For eight years the country has been gripped in an economic recession – negligible growth notwithstanding in a quarter here and there – although it feels like a lifetime, an unaccustomed position for thousands of Barbadian if we count from the last major economic crisis of the early 90s. Clearly Barbadians- judging by how we have responded (not responded) to the economic challenge- must legitimately question our leadership and management abilities as a nation. We have reached the point instead of leading the region, an accustomed position since Independence, we have retreated to comparing our current state with the base of the base in the region. The boast that Barbados is a model Black country boxing above it weight class has become an idle one.
With less than a year to go until the next general election bell is rung AND weeks after the minister of finance Chris Sinckler delivered a ‘budget’ he promised will create a surplus on current account by reducing the deficit by 567 million dollars in the current financial year –the country’s major trade unions have decided that now is the time to pressure the government to modify the rate it has applied with the implementation of the contentious National Social Responsibility Levy (NSRL) from 10% to 5%. BU SUSPECTS the NSRL issue is a ruse by the BWU, NUPW, BSTU and BUT to give impetus to a bigger objective, that is, to force a change in government. Such naked affiliation by the major trade unions to the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) Opposition does a disservice to the movement. This will be a blog for another day.
If a student does not study well in the school year, cramming one week before promotionals will not make a difference. Using the same analogy -how will it be possible to reduce the deficit by 567 million dollars in less than a year before the next general elections IF the government has been unable to implement policies to achieve same in the last eight years? What is magical about this year?
To the apolitical Barbadian it is evident the economic model that has served Barbados for the last 40 years has run its course. The tourism goose is laying eggs, however, not in the same quantity or quality. An ageing population, unsustainable cost of social services, a burgeoning middlecalss manufactured on rising household debt, means that it is all beginning to collapse because we have not been able to match production with spend. As important is that as a people we have to adopt the right behaviours to collectively guide the country in the direction that will reasonably sustain ALL. What should these behaviours be?
It is laughable that trade unions are calling for a wage hike for employees in the public service and the wage bill by the same sector by any measure has been identified as the reason for the worrying state of government finances and has resulted in the printing of money. The end result is that domestic debt to GDP is ranked at one of the highest in the world. BU cannot ignore the fact that there continues to be haemorrhaging in government’s finances outlined in every Auditor General’s report since 2007 to the present. BU’s comment should not be taken as an attack on public sector workers. If we are honest we should be able to agree that the public service has become a place that the political class has padded to satisfy narrow interest.
What is playing out in Barbados gives currency to the Orwellian view that all the tenets we should adopt to protect our fragile democracy we seem happy to jettison in favour of alternative facts, incompetence and corruption from the entrenched political class and the partisan political minions. The foregoing made all the more ironic if we continue to boast of being a highly educated nation. The national budget allocation to education supports it.
The trade unions will again impose a go slow on a nation and what will be achieved? There will be enough workers who feel intimidated to ensure the public service remains somewhat productive and the country will limp along. This is where we are a country limping along.
245 responses to “A Country In Limp Mode”
@ Austin July 22, 2017 at 4:41 PM
“Jethro, You are using words you do not understand. You are filled with hate and anger and it is showing. Like most things, you make claims, but cannot produce any proof. Me a hypocrite?”
You, also, use words that neither you nor members of your own household (by your admission) understand.
Are you going to deny, yes you hypocrite, that you have stated more than once that members of your family don’t listen to or take you seriously?
So if your own blood sees you as an old fool why can’t the BU anonymice share a similar view of you and your xenophobic rants?
Now who is going off his rockers and more in need of help from his own family?
Why don’t you just help yourself back to some sanity by exercising the mind and let us know what you really think should be done to sort out the ongoing economic crisis in your native Barbados or at least express a view on the recommendation to decriminalize marijuana not only in the UK but also Barbados?
Now please don’t ramble on about gambling in the international money casino with the little forex reserves the junk bond country still have in the kitty.
Fair and Balanced
Who spending the millions and on what ? Who collecting the millions, if government, what the millions were spent on?
where the millions from the last 7 crop overs misplaced?
Does the resident yardfowl recognise that very few people watch DLPTV?
Fair and Balanced July 22, 2017 at 8:31 PM
F&B, how come you are not cussing and attacking another “FB”?
