It is the turn today (16/06/2015) of the Leader of the Opposition Mia Mottley to reply to the 2015 Financial Statement and Budgetary Proposals. BU has little doubt the four hour period allotted will be used to poke holes in many of the proposals the minister of finance delivered yesterday. […] One wonders why in a 2×3 country we allow adversarial politics to to get in the way of commonsense – key players appear not to see the value in collaborating and therefore avoid the charade and grandstanding we will be be subjected to for the next two days. This is the weakness in our system of government.
Could it be the leader of the opposition will surprise us all and instead of engaging in the predicable, use her four hours on the public stage to deliver a message that will resonate and give hope to Barbadians?
There is a vacuum of leadership on the political and other fronts in Barbados, will somebody please stand up?
243 responses to “2015 Barbados Budget Reply…”
@Hants
The DLP will react the way it always does.
Hants you should know your party by now! So why are you asking such a silly question???Have you any shame for their actions???
All political parties “react”.
We will have more entertainment in Parliament today. I hope the BLP Ministers are squeaky clean.
Big rocks and glass houses….
@IslandGal246,
Why should I be “shame”. I am not a member of the DLP. I have no influence in the party so don’t waste your time with me.
Just so you know I have never been given a job or contract by the DLP.
A simple question ministers
Is Cahill a real company or is it a channel island front racking up bills with consultants and engineers with promises of big payoffs at the tax payers expense.
There is nothing on this company anywhere for financial information
No staff other than ME Cowan which is irronic as It is indeed all about ME with this woman
Pachanama,
Without hope the people perish. I guess they don’t want to see reality because it’s unbearable. The average Barbadian politician today seems to be intellectually and morally bankrupt. The system is too far steeped in corruption to change without major upheaval of an extraordinary kind.
I used to watch the budgetary proposals way back when I was thirteen years old. I must say that today’s “debates” are more fitting for a rum shop than a “House of Assembly” No, I take that back. The rum shop fellows of my younger days had more morals and more common sense and were more eloquent. Even when blind drunk. These people embarrass me. I cannot listen.
This bunch, both the “B kind” and the “D kind” are, with few exceptions, hopeless.
@ are-we-there-yet,
you are a person with experience in government financing, so let me ask you if it is reasonable to assume the average tax payer in Bim will have to pick up the slack if the government continue to give tax free concessions to every foreign operation that indicates an interest in setting in the island.
Common sense tells me that if you allow the Butch Stewards of this world to be exempt from taxes, someone else will have to pay, so I was mad as hell but not surprised when I calculated my land tax bill will increase by $760 with the move from 0.006% to 0.008% on undeveloped land.
Mara Thompson seemed to have been struggling to present her contribution. As expected, she referred to the usual “14 years” rhetoric.
Cahill plasma plant
Papers say that it starts in September
How can that happen
No design no environment sign off no public notices no planning approval no grid connection agreed
Just like everything else NO thing is right about this plant
That’s what happens when you allow so called entaupenairs with nothing but an I’ll fated idea to sway our government with promises of all singing all dancing novel technology
@ D Ingrunt
David would like change to happen and is therefore always susceptible to the mouthings of politicians masquerading as change agents.
The brutal truth is that nobody within the party political system will ever change anything fundamentally. Of course, they will mislead us to gain power, but none of them have ever been guilty of having malice and………..forethought for the established order, as an organism.
David must come to know that all party politics is a sinister game. It can never be expected to carry within its loins the innate aspirations of any people, anywhere.
If he wants change, and we have though change management for a number of years, he has to be prepared to break something, not earnestly endeavour to keep the status quo in place and view with suspicion this writer and others who mouth unorthodox approaches, like he is tended to do.
This David mindset is as Barbadian as flying fish and cou cou. In the end it may not be a need for change at all, just to make the established system more proficient. For David is a Bajan!
Don’t mind the flying fish fly away!
So why run for an office that u cannot control
Agents of change need to be courageous
Not spineless wimps
On VOB, Jeremy Stephen is lambasting MAM for not using her reply to offer alternatives. I will not criticise him as he is entitled to his views.
Does Jeremy not know that this dlp does not listen to anyone who is not a dem? MAM did offer alternatives like consolidating the debt so that the government has more room to maneuver.
