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David what de rasshole this is you post?
Two feeling rav4s at this time when people are being asked to sxrunted?
[…] Cash Flow Minister Sinckler? […]
Hi David,
Thanks for this, it really brought a good laugh after a very hectic and stressful day. I wonder which two statutory corporations are responsible for this opulence display.Then we want to practice frugality to trim $174 mil deficit in the next six months. Waiting for you to highlight more stupidity to provide good comic relief.
A tax certificate is a paper instrument.
Can one buy groceries or pay bills with a tax certificate if this is true?
Did the government not take cash out of wages from peoples income.
Introduction of electric cars similar to William Industries for such purposes would send a more meaningful message, especially if Government is serious about renewable energy.
@Thinker
Correct, Facebook commenters are resigned to the government placing customized rims on the SUVs.
The party faithful who have been appointed heads of statutory corporations have benefited from new SUVs. For example, the Director of the Urban Development Commission [Derek Alleyne] was recently given a new Nissan X Trail, the CEO of National Cultural Foundation [Cranston Browne] is driving a new Honda CR-V.
We are seeing government departments purchasing Toyota RAV-4s for messengers for inter-departmental use…… what about e-mail?
But DLP yard-fowls will be quick to tell us these vehicles were purchased duty free.
yep my comment is awaiting moderation but the submitted post with all the filthty language gets a pass,
@Thinker,
Providing that the government import these electric cars directly by- passing the local agents, and utilising the great big government workshops and many trained automotive technicians in the Pine to service and maintain them. As it stands, if government buys into electric cars,as they do with the BWA fleet of vehicles and other government owned vehicles, the running cost may exceed that of the top of the line 4×4’s.
But the people in government who run about with big top- of -the- line SUV’s at the taxpayers expense, do not give two shags about renewable energy or cost effectiveness. To be seen in a MP registered 4×4, at the beach, at the club and at the rum shop, is an indication to all that that person has arrived. Look Ma! I am a big trousers man now. Frig the rank and file,who they pass daily at the bus stops in the rain and sunshine waiting on a non-existent Transport Board Bus.
@ Colonel,
Wouldn’t a lease arrangement be far more beneficial than outright ownership with responsibility for maintenance ?
This government is going to push the people of Barbados into a corner like a dog. And we know what transpires when this happens.
It’s a mess down there. It’s just a mess. Some, yes, belong to the BLP and some, yes, belong to the DLP. The BLP you know gave birth to Contractor Al Barrack and Al Barack must get paid – court order. The BLP had nothing to do with that Myrie Rape case but Myrie must get paid – court order.
[…] By David […]
Often I read comments posted here and not pass any of my own opinions or ideas as it may be worthless to readers. However, I would like to weigh in on this matter on a point of principle.
A first read of this post bought a bit of a chuckle when I started to decipher the uniquely Barbadian expletives that it was laced with. I cant say that I am displeased or upset with the manner of expression, as many a Barbadian who has been looking forward to their respective returns probably feels the exact same way, but may choose to think it rather than verbalize it.
This choice of expression notwithstanding, I would like to deal with the matter at hand.
Starting with the photograph showing two government owned SUV’s, parked in front of the Treasury Building in Bridgetown, I think that if memory serves me correctly, the SUV on the left of the photo, may be the one assigned to the head or the BRA. This is not to say that government does not have such vehicles that messengers roll around in during the day somewhat aimlessly, but it is to say that the photo, while conveying a point, may not be accurate in portraying the true picture regarding government wastage.
Now, with the proliferation of e-mail, one would want to implore government to place greater emphasis on exchanging inter-departmental correspondence via that method, as opposed to shuttling around paper by messenger in air conditioned vehicles every day. One department, the Dept of Commerce, once had four such messengers responsible for performing such duties. One of these folk, used to take up the vehicle and spend their day running behind women and shuttling them hither and yon, on the taxpayer’s dime, to the supposed benefit of himself. The same individual was involved in damaging a vehicle while out on one of their escapades and tried to hide the damage only to have not only the damage discovered, but a whole pile of un-delivered correspondence including the correspondence needed to authourise employees payments. Clearly, this person wasn’t doing their job.
All this could have been avoided by the use of electronic message delivery which would negate the need for people running around all day, wasting petrol and providing no value to government or its citizens.
