What value should we place in the word of a Prime Minister. Should we dismiss Prime Minister Stuart’s promise as election campaign rhetoric? Should we dismiss the promise the late Prime Minister David Thompson made to CLICO policyholders? Are we finally willing to say to politicians, ENOUGH!
Read Nation article PM’s Word
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C’rist Brief, wah shite you talkin’…. huh ..?
🙂
Caswell
Please note that imported inflation has been around 9% for the past few years … Blame the US dollar for that.
WE watch an overpass go up and said nothing – and paid every single cent to Licensing Authority without a word from 2008 – to me an unnecessary almost 100% increase.
WE refused to ask for an update bi-annually on VAT collections especially since the MoF said that efforts were being made to collect, plus NIS.
I am not missing any point – I have to pay for the negligence of the Ministers, the incompetence of the said Ministers plus contribute to their salaries whilst they tax my retired parents and grandparents indirectly when they should be enjoying the fruit of their labour.
Can I risk my children depending on Pension without I paying for their education now. Are you forgetting that my children after studying may be working in this island and contributing to a fund that may not be around when they retire.
Caswell where do we put the financial burden – on me in my midlife crisis or on my children when I pass on.
Put it on me let me at pave a way for my children to take the helm and plan for their retirement with the Government of the day.
Some students have to stop studying already to plan for the hike next year that is work to ensure that they can complete their degree. It is hard very hard on some, I know, I have talked with them and I feel their pain. That is today. They will be in greater distress when retired and find there is no NIS pension. Elderly not just left at hospital but in their own homes and dying of starvation after building an economy and getting free education.
Ease the elderly now nuh – they are the low income earners that ought to enjoy their basic pension. You touch anything else other than education they will be directly impacted and that should be avoided. Look at the whole picture now.
Health care is conditional.
Barbadians ought to invest in Barbados by investing regionally and internationally and returning profits to Bim. T’dad is moving through Barbados aggressively – and sending their profits back to Tdad.
Read today that Republic bank is foreclosing on houses and businesses. Now if bajans can’t pay and Trinis could pay where is the profit going?
Look who are head and deputy of BCCI!!!
Who is really managing our economy?
Where is our strength? Is it not in education? Attack my strength and I am weakened.
Pay for the education now and demand your return on investment.
CALL politicians to give account for monies paid.
@Caswell Franklyn August 19, 2013 at 11:02 PM..Brief (10:41)…”You are missing one salient point and that is people who are now required to pay fees at UWI would be paying twice. The Government extracts huge sums in taxes with the understanding that those taxes would go to provide things like Education, health care and roads. They are now asking us to pay for Education and Health, and the roads are not being maintained. Where is the money that was taken off taxpayers for these purposes? We paid already.”
This is the only sensible that I have heard or read in this debate so far.
There has NEVER been any free education. We have always paid for it through our taxes.
Caswell is right.
WE PAID ALREADY.
@ Brief
Clearly you think this government is going to stop at charging for UWI fees and you are going to get to spend your retirement peacefully sneering at everyone else while the taxpayer pays for your expensive heath care. You think if you, like the ‘whinging middle class’ have a house, lavish or otherwise, that somebody is gonna pay your heath bills while you get to pass on your legacy to your entitled kids. Dream on. By then the civil service will be filled with policy writers who have to pay their kids school fees on top of excessive taxes. More fool you if you think they are gonna be scrunting while you lot live large off your savings. Your retired parents are getting off light with just indirect taxes.
The government is made up of lazy, cowardly men who hide behind school children rather than fix the problems in the civil service that are stifling the economy. Right now UWI students are the scapegoat but once you play that card it’s done. They can’t really touch white people cause they need them too much, so they are going to look for the next easy target to raid when their weak policies have no effect. I’ll put my money on entitled old people as the next.
We aren’t “entitled” old people. Some of us have put hundreds of thousands into the Niational INnsurance Scheme already.
We don’t want a freeness.
We just want what we P-A-I-D for.
Plain and Simple
Simon
I’m just being facetious @Simon
You are no more entitled than a taxpaying parent of a UWI student. However, in the eyes of the government, you are less entitled than a Four Seasons developer or a means tested claimant.
Off topic: What happen to the Barbados Tridents after a rousing start with four wins. The management change up the team which threw the winning combination out of sync. Stupid move by Haynes, Pollard etc worsened by Pollard’s becoming complacent and badly losing form.
