Submitted by HAMILTON HILL
It was December of 2007 and I was home for the holidays. I had not yet exchanged a single Christmas Gift, but via CBC channel eight I got one that not even my wife could match. It had come from Prime Minister Owen Arthur. He had called elections and Comrade Thompson in very short order would right the listing vessel. January 15th was the appointed date of the new beginning.
That new beginning came and with it the expectations of 70,135 people or 53.2% of the registered voters were realized. Months later with child like passion we accepted the first set of budgetary proposals, and found simple explanations for grey areas that in other times would have been red flagged immediately. No more refunds on road tax, even though a hefty increase had been applied. An adjustment to the Trade And Business Registration Act. No problem. Liquor licenses had jumped in a way that was bound to adversely affect small shopkeepers, of which they were many. No problem, for common knowledge said that after so many years of mismanagement these were necessary measures, and in any event the burden of righting this listing ship would surely be shared by all and sundry. For the appeasement of any doubting Thomas in our midst we heard from our new Attorney General, a gentleman named Freundel Jerome Stuart.
“Are the people of Barbados stupid? Don’t they know when they are feeling pain? Don’t they know when a Government has divorced itself from their interests? Don’t they know when the policies of a government are inimical to their ideals? I am prepared to err with the people of Barbados“. The words of the man who today sits at the helm of the administration that continues to wreck the lives of the most vulnerable Barbadians in a way that makes hurricane Gilbert a figment of imagination in the Jamaican mind. That the cadre he now leads is an embarrassment to most Barbadians has seemingly escaped the goodly gentleman. Perhaps he answered his first question. What else is one to discern in the face of this SBRC scam? Say what you want but anytime information is not forthcoming the door to speculation becomes wide open. Can anyone be blamed for the deduction that Bajans are at the short end of a deal where raw material is sourced at another’s expense when the same does not obtain in darker quarters? If they see a tipping fee as a municipal solid waste tax by another name, given the shadiness of a government headed by a Prime Minister whose main portfolio seems to be Minister without control, can you blame them? In a song called UNDER PRESSURE back in 1987 RPB sang “we only knew about milking cow…look um is de direct opposite now“. Twenty years later a cow by any other name is still a cow, and Yard fowls are very much among us. Policy statements are made in their midst mostly on Sunday evenings, then the mother hen of that brood disrupts anyone who dares to talk their talk should it not mesh with the spoken word.
Let me again quote my Prime Minister [after all I am a part of THE BARBADOS NETWORK these frauds promoted] so yes he is my Prime Minister. “For the last 14 years we had a version of economics, I called arithmetic which started from a position that as long as you fatten people from the top there would be a spillover and people at the bottom would necessarily get the crumbs from the table. The so-called trickle down variable of economics. I believe the liberal economist J.K.Galbraith put it beautifully when he said that trickle down economics is another way of saying that if you want to give the birds more feed you have to give the horse more oats. And that is what has governed Barbados for the last 14 years“. Help me please somebody.Forget those 14 years and check from 2013. Is it only me, or to you as well that last quote brings glaringly to mind names like Harry Husbands, Patrick Todd and Irene Sandiford-Garner?
I have long heard the saying all that glitters is not gold, but never did I suspect such a drastic depreciation in the value of a yule-tide offering. After all it was given in the name of the Christ Child. To my Prime Minister who so often quotes the scripture I remind you of psalm 19: Let the words of my mouth,and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight oh Lord.
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