If the naked truth upsets those who are sympathetic to the DLP, so be it. Jeremy and his likes need to understand that these wild boys are dangerous to our economy and are just in office for themselves. No one can feel comfortable to hear the revelations on Cahill….no one!
@ Donna
When all’s said and done, only the imposition of ‘change’ from outside will transform anything in Barbados. Not the gang currently in ‘power’, MAM, nor anybody else to come.
Separately
Barbados is a country of imitators.
We remember well being in Miami and would see leading Bajan businessmen driving around choosing names for enterprises in Barbados. These so-called business Gurus would be saying what sounds ‘nice’ or not.
This is the nature of everything Bajan, And David is no different.
Things will only change in Barbados when they change elsewhere and the Bajans go shopping or something different is imposed from outside.
We done talking about this matter and serve notice that we should never again be so engaged. David was never serious, he can never be serious. Any such discourse was, is and always will be, a nullity.
A grammatically beautifully crafted presentation by Steve Blackett, the best case I’ve heard that suggests that the Government is still focused on the society while dealing with the Economy and causing some collateral casualties on the way . He steered absolutely clear of any comments, tangential or otherwise, that could be related to the MAM corruption claims. He did not attack Mia Mottley.
I missed most of Mara Thompson’s speech but what I heard was below par. As far as I’m aware she also did not directly attack Mia Mottley
Dwight Sutherland’s speech was that of a newcomer. He offered support to MAM re. her overt hints on corruption in the Government.
Bostic’s speech was a good one that focused on calls for more to be done to improve the City. I missed a lot of it so couldn’t tell if he alluded to Mia’s thrust on Government’s corruption or not.
Going to listen to the tail end of the St Thomas BLP rep now.
The budget document reads well. Taxing mobile airtime and not data is shortsighted. Removing group losses vs limiting them is an invitation to move to another primary jurisdiction. The slide in corporate taxes was noted, but little consideration given to Bajan firms moving offshore? Government contracts need to be ONLY awarded to businesses with a similar license to individuals that they pay tax in Bim.
Has anyone calculated the losses to the tax payer over the life cycle of the plasma plant???? If indeed it is tax exempt???
Thought I would re post this for everyone to read or re read
the Cahill power purchase rate agreed by our commercially aware governing party will not be commensurate with the added cost of compensating BLP for their contractual rights and the additional capital cost of the additional infrastructure needed to connect to the grid
How long will it take the Cahill plant to come on line and meet its performance guarantees BLP will have to keep its current capacity on line until Cahill can prove its plant works
This will never happen
Let’s get real and kill this thing before its to late…..Google air products plasma on teeside and take a look at what’s happened there.
@Rastarooster June 17, 2015 at 11:57 AM #
“Let’s get real and kill this thing before its to late….”
Indeed
We are more guided by Henry Giroux than the likes of MAM. She is the problem, not the solution. And will never be!
Also, see his work entitled The Violence of Organized Forgetting’.
He argues we are in a totalitarian global state, a police state.
Heard most of Edmund Hinkson’s contribution. It was the best contribution to the debate outside of Mia Mottley’s own. He explicitly supported the Mia Mottley contribution but alas a bit too late to make additional points.
There is no pedagogy within the local sphere to help people to understand the crisis of critical agency.
Arendt, once said ‘thoughtlessness is the essence of totalitarianism’.
Bajan in NY; re. the question to me in your 9:48 post.
Thats a fairly difficult question to answer since it depends on so many variables.
If there is indeed a turnaround in the economy and it quickly rebounds to pre 2008 performance levels, sensible concessions given to new entrants are unlikely to require significant underwriting by taxpayers.
If however we continue on the same trajectory of the last 6 years or so, since practically all Government funding comes from one pot, it is likely that taxpayer inflows will have to be drawn upon to recoup unwise concessions granted to big entrepreneurs. The NIS funds is a case in point. Some of those funds appear to be in trouble and there may be a direct linkage to unwise use of NIS funds over the past 5 or so years requiring that new or additional taxes be used to take up the shortfall in the availability of adequate funding for a variety of bread and butter projects.
You may need to check Artaxerxes on this question since I retired from the Government Service over 15 years ago and things are very much different now from what they were then.