To rebound this is the semifinal team for Tridents:
Smith,
Reifer,
Malik,
Carter,
Pollard,
Edwards
new Pakistan player,
Hasan,
Nurse,
Emrit,
Holder,
Leave out fast bowler Gabriel he is a liability.
BARBADOS NEEDS OWEN ARTHUR NOW MORE THAN EVER.
WHAT DID OWEN ARTHUR DO THAT SOME PEOPLE HATE HIM SO MUCH ?
What has become clear is the need for government to contract a PR company with responsibility to advise how to effectively communicate to Bajans. What we are witnessing is easily one of the most politically divisive periods in our post Independence history.
@Brief. I think Bushie and Baffy and all the rest of us should just shut up shop and leave it to you. You have me in stitches. And I have to say that on this one I agree with Bushie.
@David. I couldn’t agree with you more. There is a desperate need of a good PR for the government. DESPERATE!!!! I find that people are willing to be more accepting IF the methodology of certain actions are explained to them. Frankly, as an old and very wise friend of mine says, “If something cannot be explained and communicated simply, there is no merit in it.” I agree. And we the taxpayers employ the executive, not the other way round and we are owed explanation.
That said, I agree with the PM and he is, indeed, merely doing what most other countries are now having to do in this ecomomic crisis which, I regret to say, is far from over.
I agree with the budget and sincerely believe that it is the ONLY sort of budget that could have been handed down in the circumstances and it should have been handed down YEARS AGO. Maybe three years ago the Government should hve listened to BU.
Video links have been added to the BU Sidebar for those who want to view the PM’s speech to his party last weekend.
On 20 August 2013 07:17, Barbados Underground
its amazing how the government asked everyone to hold strain on salary increases etc and then turns around and thanks us by raising taxes and paying tuition fees. I dont think they really thought it through, they will be huge spin off effects including job losses aat the uwi. Also health care, now tell me how can you cut health care and constituency councils remain? WOW
Fact finding missions by any probing persons through Bridgetown today will show the plummeting levels of commercial business activity taking place in this main administrative commercial town in Barbados.
Every succeeding year since the late 1990s there has been solid evidence that Bridgetown is getting deeper and deeper into political economic depression.
Well, this year is the very worst year on record!!
The present ‘back to school’ period is unprecedented in the modern retail business of this country .
Commercial business activity related to the selling of school books, stationery, bags, uniforms, shoes, socks, etc is comprehensively poor thus far, even as there are only a couple weeks left before school reopens.
Stores that are not into the back to school business are faring consistently worse than those same ones or other ones did before the coming about of the 21st Century .
Freight trucks and vans moving stock from bond houses to various businesses are less and less evident as times go by.
There are increasing vacant store spaces in malls and other buildings, as well as there are increasing numbers of buildings up for sale in this capital city.
Supermarket activity has never seen in this modern 21 st Century era such low volumes of business, with major players like Julie N/Trimart, Budg Buy, Ricks, and more going by the way side.
There are fewer and fewer restaurants and eating places in Bridgetown, with the Olympic, Eddies, Tanyas restaurants and more having all gone.
And there are fewer and fewer commercial banks than before.
What the fact of all of this unprecedented depressionary activity means, et al, is that Bridgetown must become a hot bed of serious political activity in this country, not only as the absolutely political of the Barbadian society intervenes to stop these lower cycles of commercial business activity from greater adversely affecting residential areas and populations in this city that are already impoverished and depressed, but also intervenes to lay the foundation for Bridgetown achieving the status of being the leading battleground for newly found freedoms for the Barbadian people from the evil wicked inhuman TAXATION, Interest Rates, institutional money transfer regimes, constitutional monarchical government, single party government, etc
So, yes, now is the time for mass political action to be taken against the DLP/BLP and the money grubbing oppressors that have substantially visited this wretched depression on Bridgetown and the wider Barbados.
PDC
PASSING THRU
As a cricketer
I like your side
It makes sense
But Tridents could surprise us and win
But Talibans -err Taliwahs –or whatever
look good -Gayle Muri , Sangakara. Russell –match winners
The more I think of it the more depress I become, imagine even since the last elections, this government has found work for it’s staunch supporters especially, those who contested seats and lost. They are now permanent fixtures in their places of work, even if they have nothing to do, yet temporary workers some of whom are entitled to be made permanent because of length of work, can/will be asked to vacate their jobs. Do you really think that someone who is not a staunch supporter of the DLP will therefore get assistance from any constituency council that is 99% DLP yardfowls?
