Submitted by the Mahogany Coconut Group Dr. Ralph Gonzalves Within the region, our strongest economy, Trinidad and Tobago, appears to be facing unexpected challenges because of falling oil prices. This reality has forced the Central Bank to review growth predictions downward. Coupled with widespread state corruption and an election that will reveal the ugliest use…
Within the region, our strongest economy, Trinidad and Tobago, appears to be facing unexpected challenges because of falling oil prices. This reality has forced the Central Bank to review growth predictions downward. Coupled with widespread state corruption and an election that will reveal the ugliest use of the dollar bill to buy votes; it is sadly obvious that T and T seems set for more malfeasance and stupidity in its governance.
In Guyana the President has created a constitutional crisis by attempting to run the country while ignoring parliament, for his glaringly nefarious political objectives. We are aware and have warned that the longer race continues to dominate Guyana’s politics, the longer it would take for this potentially great country to confront and eradicate its socio-economic problems.
As we look back on 2015, we are convinced that the change of governments in Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago represents the most positive political development in the region. MCG believes that without these two changes, the entire Caribbean would have sunk into a stage of utter corruption and political paralysis. We hope that the new administrations will move swiftly to halt and eradicate the corruption that was very rampant in these two countries.
The return to office of Dr. Ralph Gonzalves, for the fourth consecutive term in St. Vincent and the Grenadines is also worthy of comment. While we congratulate the former fire brand socialist on his astonishing achievement, we cannot overlook some of the more troubling issues that were present during the campaign. While we are not here to be moral police; we believe that those who are elevated to state leadership must be held to higher standards of behavior. We say no more at this time!
The picture we painted at the end of 2014 remains. Most economies are still struggling and the International Monetary Fund is assisting some countries with balance of payment challenges. No exciting visionary leaders have emerged and the love of party and political patronage continues to take precedence over national development.
However, we must support the call of Dr.Keith Rowley, the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, to stop abuse in all forms against our children. Too many children are losing their lives through violence and sheer lack of supervision. Sexual predators are being given slaps on the wrist. We are submitting that all crimes against children should have a minimum of ten years imprisonment.
Unless we deal with environmental issues and crime, the region cannot move forward. We call on all law enforcement agencies to be ruthless and swift in eliminating crime. Our communities must be returned to reservoirs of safety. Poverty is no excuse for criminal behaviour and we will not condone what are essentially acts of social terrorism, on the grounds that governments are not doing enough to eliminate poverty.
We are also equally concerned that the rich and affluent are engaged in robbing regional treasuries out of vital foreign exchange by hiding large sums of money outside of the region. White collar criminals must be brought to justice. We are still shocked that the rascals who plundered the investments of policy holders of CLICO have not felt the coldness of a prison cell. We cannot expect to imprison the man/woman on the block for shop lifting or smoking a joint while multimillionaires enjoy their ill gotten gains and life styles, without paying the penalties. We are therefore firm in our belief that justice has not been done. We again call for all those involved in robbing the policy owners of CLICO to be charged and brought to justice.
We welcome President Obama’s policies to do justice to the people of Cuba. Due to the sincere and revolutionary leadership of Comrade Fidel Castro, Cuba withstood all the atrocities against its great people. It should be an object lesson for the jokers masquerading throughout the region. Stand for something or fall for everything. We hail Comrade Castro and the people of Cuba on this victory.
May the Caribbean become closer and stronger in 2016.
William Skinner, Communications Director, MCG, 12/31/15
This is really not about education, this is about common sense [popularity].
Note the edit.
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Ping Pong
The coming year (2016) is significant as the year in which Barbados celebrates 50 years of independence. This comes at a time of great challenges and concerns about our economy and society. I believe that our leadership should not only review the past year but the past 50 years not to engage in narcissistic ‘trips down memory lane” but to identify our strengths and our weaknesses, our opportunities and our threats as we go forward into the next 50 years. I hope that in 2016 there will be a resetting of our national values and norms. I hope that a national discussion will occur with the purpose of setting a national agenda for the next 50 years. The Barbados of 2016 cannot be the Barbados of 1966. If that were so then that would be testimony of the failure of the country to advance.
