Submitted by Anthony Davis

Government Senator Irene Sandiford-Garner today hit out at the president of the University of the West Indies (UWI) Guild of Students Damani Parris for not thanking Minister of Education Ronald Jones for coming through with bursaries to help Barbadian students pay tuition fees – Barbados Today 25 March

My, my, my, what a tirade!

It seems that this Government really has its back to the wall. What a condescending attitude taken by the Senator. Would she have referred to any of the other heads of unions/organizations as “people like him”? Who are the people like him, Senator Sandiford-Garner? Methinks that you owe, not only the young man, but the whole of this country an apology for such a derogatory statement. All he was doing was giving the UWI Cave Hill campus the type of representation they would expect of him, or anyone else who is head of the guild. And this from a member of this “people-centred Government”!

For what should they be grateful? That the Minister of Finance refused to make the money accessible in time just because the Minister of Education was so bold as to announce the bursaries in July without his consent? Was it necessary to upbraid him in such a way publicly?

The Minister of Finance took his sweet time in allowing the money to be disbursed, so that many of the students were left with no other option but to drop out – and you are talking codswallop about being grateful. Is he to  be grateful for those who had to drop out for a lack of tuition fees, or those whose parents/guardians who can afford to pay the horrendous fees for some of the courses on the curriculum?

The bursaries were too late!

What do you want him to say if they were?

They were too late because the Minister of Finance did not find it necessary to release the funds to cover the bursaries before many students who – unlike some other students whose parents/guardians have the wherewithal to pay the exorbitant fees for medicine, law, etc. – were forced to drop out, and you talk about being “brother’s keepers”?

How are you being “your brother’s keepers” Senator Sandiford-Garner? By demolishing everything which was set up for the poor, the needy, and the vulnerable in our society? Or overtaxing this country, and still the taxpayers can not see what they are being taxed for?

Barbados has the highest rate of taxation in CARICOM, and one of the highest in the world, yet we must pay through our noses for everything, but according to the Auditor General’s Report you can waste millions of the same taxpayers’ money on things for the super rich, by being a country without borders for them and their super yachts.

Also lending out the taxpayers’ money to every Tom, Dick and Harry – and the list goes on!

I think that you should climb down from your ivory tower, leave the vehicle – for which the parents/guardians of “people like him” are paying – and hop on a bus, and smell what it’s like to stand around for hours until one finally comes.

What about the mothers who dutifully paid their NIS contributions, and still cannot get their maternity cheques?

What about the Old Age Pensioners who live from cheque to cheque, and had to wait for more than a week longer for them?

Is that being your brother’s keeper?

I don’t hear anyone in this Government thanking the taxpayers of this country for anything. All you did was to try to humiliate Mr. Parris, but I see what you said as nothing more than another red herring. Soon from now we can be exporters of red herring!

Who are more “imbued with a sense of entitlement” than the members of this Government?

It was uncalled for and dismissive, and that is not how a member of the Senate of this “people-centred Government” should behave towards the populace of this country. Did you stop to think that in 2018 you would want to knock at the door of some of these same people like him to beg her/him for a vote?

Would you expect to be welcomed with open arms, Senator?

“The Constitution does not provide for first and second class citizens.”