There are many students at the UWI who will have to stop classes because their parents are too poor to find the new fees, many struggle right now to even find the amenities fees. Many other students who were in similar situations are now in executive positions in this country are have been able to lift the standard of living for their families. All those students who are now forced to abandon their tertiary education mid-stream, after being told they were going to get it “free”, should bring a CLASS case against this government for a BREACH OF PROMISE. Our National Anthem now become a lie
@june boy
Why do they need to stop?
Isn’t there means testing?
I am neither a BLP or a DLP supporter, having during my lifetime voted for both parties (I even voted NDP one time), so I am not coloured by partisian politics.
So now it seems that every word of criticism spoken against this government is deemed to be inciting rebellion and linked and caused by the opposition.
The citizens of this country are now being threatened by those elected to lead them. I must confess that I must agree with those who say that this government is the worst that we ever had (certainly within my lifetime).
I have no confidence in this government, they continue to insult my intelligence by assuming that I need politicians to think on my behalf and that I will believe whatever they choose to tell me.The words “like it or lump it” spring to mind, whether or not these words were actually said I do not know but they incised the public of Barbados back then.
I like many others am offended by this current government and the way in which they operate.
June boy,
A legal case cannot be brought against the government on the basis of a breach of promise.
There have to be on going legal contractual relationships involved between the UWI students and the government of Barbados.
PDC
Amused: that is why I responded I agree with Bushie as well.
The UWI guild is protesting today. I suggest that they ‘comply and complain.’
@ unsurprised … “The government is made up of lazy, cowardly men who hide behind school children rather than fix the problems in the civil service that are stifling the economy”
You surprise me with this comment. The members of Government are no more lazy and cowardice than any previous Government that stifled the economy and left civil service to ruin. These members are doing exactly what the BLP government does. Impact heavily the lower and middle income earners and eat and drink with the gurus who are all members of the BCCI, who give them gifts as friends and foes. Same behavioural pattern.
It is either what the Tourist sector wants or withholding of funds to party by other merchants and affluent business associates.
Who are you kidding? Read ‘Formerly middle class’ views. I don’t agree with everything but you will get an idea of those who were once ‘middle class’ and have been reduced to poor … I don’t mean “Formerly” as Formely has gone above middle class now into rich rich rich what we call in bajan ‘well off.’
@June Boy:
“There are many students at the UWI who will have to stop classes because their parents are too poor to find the new fees, many struggle right now to even find the amenities fees.”
I know these are not sentiments but facts.
@ Caswell Franklyn
Would you be so kind to tell us which of the three categories identified by you you belong to : UNEMPLOYED ; UNDEREMPLOYED ; UNEMPLOYABLE ?? I will await your reply .
@ CCC
“Now that the tournament has been a huge success expect to see a few Bajan companies jumping on the bandwagon in 2014. And then we wonder why economic activity can be so sluggish at times in the island.”
Carson you are among the affluent business associates in our island and born and raised Barbadian. How is it that you with the DLP did not influence the merchants and fertile business agents to invest in this franchise?
Thanks for sharing Wade’s views, but, you are poised to have prevented such a comment by Wade. It is time that you stimulate your affluent business associates to take risks good risks that is and be poised to ‘hope for the best but expect the worse.’
Except the Bajan companies take risks we will be taken over by foreign investors and we will be whining and complaining each day. Graeme Hall Swamp is a perfect example of how our people leave off investing in product that can bring investment but depend on Government to bail out private enterprise at the costs of taxpayers.
Caswell I expect you as well to influence the rich and affluent bajan based enterprises to invest and take risks.
It is a sad day in Barbados when the Opposition is being criticized for taking the issues to the people. What the government needs to do is to combat the Opposition’s strategy by rolls out there own. STOP THE SQUABBLING!
Trinidad student on Brass Tacks said that TT followed the Bdos model of free education offering GATE – she went onto to say the TT has oil to fall back on – they just started free education at UWI provided students study at UWI.
What on God’s earth does Bim have to fall back on besides our bottoms with hands flaring?
After building a house you maintain it you do not continue to build.
When are we going to start maintaining what we have and stop building.
Brief
Don’t forget Barbados has oil in them thar waters called the economic zone.Its just that like everything else Stuart and his inept team do not know how to go about exploiting this rich resource given the advanced technology now available for doing so.