So to Minister Sincler. While you may be looking to cut more people in December or January, and seeking to find ways to make the government’s wage bill leaner, why not implement the use of technology to make the functions of government more efficient.
This way, you can avoid all of the fury which is bound to come to you sooner or later if you continue down the path of certain destruction.
Who is MP49 assigned?
A new BMW was purchased for the new High Commissioner to the UK even before he took up office. These dems seems obsessed with vehicles….new niggers……many of them never had a good car before 2008.
Bajans are too passive……….they are just sitting back and taking “shaving cream” from these morons. The Stinkliar has cash flow problems but the ministers are still flying about like they are on a everlasting holiday.
For the first time I heard a man today on Brasstacks who was absolutely mad and fed up! We need more persons to start getting that angry! Enough is enough.
Rav4 perhaps the dealer contributed to somebody rasshole corrupt political campaign. Sometime soon Barbados will have a Black Day. Treason is what this government should be guilty of.
@Thinker November 4, 2014 at 7:43 PM ” I wonder which two statutory corporations are responsible for this opulence display”
Look in the background of the picture. The nice, nice vehicles are parked right in front of the Treasury Building. One for Madam Commissioner, of BRA, and one for the BRA messenger. The same BRA that has no money to pay income tax refunds, but which has gone ahead and paid refunds to its own staff, their family and friends.
De rest ‘o wunna taxpayers can get lost!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Goddard Enterprises uses the smallest Nissan available in Barbados a March for its bearer to transport documents among its subsidiaries. Bizzy Williams sold his Subaru top of the line and replaced it with an electric car . There are to the best of my knowledge 2 SUV s assigned to the Prime Minister’s Office apart from his Merc, Cabinet office uses a Toyota Hiilux truck to transport documents to Govt offices & to Govt house.
It would be an interesting exercise for someone to document the number of SUV s & trucks on the road which are owned by Govt. Even at the duty free price Govt pays for these vehicles represent quite a huge cash outlay.
In the words of the Mighty Sparrow “we know but we like it so”!
Thinker | November 4, 2014 at 8:33 PM |
@ Colonel,
Wouldn’t a lease arrangement be far more beneficial than outright ownership with responsibility for maintenance ?
………………………………………………………………………………
Not in Barbados ,and especially when government is involved. We have seen what farming out fleet maintenance has cost the Transport Board ,not to mention inordinately lengthy down time of units.
But those who stand to benefit most would easily persuade government otherwise.
Sunday’s article by Eric Smith and today’s front page article should open Barbadians’ eyes to the desperate state the economy is in….despite all the lies told by the Governor and the MOF.
By the way, David, do you know if the QEH was ever given the 22 million dollars which the minister promised months ago to alleviate some of the problems there?
I quite remember the Minister of Foreign Affairs a few years ago when she was still pretending to be non political on VOB…… lambasting the QEH saying that nothing had changed since her brother Wendell was in there………..at the time, she had a relative in QEH. Reading the Nation story today, I wonder what she has to say of the QEH today. She sits in a cabinet that is starving the QEH of funds to provide health care for poor Barbadians whom the DLP successfully fools every election that they are for them.
The Dems are demolishing this once proud country day by day. Woe is we!
David;
The numbers on the number plates of the vehicles in the post above look like ML370 and ML371 (through using an electronic Magnifying glass).
ML vehicles are assigned to Statutory corporations and MP vehicles to Central Government, as far as I am aware, but such things could have changed somewhat since I retired.
The various ministries are assigned certain sequences of numbers so 370 and 371 seems to be likely to be new vehicles assigned to a statutory corporation or to Overseas experts under the MoF (especially seeing where they are parked). I therefore wonder if the premise of this article might be a tad incorrect and if these are not new vehicles for Overseas Experts or Consultants (wink! wink!) and not messengers.
In any case, such conspicuous consumption when everyday we are reminded of the parlous state of our economy, leaves a rather bitter taste in the mouth but such attitudes by the Political Class (that would have approved their provenance) is par for the course.
Let them use 4 year old Suzuki’s.
If the Central Purchasing Department really had teeth and guts, they would be the entity which decides the most suitable vehicle for its intended role, and not a vehicle as status symbol. I recall when Mrs Thatcher moved into # 10 Downing Street, naturally the first thing which she picked upon , was that the kitchen was too small. In came the Ministry of Public Works ,or its equivalent,Inspectors and conduced a “fit-for-role ‘ survey. Mrs Thatcher, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the Iron Lady,had her request turned down.