It thus with some alarm that the Government chooses to start 2016 with a another hastily arranged fete. Is our leadership no longer sober and thoughtful but now seemingly hedonistic, self indulgent and recklessly carefree?
I believe that the activities planned for Wednesday is the wrong way to START the commemoration of the 50th year of independence. We should start with a national day of thankful prayer, a commitment to the cleaning up of the environment and a commitment to each other to be “our brother’s keeper”. The party can come later.
Minister McClean reads the blog, let us hope she has been reading.
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Bush Tea
Excellent perspective Ping Pong.
…except it should be a day of sackcloth and ashes ….in respect of issues such as CLICO, disgraceful behaviours by persons like the Speaker, former PM, current CAHILL scamps, dishonesty at ALL levels of the society and unprecedented levels of NASTINESS throughout toe society.
WE however do not have the quality of leadership in ANY organisation in Barbados to lead such thinking, so you can bet that 2016 will see mucho grass all over our donkeys…
@ Ping Pong,
” I hope that in 2016 there will be a resetting of our national values and norms. I hope that a national discussion will occur with the purpose of setting a national agenda for the next 50 years. The Barbados of 2016 cannot be the Barbados of 1966.”
Great post: In other words we cannot produce a citizen to take on 2016 and beyond with an educational system that is geared toward the 1970s . This is a point that progressive thinkers have been making for nearly 40 years. When I hear or read people talking about our “excellent” education system, I am at a lost as to what they are talking about.
Your point about setting a national agenda for the nest 50 years is also taken. In other words if there was a plan to systematically replace old water mains over a 10 or 15 year period, we would not be suffering the water woes. And so it is with everything. No proper planning for road maintenance etc etc.
What we have refused to accept is that sometimes it takes a generation for proper planning to reveal its full benefits. So we tinker here and we tinker there and the infrastructure continues to collapse.
The water problems in St.Joseph cannot be Dr. Estwick’s fault.After all he has been a minister for not yet 10 years and the mains are over a 100 years old. And now we have the spectacle of politicians going up there pretending that they did not know that the old mains were there when they were in office.
Once more BLP and DLP nonsense. Both of these parties and their lack of vision have effectively ruined Barbados.
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Ping Pong
@Bush Tea
We can’t give up. We can’t allow a belief in Christian eschatology to cause a cynical throwing up our hands. Why preach the Word if all is lost? We grow old and tire more easily but I should like to share the words of the Guyanese poet Martin Carter…
Death of a Comrade
Death must not find us thinking that we die
too soon, too soon
our banner draped for you
I would prefer
the banner in the wind
Not bound so tightly
in a scarlet fold
not sodden, sodden
with your people’s tears
but flashing on the pole
we bear aloft
down and beyond this dark, dark lane of rags.
Now, from the mourning vanguard moving on
dear Comrade, I salute you and I say
Death will not find us thinking that we die.
@William Skinner
I don’t pretend to have the answers but I believe that from the over 270 000 Barbadians the “answers” must exist. Maybe the one good thing about the present crisis is that the value of the failing sacred cows is much reduced and we may thus be emboldened to try new ways. If the returns on the investment in say our present education system continue to fall then the time is fast approaching when change is irrefutable.
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Donna
Ping Pong,
The masses want to party because when they party they forget their troubles for a while. The politicians know that and will provide them with the party. Serious issues? Discussion? Are you kidding me? Politicians don’t want us to THINK!
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Donna
Don’t know about you folks but I have been living in a “republic” in my mind for a long time. All it needs really is for the government to include the public in the discussions in a meaningful way, parish by parish, and move forward with it. If a serious attempt to move the country forward with education and engagement is made; if the celebrations are not all about celebrating but the awakening of our citizenry to new possibilities and a new approach then it would be a good thing. But if it is all about meaningless pomp and pageantry and the writing of Froonie’s name on history’s page it would be a serious waste of resources.