@Yagga:
A man called Yagga don’t know Tallawah???? lol Mih Jamdom brethren a-say it mean “a quiet quiet looking fella yuh doh wanna mess wid” Will get more than you bargain for!
Yes. i forgot.
So are we going to support the investment in $4.0m or is $40.mil in sugar factory and condemn that idea rigorously and asked that pursuit in the fullest form be made in drilling and extracting the oil.
I also know that when that raw oil is extracted and is sent to TT for refining we actually get less to the consumer. However, more dialogue and research ought to be on the oil extraction than sugar factory.
Gabriel what took you so long in raising this? Why wasn’t this in the Budget as a possible revenue earner?
Johnson Johnson Johnson … stupse … Your day will come, I just hope that I am around to witness it.
We have to cut the deficit, it will not be business as usual.
Here is a word we need to define and appreciate in the Barbados context…ENTITLEMENT.
@ Brief | August 20, 2013 at 11:42 AM |
You better take with a pinch of salt or even totally dismiss what ever this administration says or proposes regarding the country’s offshore oil exploration.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating and this administration hasn’t even started to bake the dough. Like oil and water mixing this administration’s morning promises don’t reflect its evening performances.
This is what the MoF said in the June 2012 Budget presentation regarding Barbados Offshore Oil Exploration Programme:
“As you know Sir there were almost major deficiencies identified by several of these companies with the two pieces of legislation – the Off-shore Petroleum Exploration License Act and the Off-shore Petroleum Taxation Act.
We have now completed the draft amendments and will very shortly lay the Bill in parliament foe debate and passage.
I can also alert the House that we have reached agreement for an exploration
with the one remaining company from the first batch of bidders, BHP Billiton,
who will be free to proceed with its operations once the amendments are
passed in Parliament. We expect that that agreement will be signed shortly and
government will receive a signing bonus of US$6 million.”
Now ask the MoF if that golden “welcoming” bonus has been signed for.
Taken from facebook:
“Politicians encourage law breaking when in opposition and enforce the law when in government. We can all remember how filthy Bridgetown was and how Dame Miller presided over its beautification and illegal vending was not tolerated. Why is the BLP now encouraging illegal vending in and around Bridgetown? Mixed Signals!”
Kammie Holder
The simple answer, the Barbados Labour Party is bent on creating chaos and confusion in Barbados.
It is no longer irrational for us to assume that everything a politician anywhere or their agents say, has been, is, and will be a lie.
Job losses to continue, Riley claims
By Ayo Johnson
Published Aug 20, 2013 at 12:49 pm (Updated Aug 20, 2013 at 12:50 pm)
Another 2,400 jobs will be lost by the end of this year, according to research firm Profile of Bermuda.
Only two sectors — electricity, gas and water, and education, health and social work — are predicted to show any job growth.
Profiles of Bermuda, managed by statistician Cordell Riley, used jobs data from the period 1978 to 2012 for his predictions.
“The current forecasted job losses, if they actually pan out, would indicate that the five-year recession has not yet run its course and will continue into 2014,” he said.
“The most significant job losses are expected to occur in the construction sector where one quarter of jobs, or nearly 600, could be gone by the end of the year.
“The international company sector could lose nearly 500 jobs, or 12.1 percent of its workforce.
“Business services, which act as support to the international sector, could suffer a ten percent decline, or nearly 400 jobs.”
Pachamama
Statements are made according to the information and resources at the given time.
If the information and resources change over the course of time then Policy restatements will have to be made.
Excellent post by unsurprised and unimpressed @ 10.22 last night.
I now move on to the 35 million dollar cut from the QEH. I quite remember when the then “not political” moderator lost a family member. She lambasted the QEH, the quality of care and said that nothing had changed at the QEH since her brother died many years prior. She said the family member who came in from abroad was appalled at the state of the QEH.
With this in mind, how could she sit down in a cabinet that would cut 35 million dollars from this institution? This is brutal, these people have no conscience.
By the way, in the VOB 12. 30 news the Transport Minister went to Parliament today for a 160 million dollars supplemental. Did the Stinkliar not say last Tuesday that supplementals are now a thing of the past?
The PM said on Sunday that he will be following the economy daily to make sure we get back on track. If this 160 million was not in the budget, will this not throw everything off balance???
Just asking quietly as this government is not tolerating any criticism!
I heard that Trini woman on Brasstacks this morning lambasting the BLP_ for daring to hold a public meeting to criticise the policies of this wicked inept incompetent DLP government. She said that the BLP reminds her of the Republicans in the US….just opposing for opposing sake. She would do well to open up her mind and to think for herself by watching other channels other than CNN and MSNBC.