Simple Simon;
I bow to superior current and seemingly inside information! You are almost certainly correct.
But SS, since they are both Central Government Employees, should’nt the licenses be MP licences? Or is the BRA a full statutory institution and hence the ML licenses?
Mrs Ram once had a promotion known as “Buy one and Get one free.” We all know that since the days of Tom Adams and Don Blackman, a similar thing applied to the purchasing of government vehicles. Buy a fleet of Brazil Buses,and get a Mercedes Benz car free, as a personal gift. But if the Brig did not put a few bullet holes in MP1, this would never have come to light, as MP1 was mysteriously and quickly disposed of ,and the gifted Mercedes was commandeered by Tom , to become MP2.
Perhaps today when the government buys 2 Rav4’s, someone gets the price of half a Rav4 in their pockets.
Perhaps with this whole thing of government vehicle purchases , we may need to call in the same investigators who place a spoke in the wheels of Executive Car Rentals and their associates at the car dealership and other places of interest.
@ Prodigal Son
The M of FA ,you mean that poor girl from Black Rock,what she does drive now, and telling BT/ VOB/ Barbados how she can pay for she son education now, he overseas
Colonel Buggy
Go ease on Dr. Don Blackman because he was a childhood inspiration of mine, the very antithesis of Owen Arthur. Dr. Blackman once sent me to the lexicon ten time one night at a political meeting in Carlton Village. He was a master of verbosity, who employed a small measure of tautology to aroused the passions of the slightly unlettered Bajan masses at the time.
That might no be so bar, after all, P.M. Gonsalves and WICB President, Dave Cameron want us to send tax payers money to the BCCI in India
KINGSTOWN, St Vincent (CMC) — St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves says he has been rallying support to help the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) settle a US$42 million bill with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
The Vincentian leader made his disclosure in Kingstown on Monday after WICB President Dave Cameron appealed for assistance from Caricom Countries to satisfy the claim.
BCCI suspended bilateral tours to the Caribbean and initiated the multi-million dollar claim for damages after the one-day team quit the tour of India last month over a contracts row with their union, the West Indies Players Association.
“I have been talking to several persons at home and abroad to respond to the plea by the president of the Cricket Board to see how we can help them with the 42 million dollar US claim that the Indian cricketing authorities have made against our team,” Gonsalves said.
“I will help in whatever way I can because of the importance of cricket to our civilisation — our Caribbean civilization.”
It appears that a meeting in Trinidad on Friday, brokered by Prime Minister Gonsalves and his Grenadian counterpart Keith Mitchell, with WIPA, has reached a resolution.
The meeting agreed to setup a three-man task force to look at the BCCI lawsuit.
“I fully expect that the team for South Africa will be selected without any discrimination, without any victimization against the India 14, both for the tests and for the One Days which will come in January,” Gonsalves explained.
“I expect it to be done in fairness and transparency and there are other elements which we have settled upon.”
West Indies are to play a tough three-Test series against South Africa starting next month.
The Framers of the American Constitution were determined to rid they new experiment in government of anything British and they did, in the areas of politics and sports.
Bajan in NY
We have given voice to the fact that we want move to beyond our colonial past, but yet, we’re holding onto Cricket as though it is the oxygen which sustains life.
Now there you have it: Dr. Don Blackman was the expressed reason Dompey started studying the lexicon at the age twelve.
They say that Barbados has produced the best cricketer of all times, true. And dey say that Bajan cookoo and Trinidad flying fish tastes real sweet. But nobody ever give our country credit for the development of a ‘lingua franca’ which we have argued is greater than Sobers. If the raassoul Bajans know how people, all over the world, love the these beautiful words and would pay money to hear Bajans cuss, they would put them in a hot sauce bottle to sell ’em.
Even when the leading English dictionaries incorporate all kinds of words like ‘fucking’ into normal usage we still have people, with trepidation, holding on to the Queen’s ‘proper’ English. And keeping our contribution to the beauty of linguistic evolution away from wide exposure.
The bottomline is that you can’t have a government squeezing ordinary Barbadians with the imposition of austerity measures and at the same time engaged in conspicuous consumption expenditure.
