating by politicians and senior public servants. Global wealth grew by 8 per cent in 2010, to a total of US$121.8 trillion, US$20 trillion more than at the height of the 2007/8 financial crisis. Global wealth grew in every region, with North America (US and Canada) accounting for a growth of US$3.6 trillion, with total assets under management of US$38.2 trillion – about a third of global wealth. Europe, for a long period the wealthiest region, grew at about 4.8 per cent over the same period, with a growth of US$1.7 trillion under management. But it was in Asia-Pacific (ex-Japan) were there was a spectacular growth of 17.1 per cent, with Africa and the Middle East accounting for an 8.6 per cent growth, and Latin America and the Caribbean, 8.2 per cent spurt.

These three regions account for a total of US$29.7 trillion, a total share of global wealth 24.4 per cent in 2010, from 20.9 per cent in 2008, the height of the global banking crisis. In a recent speech on the UK economy, the governor of the Bank of England, someone who should know more about that economy than Dr Worrell or the IMF, said: “Growth has been much weaker than most commentators expected. In fact, according to the official figures, there has been barely any growth at all over the past 2.5 years. ….. “ He goes on: “Three factors in particular have adversely affected the pace of recovery in the UK. The first is an especially deep and protracted squeeze on the level of many people’s take-home pay. “Over the past four years, money wages have on average been rising at less than 2 per cent a year….” With wage increases under the rate of inflation, most UK households are busy paring down their debt, not planning the luxury of a long-haul holiday.

Nothing in the governor’s projections have recognised this reality, that the world is now far wealthier than it was in 2007/8 and, even more, neither the central bank nor the ministry of finance has any plausible answers for rescuing the Barbados economy given this brilliant global performance. It is true, there have been sovereign debt problems in the eurozone, but this is largely because of debt that had built up within banking was transferred in to public debt in order to rescue the banking system, but that is a story for another time.

Social Programme
In many ways, it is the social programme of any incoming government that will really test the quality of our civilisation. How we care for the old and informed, the mentally ill, the homeless and poorly educated. In many ways, it is the civic aspects of our social lives which expose the lack of any social cohesion, a society divided by class and wealth, a society which has allowed the rich to barricade themselves behind walled ghettos while heavily armed.

It is a new society in which a new form of para-military policing, with the Defence Force patrolling our streets and beaches giving tourists and expatriates a protection that ordinary Barbadians do not get. We have seen the collapse of our educational system, with 30 per cent of pupils taking CXC exams failing to get even a single pass, only 23 per cent taking English literature, 10 per cent taking technical exams, seven per cent arts, and less than one per cent music. And worst of all, only 20 per cent – one-fifth – getting passes in five or more subjects at levels A to C.
This is the future of the nation, the net generation of leaders; even worse than that systemic failure is that criminal behaviour of many teachers who, according to some officials, deliberately under teach the children so that their parents must buy private lessons for them. This is the behaviour of a society in decay, of people who are to all extent and purposes criminally inclined. Yet, in the humiliating row over Alexandra School, Harrison College, Lodge and some of the other secondary schools, all the public got, from both parties, was a form of yaboo politics more fitted for a jungle. There was a simple reason for this: the children failing in the educational system – which many Barbadians still fool themselves is the best in the world, that a nation over-burdened with semi-literate people – are the best educated in the world.

Analysis and Conclusion:
As the curtain closes on this phase in our history, forty six years of constitutional independence is not too late to look back at what we have achieved as a nation. And, unless one is as blinkered nationalist, it is very difficult to reach a conclusion other than that our revolution remains unfinished business.

The social and cultural aspects of change remain undone, our once proud educational system is now retreating, with thirty per cent of the pupils who took the latest CXC exams failing to gain any passes and the jewel in the crown, our social influence within the Caribbean has waned.
What is more worrying is that all our politicians were either educated in whole or in part under the post-DLP “free” educational system.

The classic way to cheat a nation is by denying its citizens a proper education. And the classic way for citizens to cheat themselves is by pretending they are more knowledgeable than they really are. Barbados should be the home of weekend cultural activities for the Eastern Caribbean middle class; we should be the dynamic centre of Caribbean financial services.

Finally, there is one thing that Barbadians must take seriously: the current electoral register has 247211 people, these are people aged over 18 – 118669 men and 128542 women – compared with that in January 2012, which had 245672. Apart from the increase, which has not been explained, other questions are raised: is the increase due to the registration of New Barbadians? If so, who are they? More important, demographically, Barbados should have a substantial population of under-18s, if not a majority. However we look at this, conservatively this should put the real population of the nation at over 300000, or even as high as 350000. Unexplained and unplanned demographic change can be a guide to the future of the nation and, too, an indicator of future social problems.