Is this the same loud mouth yardfowl who led a relentless campaign of criticism against the Arthur government every week on Brasstacks aided and abetted by Maxine McClean, David Ellis and Tony Marshall ( out of conscience, he did challenge her sometimes). This same woman one day was so angry over some measure introduced by the Arthur government that she said…….Bajans are you going to sit down and take this, we need to rise up against Owen Arthur and say enough is enough.
Well when the Bees called in to challenge her statements and say that she made threats against the PM and his government, David Ellis denied she that she made threats, they challenged him to replay the tape. He did next day……….but surprise, surprise, the tape was edited.
This yardfowl who is now feeding on the fatted calf, now has the nerve to criticise real Bajans whose navel strings bury here for daring to criticise her government. Woman, you like Mara have a choice, you could leave Barbados! Get loss, the BLP has a right to criticise this government if they do not like what this wicked government is doing to its people just as you had a right to criticise the BLP then.
Get loss, you hypocrite!
Both the DLP and BLP must be smashed to smithereens by the broad masses and middle classes of people of this country.
It is clear that this enormously stupid back and fro involving the election of the DLP into the House of Assembly, and then they doing much foolishness, and then the DLP goes on to be thrown out of government by the majority of voters, to be replaced by the BLP, then for the BLP to be found to be doing much more foolishness, then sometime after for it to kicked out of government again by the said majority of voters at the time, must be stopped totally by the broad masses and middle classes destroying this damned unproductive cycle.
Remove the Damned DLP and Blasted BLP, now!!
PDC
CCC
You are talking about a ‘creative truth’. A creative truth is to selectively tell the people what you want them to know, when you want them to know. For example, if Bajans had something other than creative truths or lies before the last election, the result might have been different, no? Not that that result would have been better for us. So therefore, there maybe, in your mind, some value to creative truisms. LOL
Yaaaaaaaaaagga
————————–
to the Dennis Johnson
sometimes one speaks for the uninitiated
make no assumptions
my dear fellow
prodigal son
I know that your Barbados Labour Party likes to shut people up, but the Lady has a right like all of us to express her opinion. Especially when what she is saying makes perfect sense.
David
Many present students from poor parents will be marginalized because they did not support the DLP. Yes there are means of assistance but we know the DLP home drum beats first
PDC
Those present students at UWI were made to believe, in fact they were told the only fees needed were the amenities, therefore to come mid-stream and alter the course so drastically is technically a breech of contract and this is good grounds for a class case.
“THIS GOV’T CAN BE FIRED
Barbadians have the right to abolish this Government that has constantly violated their rights and elect one that will serve its needs.
So declared the Reverend Nigel Newton of the Westmoreland Church of the Nazarene yesterday in a strong sermon at the Barbados Labour Party’s (BLP ) 55th Annual Conference at the Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic.
Newton also reminded citizens of their rights to rise up and rebel when their leaders became tyrannical , abused their mandate and ruled unjustly against mankind . We must denounce wrongdoing at all times . We must resist evil leaders particularly when they abuse the law to cover their mis-deeds …………………………………..”
He also listed as other evils Government’s imposition of a harsh structural adjustment programme and , high unemployment ….
FROM THE DAILY NATION MONDAY NOVEMBER 1, 1993
These tantrum cries of some persons over the call for students to pay a portion of their UWI fees for 2014/2015 onwards, is quite astonishing for the most part.
Some are saying it will make the children of the working class people – grow up without a university education. ( what palaver !)
All over the world governments over time, have adjusted their policies on state funded education – to the extent that students are now required to fund their own education.
Why should / did Barbadians be expected to be treated differently – for an inordinate indefinite period ?
Wake up Barbadians….your destiny and fate is in the hands of the caring and prudent DLP.
**** Just imagine those who are crying now…. if they had stopped that DESPOT Owen Arthur from dumping our precious taxpayers funds into Greenland and GEMS…..what good could have been done for those students at UWI ?
(*** OOPPPSSS….. i forgot , we DEMS are often admonished not to look back into the past. It is only the BLPites ( and their surrogates ) who can look back and …..” insidiously” claim that Errol Barrow’s legacy ( ” free education “) of 50 years ago…is now “shattered” )
Read this judgement on a case brought against the UK government for implementing immigration changes that would have disadvantaged those already in the system:
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