LEasing vehicles is only a drop of money. You need vehicles to do the work we pay them to do
@ Dompey. …The average Barbadians don’t give a rat’s ass about American history. Know why? They don’t care about the Caribbean or its people, yet you in your every post seems bent on ramming the same shit down our throats. SPARE US PLEASE. Perhaps you should consider using the Huffington post since there are no jihadists there.
Leaning forward!..where are the f.king issues ? the cu..t who penned this piece of sh..t got to be a real dellusional razzhole to belive the piece bull sh.t going be a topic of debate next election.sh..it head go bring some real issues to table and not that piece of political dog sh..it get real boozo. Same message to u speckled fowl David
@Hamilton Hill
Post your comment, read what you see value in and flush the rest. That is not so hard is it?
Barbados is in a sad state. The DLP seems the lesser of the two evils right now. Read Barbados Today and see the entire set of BLP ministers may soon be in the law courts.
Maybe we need a third party. Richie Haynes should have never allowed the NDP to fold.
Hamilton Hill | November 5, 2014 at 7:23 AM |
“@ Dompey. …The average Barbadians don’t give a rat’s ass about American history. Know why? They don’t care about the Caribbean or its people, yet you in your every post seems bent on ramming the same shit down our throats. SPARE US PLEASE. Perhaps you should consider using the Huffington post since there are no jihadists there.”
I AGREE WITH YOU 1000%!!!
@ stupse
I like this comment below taken from Barbados Today from one of the commentators on the story:
Y is it every time the present administration is setting up to do something ludicrous, (give tax certificates in exchange for money) something about the Opposition’s internal wrangling comes up again. Ppl Dont seem to question that these distractions are put at convenient times! It’s just like a case of the indigenous ppls and the settlers. Give them shiny objects in one hand while stealing their valuables with the other. Smh
And I thought this would have been the perfect time to be innovative and use the older vehicles running on Bajan natural gas.
Better get rid of both Parties and vote in another group , or take what you get and suffer,
Why can’t we extend the terms governing length of time to run a vehicle. Must it be 4 or 5 years or extended over 8 years.
Why is it that blp yardfowls always look for the most out of touch issues with all the problems affecting the economy uh would think that in a six year period the. Blp would have develop a strategy that would have resonated with the public reading the shit posted and endorsed makes one shake the headt
@ ac
Are you paid by the DLP?
You seem to have NO INDEPENDENT THINKING of your own.
I have contributed several thousands $ to a DLP candidate at last election because he begged me for it.
I did not want the DLP to get back in as I could see the masses suffering in their second term.
The previous time when the BLP was defeated I was satisfied as I thought they were in too long and behaved as though they were invincible.
I note I have also donated to the BLP before because I was asked.
I have dual citizenship BUT have never voted in any country.
I can never understand why anyone could be so foolish to be so ignorant to tie them-self to any party with blindfolds whether one be in the US/Barbados/Europe or any other country.
Don’t tell me crap about not voting, I know politicians of both parties locally having sat with them in social settings who admit of smiling in their constituents faces and after getting their votes talk crap about the public in Barbados whilst lining their pockets.
Whoever developed democracy is a joke it is not much difference than communism as only a limited number of people benefit while the majority have to suck salt and prop-up THEIR LEADERS GREED.
I can never understand why anyone could be so foolish to be so ignorant to tie them-self to any party with blindfolds whether one be in the US/Barbados/Europe or any other country.
Ron Paul: 2-party US political system in reality a monopoly
Former Congressman Ron Paul told RT in the midst of Tuesday’s midterm elections that the “monopoly” system run by the leaders of the two main parties is all too evident as Americans go to the polls this Election Day.
“This whole idea that a good candidate that’s rating well in the polls can’t get in the debate, that’s where the corruption really is,” Paul, the 79-year-old former House of Representatives lawmaker for Texas, told RT during Tuesday’s special midterm elections coverage. “It’s a monopoly…and they don’t even allow a second option,” he said.
snip
“What do they do with our young people? They send them all around the world, getting involved in wars and telling them they have to have democratic elections,” he told RT. “But here at home, we don’t have true Democracy. We have a monopoly of ideas that is controlled by the leaders of two parties. And they call it two parties, but it’s really one philosophy.”
embedded video at link:
http://rinf.com/alt-news/politics/ron-paul-2-party-us-political-system-reality-monopoly/
The “Double Government” Secret Gets Out
by Russ Baker
You know something is going on when the cautious Boston Globe publishes not one, but two, pieces dealing with the “double government.”