Here is what you ought to be attacking:
@ Frustrated Businessman ready to shut down this country to force elections. July 22, 2017 at 9:19 PM:
“The writing now seems to be on the wall. There is no way the BPSA can sit across a meeting table from this scum, even if the unions would lower themselves to.”
Why can’t you, F B, be as bold and equally bold-facedly hypocritical like Jester Ince and call the private sector players (including Maloney) a bunch of parasites only out to overthrow your useless incompetent government?
“The writing now seems to be on the wall. There is no way the BPSA can sit across a meeting table from this scum, even if the unions would lower themselves to.”
Frustrated Businessman fits into the apartheid set up like Bizzy at a cocktail party or Cow at polo. The deranged shoite from him is unsurprising. The insulting of black government is straight out of his Boers/ KKK manual with a chapter on Nazism. FB racist bile gets the stamp of approval from Mia bootlicker Miller. It isn’t over until the fat lady sings. Stay tuned for coming attractions.
The way the march is developing proves it was secretly planned long ago waiting on the right conditions. The opposition lurks in the shadows. The march shapes up to be a full scale assault to bring down a constitutionally elected government of Barbados by unconstitutional means. No right thinking citizen should entertain this radical shift to the politics of no return. We enter dangerous unfamiliar territory. There aren’t life or death reasons to go there. Think before you leap peoples.
@Diplomat July 23, 2017 at 1:16 AM “The way the march is developing proves it was secretly planned long ago waiting on the right conditions. The opposition lurks in the shadows. The march shapes up to be a full scale assault to bring down a constitutionally elected government of Barbados by unconstitutional means.”
The people who will march tomorrow are the exact same people who elected this government, so there is nothing undemocratic or unconstitutional about the march. They are the same people who have long asked the government to come to the bargaining table. What is it that is preventing the government from meeting with the unions and the private sector? What besides stubbornness?
And you are no diplomat.
You are a DLP yardie, plain and simple.
http://www.nationnews.com/nationnews/news/98935/removing-govt-unions-roleTAKE THE FIGHT with Government to Parliament and not in the streets of Bridgetown…Owen blasted what he viewed as attempts to bring down the Freundel Stuart administration through non-parliamentary means.”
I don’t understand what Owen means when he says to take the fight to Parliament and not into the streets. Neither the private sector nor the unions have a seat in Parliament so how can they take the fight there, unless Owen is suggesting that they pull a Guy Fawkes, or unless he is being disingenuous.
I will remind Owen that the same people who will march on Monday are the very same people who elected this DLP government [and who in the past elected Owen’s BLP for 3 consecutive terms] and since the Parliamentarians are ignoring the will of the people there is nothing undemocratic or unconstitutional with the people marching in order to get the attention of their supposed Parliamentary representatives, including getting the attention of Owen.
@Diplomat July 23, 2017 at 1:16 AM “The way the march is developing proves it was secretly planned long ago waiting on the right conditions. The opposition lurks in the shadows.”
So tell me what is wrong with planning/ I have always been led to believe that planning is a good thing.
The opposition is not lurking anywhere. The Opposition is Her majesty’s loyal opposition and as such is a part of Parliament. The opposition has a right and a responsibility to be fully engaged with the people and this engagement must take place in Parliament and out of Parliament.
Diplomat is Fair and Balanced, waiting, Fan, Commentator etc. A DLP yardfowl who is of the view he has to operate under multiple monikers.
Dear PM, your only misstep if it is indeed a misstep, is not doing it your way. This protest by the unions and businesses should be about the security cameras that you installed to ensure collection of legitimate revenue, the charges that you brought against public servants taking bribes and businesses giving bribes to avoid paying legitimate taxes and your termination of eye servants and bribees from the public sector.
COPIED FROM FACEBOOK, AN EXCELLENT RESPONSE TO RACISTS DLP SCUM.
This is in response to a message circulating on social media about the rationale or in this case according to what is written in said message the racial motiviation behind the march slated for July24, 2017.
Lest we forget, July 26, 2017 will mark the 80th anniversary of the civil unrest that took place in this country in 1937. Much of that unrest was attributed to the “social and economic conditions in Barbados…” at that time as unions were campaigning for better wages and better working conditions for workers. Are unions asking for anything different now?
