Submitted by Anthony Davis
With the future of Barbados’ struggling sugar industry already very uncertain, insurance and financial services giant Sagicor Financial Corporation today announced that it is in the process of reviewing its participation in the island’s agribusiness sector – Barbados Today
Talk about dilatory tactics!
I would like it take that long for politicians to agree to raising their money which they get from the taxpayers tax free monthly – no matter what else happens. There are public servants not being paid, and the ones who are supposed to run this country are making a mockery of it.
Fifteen years is an eternity for the cane farmers to wait for an answer from any government – whether BLP or DLP, and it is many times worse when both of them did not have the time for or care about how the sugar industry was doing. It seems like a case of the blind leading the blind – no matter who wins the next elections.
What should the taxpayers – especially the young ones – do when the time comes to put their X next to someone’s name? Should we all decide to take the time for voting off and go to one of our beautiful beaches – which are no longer our own with various hotels being granted private beach rights – and enjoy ourselves? This is a farce and it must be said that both of the parties who rule this island should be brought to justice for dereliction of their duty in this case. No wonder they both allowed prime sugar cane land to be sold to the highest bidder.
Why should Sagicor – or any of the other farms/persons in that industry- wait another 15 years for an answer from any government. They say that the wheels of government turn slowly, but this seems to have been discontinued.
Pray tell me: Why would you want to build a state-of-the-art sugar cane factory, when you know that you have not even sorted out this vexing question?
It’s no more than putting the cart before the horse. The only thing that does not take long to go from plan to execution are taxes – no matter how asinine they are – just like the Solid Waste Tax which goes according to the size of the house one occupies and not the number of occupants, or the new one where the haulers have to pay for delivering the waste to the recycling dump.
I have never heard such codswallop!
No other country makes its populace pay for taking material to be recycled to the dump. Yet, you want us to become a First World country. Do you think that we can wake up one morning and find ourselves being one? No, it has to be earned – and that is the substantial difference. Can any of you – whether BLP or DLP hazard a reason for this decision to take 15 years?
I very much doubt it except that you want to admit negligence of what made Barbados what it was – where it had one of the best healthcare facilities, one of the best education systems, and one of the best welfare systems in the Caribbean. Can this Government especially because it is the incumbent one, and the Opposition, give us a plausible excuse why the farmers should wait 15 years for such a plan to bear fruition? Do you realize how many people who depended on you for that 15-year plan to be put into action may have died hoping and praying?
Both parties have failed the sugar industry – and consequently Barbados – miserably, while, it seems, going after their own selfish interests. I would like to hear what Sir Charles Williams, Government, the Wards, the owners of Brighton and Friendship plantations and CLICO have to say on this matter!
Why was Bulkeley closed, being in the middle of the agriculture belt? It would be ideally suited to today’s problems in this issue as it would be better for the small amount of cane which has to be ground now. Why did Government refuse to sell CLICO’s lands to Sagicor which wanted to restructure the sugar industry? Why does the Minister of Agriculture have one proposal for bankrolling the new factory – backed by Arab money- and the Minister of Finance another one – backed by a diverse group including Senator Carmichael, an Investment Banker out of Hong Kong and some other Barbadians?
I bet that the Minister of Finance wins – as usual!
I hope for Mr. Miller and the other players in the industry that a decision will be made before the next decade and a half. Can anyone really imagine two parties taking a decade and a half to make such a critical decision. For me it seems surreal. No wonder people can’t get anything done in this country and more and more people are being disheartened by Government’s lack of interest of getting things speeded up when it comes to business – as much as Minister Inniss rants and raves about what needs to be done.
All talk and no action!
Procrastination is the thief of time, and I think that a so much time has been stolen here that astronauts could have gone to some planet light years away and returned.
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