This cryptic phrase encapsulates a serious claim about the American body politic: That a permanent and largely unaccountable bureaucracy keeps on doing what it wants to do, no matter who the voters elect to the White House.
Both of the Globe articles refer to “National Security and Double Government,” a book by Michael J. Glennon, professor of international law at Tufts University. From the descriptions of its contents (we haven’t read the book yet, but we will—and perhaps excerpt), the author is talking, with due academic caution, about an out-of-control security/military apparatus.
http://whowhatwhy.com/2014/11/04/double-government-secret-gets/
@ Anthony | November 5, 2014 at 11:00 AM |
I understand your point, but it more disturbing to think that we often like to quote the Bible relative to man’s imperfections, yet some of us are so naïve to believe EVERYTHING this DLP administration does is CORRECT and beneficial for Barbados.
However, they seem to forget that during the 2008 election campaign, the DLP promised Barbadians many things, and after winning the elections, journalists, columnists, contributors to the blogs and call-in programmes, private sector organisation, trade unions, economists and accountants were unanimous in giving this administration a CHANCE to govern Barbados and implement their policies. These groups also expressed their desire to WORK WITH government. Although they failed in many aspects of good governance, Barbadians readily accepted the DEMS blaming their failures on the economic recession and the previous BLP administration.
The DEMS and their staunchest supporting yard-fowls, like stuck records, are always telling their critics to bring solutions or shut up. The government implemented their Medium Term Fiscal Strategy 2010-2014 with the Medium Term Development Strategy 2010-2014, “to provide an operational plan for stabilisation and recovery in the short to medium term.” Under the current economic environment, private sector organisations, opposition, “arm-chair critics”, economists and accountants questioned the rationale of these strategies and offered alternative suggestions, which were readily rejected by this administration.
The DEMS accused these people of being unpatriotic, preachers of “doom and gloom” and members of the opposition. The Governor of the Central Bank’s admitting the MTFS and MTDS did not achieved the desired objectives and the downgrades by the international financial and rating agencies, proved government was not on the correct path towards economic growth…….. a fact the critics alluded to. Yet, the DLP continued to ignore those who sought to “bring solutions”, including their own Dr. David Estwick and Dr. Frank Alleyne who recently criticised many of government’s policies.
Capitalism at its best. Send home workers and increase profits.
The bank said it would close down 35 of its 200 branches in the Caribbean and would sever 1 500 full-time employees, including 500 from its international operations.
Scotiabank made a record CAN$6.7-billion net income in 2013.
@ Anthony | November 5, 2014 at 11:00 AM |
Great contribution, but AC is not different to most folks who are tied to political parties or individual politicians, she is just more up front and unapologetic about her blind support for the DLP. Almost all my family and friends are what I call “President Obama apologists” and they defend him in a similar manner to how AC defends the DLP when I express my disappointment in his failure to do anything for a large section of folks who voted for him.
Why is it that after six years of continuous crticism the blp has notpresented not one viable and realistic solution just the same ol jobby .just one ac waiting to hear .just one.yuh could start with the anemic tourist industry .just one solution i beg pleasee
@ Artaxerxes
Let me share the following:
The DLP individual I gave the donation to, weeks later after being elected for the second time the individual joined a table which included several other colleagues all being business leaders or managers at leading corporate entities in Barbados,
I mentioned that even though his DLP party had won and he was re-elected I was sorry that they had been re-elected, and unfortunately the poor people in Barbados were going to suffer because of their false promises failing to lift the country because of the road their were going down.
The individual cussed me at the table and called me a Mia (Boy) and a BLP supporter. This DLP elected individual went on and said that they were sorry that they had taken a donation from myself.
However the elected individual never made any attempt to reimburse the several thousands$ donated to his campaign.
My colleagues were shocked since the conversation was how WE all saw the continued reign by the DLP was going to impact negatively on the country.
I made it known that I did not vote and was not a member of any party.
Also the fact that if this is how one reacts when one’s party policies are challenged then the countryy had no real idea what they voted for.
This DLP individual is a senior Minister and currently with a key Ministry under his portfolio.
The blogmaster invites you to join the discussion.