Introduction:
It has now become an expected landmark in political analysis, no matter where you are from, that the first 100 days of any new administration are the most important roadmaps to the programme that that administration intends to follow for that parliament. Given that we are now only a few days away from the 100-day point with the Freundel Stuart DLP administration, what objective indicators have we got as to how the administration intends to govern the nation. In other words, cometh the moment, cometh the man: can Stuart be our Moses? Is he equipped with the vision and tenacity to lead us out of the mire that we have found ourselves in?
New Administration:
For most of the last government prime minister Stuart and his supporters spent most of their time blaming the previous BLP government for the state of the economy, and they were right. The Arthur government spent 14 of the most prosperous years in global economic history and left the Barbados economy with serious current account and deficit problems. But, five years later, it is a poor excuse for finance minister Chris Sinckler and his advisers to continue to blame the BLP administration for the mess they are in.
They have had more than enough time to deal with the problems, more than that, they have had long enough to come up with credible ideas, a workable vision, to take the nation forward in these tough times. So far, there is not a single transparent idea to emerge from the prime minister’s office, the ministry of finance or indeed the central bank. Almost every statement, every speech, every interview they give catches them on the back foot, defending their incompetence and paucity of ideas. Not only that, they have somehow managed to turn every legitimate criticism, no matter how positive, in to a party political issue – to criticise is to be part of the opposition.
One excuse that Stuart hid behind, even if he did not say it himself, was that after he was catapulted unexpectedly in to the office of prime minister, rather than call a snap election and get his own mandate, he sat back rather cowardly with the same ministers and the same policies he inherited as if waiting for Godot. However, when on February 21, in a moment of indecision, the people returned the closest thing to a hung parliament, and the optimists among us expected Stuart to come out fighting, he first took a week to appoint his Cabinet, and then returned most of the failed old hands to their old ministries. It was a classic and unforgiveable example of leadership failure for which the people of Barbados deserved better.
Stuart made a number of basic mistakes, apart from bringing back people as ministers who the people had rejected and creating one of the biggest, if not the biggest, Cabinets in Barbadian political history. What is the collective noun for a Cabinet of headless chickens?
Monetary and Fiscal Policy:
Because we are where we are, the economy dominates the public debate and it is to the management of the economy that the majority of people – individuals, households, corporates, public servants and our trading partners – look for reassurance. But, so far, the fiscal and monetary team, led by minister Sinckler and governor Worrell, does not know if it is coming or going. They have no answers to the problems facing the people, they have no ideas worthy of serious debate, they are trapped like a rudderless ship in stormy seas.
First, under the guidance of the governor of the central bank and its party economic advisers, the DLP government has failed to workout out the theoretical backdrop to the nation’s economic troubles. Although a belief in neo-Keynesianism or the opposing Chicago monetarism would not necessarily get them out of the trap the economy has been bogged down in, it would have certainly given them a confidence-building roadmap, a compass, by which they would hope to get out of the mess.
Instead, one of the most embarrassing things about this government is its sense of lost, and the inability of highly-paid technocrats to even offer credible words of encouragement to the nation. Sinckler has failed to broaden the revenue base, reform property taxation – the greatest loophole in the entire system – especially for the non-tax domicile second home owners on the West Coast, impose a tax on cell (mobile) phones, increase the road tax, while removing any taxation on bicycles, raise taxes on fast food restaurants and sugar-loaded soft drinks, and, most of all, announcing a widespread programme of privatisation while at the same time selling off a number of businesses and organisations that had no right being under state control. All this just for starters.
Public Sector Reform:
Management of the economy apart, the nation’s problems go much deeper than that; they go right to the very fabric of our society, with institutions, one after the other, falling over like dominoes. The public sector is badly in need for radical structural overhaul, from top to bottom, yet this government – and the ones before – allow it to continue as if there is no tomorrow.
From the police and criminal justice system, education, the prison service, customs and excise, to the chaotic Transport Board, the failure of the VAT administration – the list goes on – yet prime minister Stuart and his team cannot hear, see or say anything about this steady meltdown in public services.
In the face of all this, not a single radical policy has been introduced by this government after nearly 100 days of drawing taxpayers’ money. They have failed even to introduce a basic measure of administrative efficiency to a tired and out-dated administrative culture of a deeply institutionalised stubbornness and resistance to change. One way of avoiding the embarrassing question of public sector efficiency is not to measure it at all, business as usual for an easy life, which is what this DLP government prefers to do.