@Rastarooster June 17, 2015 at 11:57 AM
“Let’s get real and kill this thing before its to late”
And kill the $100 million Ridley Energy scam, to be financed by crowd funding, as was was pointed out in another blog by PODRYR
http://www.ridleyenergygroupinc.ca/index.html
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/green-energy–8#/story
According to the Inie GoGo site, the goal was to raise CAD$750,000; but the campaign was closed October 16, 2014, after raising “pledges” of CAD$2,951.
Only $99,997,429 left to fund the $100,000,000 WTE plant.
Has no one in this administration heard of “due diligence” – not the DD who comments on BU
Oops!
I should have said above:-
If however we continue on the same trajectory of the last 6 years or so, since practically all Government funding comes from one pot, it is likely that taxpayer inflows will have to be drawn upon to fill the monetary gaps left by unwise concessions granted to big entrepreneurs.
In a sense the 200M tax increases in this year’s budget could be largely an attempt to fill that gap.
Why do we keep repeating 200ml tax increase. The fuel chess is already being collected and has been for years. It will now come into consolidated fund instead of going to bloc.
There will be no solid waste tax this year so the land tax increase does not represent an extra imposition on land owners.
Those two add up to about 79ml.
There are about 90 ml tax payers. A net increase of 9ml from the changing of the tax bands and removal of deductions is about a net increase of 100 dollars per tax payer.
You can dislike the government but at least have a fact based discussion.
i am concerned about the technology of the waste to energy plant. I don’t like the sound of what heard and I have governance concerns. However, I can see merits to a waste to energy plant :
If we can have a solution to waste and energy in one that’s good
The deal structure where the state does not have to borrow any money must be appealing given our debt levels.
Don’t see the inherent problem with importing garbage, and if we do can’t see why it would not be duty free. Is the garbage cheaper and more sustainable than fossil fuels.
Is it a safe, viable technology? Experts may differ, but I am concerned.
Opposition politics is one thing and it was great politics from Mam, but the issues of garbage disposal don’t go away.
Should be fuel cess in earlier post.
The average man seems to be directly impacted by mobile airtime tax, gambling tax, expansion of vat basket and sweetened beverages tax. Three of these can be managed by behavioral changes.
Average man, especially lower income will benefit from Uwi fund and shoring up of qeh.
David, I find the income tax provisions interesting. They seem to signal a fundamental change in approach. Instead of a tax deductions to incentivize particular behaviors or sectors,bathe government seems to be moving to an approach of letting people have more of their money and decide what they are going to spend it on. All tax payers will have lower tax rates,some tax payers will lose deductions. What’s the net effect and what’s our view on this approach
I see a similar thing with university education. A move from universal access to tuition scholarships and grants targeted at those earning 25,000 or less.
Businessman June 17, 2015 at 2:13 PM #
“The average man seems to be directly impacted by mobile airtime tax, gambling tax, expansion of vat basket and sweetened beverages tax. Three of these can be managed by behavioral changes. Average man, especially lower income will benefit from Uwi fund and shoring up of qeh.”
Your views of the budgetary proposals are somewhat simplistic, since you have not taken certain economic variables into consideration.
You should be cognizant of the fact that over the past few years, government has raised taxes, yet revenue has not increased, except for the year when VAT was increased from 15% to 17.5%.
The “cell phone tax” has been estimated to realize revenue of $32.7M per year, some of which would be provided to the MoE to fund a national UWI tuition scholarship programme.
But remember, a country’s budgetary proposals are similar to that of a company’s statement of projected income and expenditure. They are ONLY projections and “behavioural changes” are some of variables that would have an effect on revenue.
If I were to follow your logic, you are implying that the “cell phone” tax will not affect the “average man,” since this “can be managed by behavioural changes.”
Then you mentioned “average man, especially lower income will benefit from UWI find………….”
Obviously, less mobile usage = less tax, then no $32.7M per year. So, the government would have to seek alternatives to fund the short-fall.
This is where I am having difficulty following your analysis.
The entire discussion so far has been based on projections. The whole tone of th discussion is that 200ml will be extracted and hurt growth. Projections may not turn out but we can’t see the future.
