Submitted by Anthony Davis

“A mother is claiming that her hearing-impaired daughter, a student of the St. George Secondary school, has not been taught since the new school term in the absence of a dedicated interpreter at the institution to assist her. This afternoon, the frustrated mother came to “Barbados TODAY desperately seeking public attention as a last resort, after she said her numerous requests for an urgent meeting with top education officials were turned down.”

Cheryl Chandler’s nightmare started in September when her 17- year-old daughter, an upper fifth student at St. George Secondary, where she is the first hearing-impaired student, turned up for the beginning of the 2014-15 school year to find that there was no interpreter to sign her lessons to her…Efforts to contact the Chief Education Education Officer today proved futile.” – Help Us, Barbados Today

Well, well, well!

So many people from this Government are going absent without leave (AWOL) that soon no one will be left to run this country. Not that it would make much difference, because all that is happening with governing our country is being done by trial and error. Once again we see the callousness of this Government and its utter contempt for the lower echelons of our country!

What kind of Government is this that even begrudges a hearing-impaired student a chance of her secondary education?

Is this the ” people-centred” Government that is running our country?

I don’t know why it took this mother so long to go to the press, but she should have done this long ago. We are not all like those sitting on the Government benches. We care about every one of our children – impaired or not.

In the same issue there is the headline “Two new tourism boards in place” on page 9. It states: “A new chief executive officer has officially taken up office at the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc. (BTMI) as the full make up of the BTMI board, as well as that of the Barbados Tourism Product Authority ( BTPA), was announced. The two tourism bodies have been set up to take over the mandate of the now defunct Barbados Tourism Authority (BTA).”

Pray tell me, why do we need two tourism bodies, except to reward certain people for services rendered?

I am sure than none of the CEOs will be paid peanuts, because if you pay peanuts you get monkeys. If this Government can afford to pay such high salaries to their selected few, why can it not pay for an interpreter for a hearing-impaired student?

I am sure that he/she would not get close to the hourly rate of any of those CEOs. This is the epitome of discrimination. You are an elitist Government and so you will remain until your demise, because you care nothing whatsoever for the poor, the needy and the vulnerable of our country.

A leopard cannot change its spots!

This is just another broken promise, because you promised to do more for the disabled of our country, but pretty speeches will NOT help them. That calls for action and that is also lacking with this Government as you are all missing in action (MIA).

I am eagerly waiting to hear what Minister Inniss and Senator Kerry-Ann Ifill have to say about this craven act of the Ministry of Education, and Ministry of Finance.

You intend debating “Four Seasons”. What for? to pour another $60 million down that bottomless pit? I bet that if necessary you would find millions of dollars to pour into that “soon-to-start” enterprise. The money you wasted on that could have been better spent on the education of the scions of the poor, the needy and the vulnerable in our country!

“The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.”

We will surely take one day at a time as we go through these harsh economic times which you have made even harsher with your lack of sympathy and respect for those at the lower end of our society, and the utter disdain you have for them!