Let us be fair. The riots of 1937 were lauded as necessary when the white plantocracy was deemed the group taking advantage of workers in this country. Are we as Barbadians supposed to ignore the current situation and should we as a predominantly black nation stand up for justice only when the tormentor is white? Or isn’t it worse when the oppressor is a “democratically elected government”?
We also need to remember the similarities between this scenario and the 1991 scenario in which DLP members and trade unionist Evelyn Greaves, Sir Roy Trotman and Robert Bobby Morris marched against the 8% salary reduction hand in hand with other social partners. This was not a racist conspiracy against and a predominantly black government and neither is this. Both speak to social and economic sectors cooperating in the interest of a better Barbados.
Barbadians, regardless of race or ethnicity, are suffering and that is the harsh reality!
You ask if we as a people do not smell a rat. Well we smell at least 17! So before we contract leptospirosis or the black plague (perhaps this might be welcomed since we are a predominantly black nation) and are completely wiped out we will march with our various pied pipers for what is just and right in these harsh economic times.
This is no conspiracy to cripple our nation.
And as for bringing down the government, we are a civil people and have a democratic electoral process that speaks to that!
So with that understand that the attempt to make this pertinent issue about race will not be entertained. Understand that before we Barbadians fall for anything, we have decided to march for something!
I smell illegitimate diversion of foreign exchange from the country. I smell questionable compensation arrangements aimed at allowing business executives to hide their income from income tax. I smell public servants being bribed so businesses do not have to pay duties and other imposts. I smell businesses collecting tax on behalf of government and not paying it over. Yes, all of these smell like big stinging rats.
Good to hear that the march was planned.
Proper planning and preparation prevents piss poor performance.
Bushie will be there…..
I smell unions collecting members’ fees every month and not paying members on strike from a strike fund. I smell unions opposing the practices of big business executives while envying and striving to be remunerated like those executives. I smell unions that accuse businesses and government of misusing workers and do the same. I smell pigs and humans and they all smell like rats.
The opposition not going to score any points in this ongoing feud between govt, unions and some in the private sector because when the smoke clears and the dust settles all parties will return to the drawing board cooler heads will prevail with one focus in mind that there is only one barbados ,
What the opposition is waiting in the sideline and hoping for to be a total breakdown resulting in chaos is a pipe dream however what the opposition fails to realize that going forward the question remaining on the table and poised right up in their face would be one of many including What are the B:P alternatives” for which they will be no bargaining rights in the minds of the electorate
One day march is in effective and will not topple govt.
Exactly AS.
Except that your DLP operatives have made it much worse for yourselves by attacking everyone involved in a disgusting manner that has only demeaned YOU.
So now you have made it personal. That’s what happens when you fail to control the SCUM in your ranks.
All Fumble had to do was agree to meet with everyone, say and do nothing, as is his custom, and kick the can down the road to April next year.
Too late now.
@ angela Skeete
Down wid the damn doltish, dumpsy, dribbly DLP dopes.
The PEOPLE taking back control….
Yardfowls like you could go back to weeding grass…
…and if the BLP do shiite…. the SAME medicine in their ahhh… donkey.
UP de PEOPLE ting !!!
The govt must stay firm .it is obvious and clear to see who are the master manipulators in the private sector who does not give two rats a,ss about Barbados survival
Lo and behold they come out to march because barbados interest does not satisfy their pocket books
If a similar march had been called against private sectors asking for a call to increase the wages of their employees there is no doubt that the same zeal for solidarity with the unions would be absent
The fact being that some in the private sector who had eaten off the fatted calf have decided that it is none of their business or concern they bellys are full and what done is done
@ Fair and Balanced July 23, 2017 at 12:43 AM
“Frustrated Businessman fits into the apartheid set up like Bizzy at a cocktail party or Cow at polo. The deranged shoite from him is unsurprising. The insulting of black government is straight out of his Boers/ KKK manual with a chapter on Nazism. FB racist bile gets the stamp of approval from Mia bootlicker Miller. It isn’t over until the fat lady sings. Stay tuned for coming attractions.”
You can cuss Frustrated Businessman as much as you want but the fact remains that your own DLP ministers are even more ardent bootlickers than Miller can ever be.
Just look at how cock-eyed Donville had to show his patented sycophancy in public by hugging up the same parasitic COW Williams just after the subserviently apologetic joker Jester Ince in true yard-boy fashion was forced to apologize to the private sector.