The tax measures implemented have generally yielded what was projected. The structural problem in terms of government revenue is the massive loss on corporation tax of around 200ml year, of which at least two thirds came from the offshore sector. Remember barbarous has halved the rate paid by the offshore sector in response to changes from revenue Canada. the new tax measures are trying to fill that gap so overall revenue has not increased .
an excellent analysis on government revenues and expenses was published by one of the local offshore banks. It clearly shows the decline in corporation tax revenues. The government moved to late to implement a comprehensive programme like the 19 month program, instead they borrowed to fill the hole. So on the expenditure side the structural problem is rising debt service. I think the 19 month program is a good start in fixing the hole and a primary surplus is an excellent milestone to achieve. I agree that the job is far from done and I applaud what was in many ways a responsible budget trying to lock in the gains of the program and address some structural problems.
The BLP was able to offer many of the tax concessions it did because of the offshore sector tax revenues. The fact that it came in the form of forex was another great benefit. Now that it’s not there responsible policy makers have to respond.
@ Pachamama,
When a flock of sheep invites a pack of wolves into their pen there can only be one outcome.
Exclaimer
We don’t know how David could suggest that MAM could be a change agent. The Mam we trust is a man called Mam Sonando from Cambodia who is in jail for defending poor people thrown off their land by a similar regime. That is a Mam that’s serious. Not the one talking shiite yesterday.
It is the nature of the oligarchic system Mottley yearns to preside over!
That David could even think about presenting her has a possible change agent is the height of ignorance and all time we spent here talking rasssssssoul ’bout change was a monumental waste of time.
We have declared that David in NOT serious.
“Huh?! What you talking about? You must be quite young, or have gotten caught up in this DLP frenzy of trying to deigfy their leaders. Corruption was rife under Barrrow.Ministers in his cabinet are known for it .for example The mercantile Bank cheque scandal. This thing about talking bout the poor black man and then kissing the asses of white people? Why you think they still have the support of the bajan whites in Barbados?”
Excellent post. Mr Barrow was able to successfully walk a tight rope between the haves and have-not because he was grounded in the philosophical teachings of Mr Harold Laski.Mr Barrow was a student of Laskiism.
The endurance legacy of Harold lasting is one of the problems in the region.
Harold laski
Some body ..Anybody please tell Trevor Prescod to shut up, he is not on brass stacks,,i
Is it because he is highlighting (what most right thinking people envisioned) that The Villages at Coverley is a monumental failure? Houses empty and emptying and businesses closing down.
Curious to know if the sweet drink and cellphone taxes are meant to be punitive or drive behavioral change. To reinforce the point made by Artax.
Why not answer if the government is giving work to Trans Tech without a transparent process to support. This us what Ronald Jones needs to answer and leave the BS at the door.
@ Businessman June 17, 2015 at 4:25 PM
“The endurance legacy of Harold lasting is one of the problems in the region.”
Why blame a man from academia who died in 1950 for the region’s current problems?
Why not Keynes or Marx or Smith or colonialism or slavery?
The past problems like slavery, blatant racism and open discrimination beset the people of the past.
The current problems of the region lie with its modern people.
The future problems will challenge future generations. Pure and simple. Life is a zero sum game complete with unending rows of paradoxes.
all this drama from the blp stan pipe politics,, steupse
Ronald Jones forgets the type of gutter politics we had to put up with prior to 2008.
Adriel Brathwaite, the worst AG ever (and you hear this on the big up cocktail parties and he thinks they are with him)……………………….he forgets that the late David Thompson had a whole file from MTW on 3’S on the political platform at Haggatt Hall.
They really think us for fools! Deal with the facts, ac.
Instead of gas JA address the accusations leveled against him about Cahill and Trans Tech he is insulting the public with flowery bullshit.
What a lying JA!
I heard OSA with this accusation from the first time that this low man entered politics………that the college from which Lowe claimed to have received this doctorate, does not offer a doctorate programme! OSA said so!
So now that Preconco has been paid its $25 million for the Grotto houses, is this inept incompetent government going to let them stay there unoccupied?
Is it not passing strange that Preconco can get his monies as he is due but poor Al Barrack is still not paid……….. the pharmaceutical companies are still not paid as a result poor Barbadians are suffering as the QEH cannot get needed medicines and basic supplies nor can they get buses to go about their daily business as no money is available to buy or repair buses.
Blind morons are in charge!
Lowe crying?
Instead of gas JA address the accusations leveled against him about Cahill > and Trans Tech he is insulting the public with flowery bullshit. > > >
He is yet to tell us about the car he drives!