Prices and Incomes:
The people are crying out about inflation. Price stability is important in a volatile situation, and it looks as if this has not crossed the radar of policymakers and politicians. Commodity inflation is eroding people’s savings, government and industry are passing on all the imported price rises to ordinary consumers, and, of course, inflation is impacting on different demographics differently. To put the brakes on this, government should ignore the well organised oppositionists, including the more irresponsible trade unions and the so-called Social Partnership, and introduce a prices and incomes commission.
Such a policy could have easily been introduced within the first week of re-election, but this government did not have the courage. On the economy, the minister of finance has only confirmed after nearly 100 days of his re-appointment that he is out of his depth through his embarrassing incompetence. What is even more worrying is that not a single member of this government has the audacity to tell him that he incompetent. And, equally as bad, there is no waiting queue of former ministers, old party hands, academic party card carriers, retired civil servants, nor even just the over-ambitious, there to guide him to a safer place and take him out of his misery. I am always reluctant to criticise the press, but there is no debate in our publications and just hysteria and mal-informed howling on our radio call in programmes. It is a curious mix that leaves the vast majority of the people comfortable in their folly.
Pensions:
Retirement incomes and the abuse of the national insurance scheme are policy issues waiting to be resolved. Freezing the salaries of parliamentarians, reforming public sector pensions, banning the policy of retirement from some services after 30 years’ service and introduce a public sector retirement age of 65, increasing it in line with the state retirement age, should have been introduced within the first week. Those officials, such as police officers and defence force soldiers, who may not be fit enough to do frontline duties can always to restricted to back office duties.
Education:
After the costly humiliation of the Alexandra School row, and the public example of a bullying trade union out of control, the newly elected government failed to introduce legislation to restrict trade union action to close schools, to impose tighter controls on the professional behaviour of teachers and to give heads more authority in their schools. Most of all, it failed to even recognise, apart from the usual lip service, that our most valuable asset – our young people – not only do not receive an adequate basic education fit for the 21st century, but one good enough to help a small nation compete with the world’s best. School children cannot be held to ransom by militant trade unionists.
There has been no debate on the school curriculum, nothing about what is taught in the classroom, no discussion about the expected outcomes, nothing at all about how tax payers’ money is spent and certainly nothing about new contracts for teachers and improvements in their qualifications and status. All we have had was business as usual with the same grossly ineffective minister, which is disgraceful. A radical, reforming government would have given serious consideration to the legal ownership and control of every school, from nursery, infant, primary and secondary schools by parent/teachers’ cooperatives, and be trust based. At the very least, it would have started the discussion.
Offshoring:
What benefits do offshore universities bring to island nations, apart from one or two scholarships? What benefits do offshore hospitals and care centres bring, apart from a few cleaning jobs and allowing the elderly from the US to have some sunshine in their last days? What real benefits do offshore pile-em-high and sell-em-cheap supermarkets bring to Barbados apart from killing off small shops? What right has Barbados got doing business with Estonia or allowing ships from the back of beyond to fly the national flag as one of convenience?
Analysis and Conclusion:
When the DLP government was first elected it reacted like a rabbit caught in bright lights; again, when re-elected on February 21, it was all over in the place in policy terms. The prime minister took a week to appoint his Cabinet, which turned out largely to be the people he had in his previous administration with the same portfolios, the very people the electorate had registered its caution against. He even re-appointed one or two of those rejected by the electorate by putting them in the senate. This act alone was an insult to voters.
Then, having reflected for nearly five years, not a single major announcement has come out of the prime minister’s lips, apart from the paltry and poorly understood broad-brush one about a green economy, something he obviously picked up from the Rio conference (memories of Sandiford returning from Rio to behave in much the same), but no details, no fat on the bone. Then his economic minister, who should have been shifted, made a bold announcement about a stimulus, which was brave and timely, but then spoiled it all by playing fast and loose with the numbers to make up the Bds$600m figure.
The latest gimmick is the minister and governor of the central bank running around London, cap in hand, begging fund managers and bankers to lend them money on the cheap. For those Barbadians who work in the City it was humiliating. The government has failed to freeze the salaries of public servants and parliamentarians as it had a moral, and economic, duty to do. It failed because it did not have the courage.
Our greatest vehicle for growth and prosperity remains our talent and there is no evidence that the government, neither this nor in the previous one, actually understands how to manage this asset. We seem as a nation to have gone in to a psychological fix believing that Chinese builders, notorious for faulty building works at home, would come to Barbados, indeed the entire Caribbean, and erect buildings of a high standard. Somehow it has not seeped in to their brains that the Chinese are as unlikely to have the same disrespect for Barbadians at home as they would in China, or indeed Europe. We must learn to stand on our own two feet, that is the only way the rest of the world is going to respect us.
All in all, we have witnessed 100 wasted days by this semi-paralysed government. The people of Barbados deserve better.
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