I will not be distracted from the main issues in this country which have nothing to do with the queen (since she is a figurehead) but are about those who govern in her name and often do more to keep the masses enslaved than free them.
Free the people, Froonie! Give us that integrity legislation you promised! Untie our hands! Free us so we can cut the corrupt politicians loose!
Then the history books will laud you in earnest!
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Donna
Ping Pong,
I have always found that to throw one’s hands in the air because of what the Bible says is a cop out. We are not instructed to give up but to continue to press for justice against all odds. What happens after we try is out of our control but we must do what we can.
@ Ping Pong, Donna,
“Bad things happen when good people do nothing.” Keep up the fight…victory is always in sight.
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are-we-there-yet
2015 was, to my mind, the year in which the guard was emphatically passed from the remnants of my parent’s generation to my children’s own. I’ve now fully accepted that 2016 and beyond is not about me or my generation (those of us still surviving are all pensioners with not much more to contribute to the country than the allowances which the Freundal Stuart administration is taking from our meagre pensions ) but about how our children and their children’s children will live and survive in this new age of almost incomprehensible technology and likely overweening service to self by those that will lead them. I therefore think that what is needed in the review of 2015 is the teasing out of the occurrences that will be most influential on their lives in 2016 and beyond.
I don’t think the portents are good.
This year has started with a crass attempt by the Freundal Stuart administration to push a project whose main purpose is to perpetuate the hold that the DLP now has on the Government and to implement the elevation of Freundal Stuart to the history books as the father of the future Republic of Barbados to join, according to his own statement, Errol Barrow, the father of Independence and Owen Arthur, the Father of something grand which I can’t even recall.
Errol Barrow made a great contribution to the country outside of leading the fight for independance and so too did Owen Arthur in economic management in his years at the helm. On the other hand, Freundal Stuart’s administration will go down in history as the worst one we have ever inflicted on ourselves, with Freundal Stuart himself displaying an unmatched poverty in leadership in respect of any yardstick that might be chosen.
The year long strategic celebration of our 50th year of Independance and the concomitant thrust for our elevation to republican status are therefore patent ploys by the Government to distract the country from the above realization and lull us into acceptance of another term for them when every effort and resource should instead be concentrated on getting us out of the morass that has been largely created by them.
Republicanism might be a good thing for Barbados but not as it appears to have been framed at present. If our leaders can identify how Republicanism will improve the lot of the majority of our citizens and correct many of the ills identified in the past 50 years It should be pursued carefully and deliberately and certainly not within the next 2 years.
So 2015 was characterized by two main happenings which, imho, could be most influential re. governance in this country in the future.
The most important of these was the possibility of our taking on republican status without it being the resultant of the groundswell of the people’s wishes but rather a strategy for deifying a failed leader and for extending the rule of the current lot.
The next most important was the lessons enshrined in the Cahill affair which, to me, suggested that a Government that cared little for normal checks and balances was able to survive by a policy of non-engagement with its publics in this most important of projects. Such survival sends the wrong messages to Governments in waiting and must be nipped in the bud in such a way that future governments will be unwilling to take such a path again.
It makes no sense to have a year long celebration of “Independence” if Barbados does not become a Republic on November 30th 2016.
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Bush Tea
@ Hants
It makes no sense to have a year long celebration of “Independence” when we are dependent on foreigners for…
..food
..groceries
..banking
..telecommunications
..electricity
..decent hotels
Shiite man… we even depended on Usain Bolt to provide a name worthy to be placed on Sir Cave Hilary’s new sports centre…
Independence shiite….
Is that not like taking charge of your OWN destiny?
We must really be celebrating a return to DEPENDENCE and mendicancy….
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are-we-there-yet
Hants;
I think you’re right.
That must be the plan.
BushTea;
I think you’re also right. But that realization is way beyond the grasp of our Leaders.
The blogmaster invites you to join the discussion.