Now which do you think is more demeaning to a black government? Having to sleep in bed with a leper called Greenverbs Parris or being forced to apologize like a boy in the yard to a parasite called the Bajan private Sector?
Go ahead and answer so that frustrated Businessman can hear loud and clear!
You ought to stop blaming the Private Sector for your woeful incompetence.
First it was the BLP under Owen Arthur. Then it was the international recession which has now turned into the great Depression for Barbados only.
Then it was the BLP under Mia Mottley because she does not possess the LEC.
Then it was the same unions who supported you in 2013 but have finally woken up after being bitten in the backside by your empty promises.
Now you have finally gotten around to the Private sector the last bastion of hope to keep the IMF wolf away from the door.
So what is your next move? To make Rosalind Jones prognosis come true by cracking heads and shooting black people in the back?
We can see no difference between the current DLP and the ruling ANC under its current leader Zuma who has turned his country into a financial junkyard similar to what Stinkliar has done to Barbados.
Just a bunch of sell-out jackasses for a measly mess of pottage called Parris &Maloney money.
Bush Tea the answer to your UP DE THING
Lick them up in the pocket books
An economic force so strong owned controlled and distributed by patriotic Barbadians that Massey and all others business in the march would think hard and long ever again before stepping head first in a political cesspool
i have spent large sums of monies with some of those companies in the march and you can bet that i would not be spending one more red cent with the likes of Cave Sheherd Woolworth Massey and others mentioned
Further more i have altered all my overseas friends coming in for crop over not to patronize these business
I have alerted my overseas friends coming for crop over not to patronize any of these business that participate in the march …..Money talk BUll Sh.t walks
LICK THEM UP …. org
To the CEOs and directors of the companies traded on the BSE, this protest is not a prudent use of the shareholders’ resources.
UP DE FACTIN TING!!!!!
” THE CASH-STRAPPED Transport Board has been paying a Trinidadian consultant $22 000 a month to get 200 defective buses back in operation, the Sunday Sun can reveal.”
Apart from his salary he has been provided with a vehicle, housing accommodation and airfare twice a month back to his homeland.
#REALBRASSBOWLS
I believe a government has a constitutional right to govern, I feel the electorate has a constitutional right to elect a government. I feel that the business community must protect their financial interest and continue to employ workers. I feel that dialogue MUST be given a chance to deal with issues that affect a country. I feel that unions have a responsibility to protect workers that might be suppressed and unfair by employers and I feel that employer’s representative should ensure that business are not unfairly suppressed by union.
I say that to show tactics used by friend and foe must be Fair and Balanced (not the dumbert that using this moniker).
The former PM stated that the fight with Government should be taken to Parliament. I agree totally with you, but you should be man enough that what is suppose to play out tomorrow is the same scenario that was played out in 1991. The same business sector along with the BWU with three union members in the like of Trotman, Greaves, Morris and others walk up and down to show displeasure with The Sandiford Administration. To make it worst, three of his administration voted against him. Same behaviour different year.
The former PM did say he didn’t march, but he had the political ammunition to fight it in Parliament using a No-Confidence to change Government and give him the opportunity to lead the opposition to victory, all thanks to the march..
A union can call for anything, but with sensible dialogue parties can still come out winners due to our democratic way of doing things. Bees and Dees don’t have to use aggressive tactics to make a point and some of these stupid political yardfowls should detest from spreading rumours that can affect this lovely country of ours.
Let’s be fair with our fear that the NSRL will have an effect on businesses that will have challenges consumers. That’s what this problem is about. COMMUNICATIONS and TRANSPARENCY.
@ David,
I try this multiple moniker ting but but i confess. lol cause i is not a trickidadian but a Bajan who vex as brasswhole.
The continuous relentless shiite has to stop.
Having “protected” eye servants in an organisation’s employ invariably results in wastage throughout the organisation. The scent of rats is everywhere.
@Hants
Bu understands your way of expressing your view.
All good!
What um is that angela say now…?
…dat she done buying from Massy?
…so who yuh going buy from then?…..Amazon?
Cause you can’t go around Bynoe’s place …not after the way wunna treat he…
..anyway, after Bajans are relieved of the DLP burden, you going be on welfare for a while ..and wid the NSRL – you can’t go in NO supermarket…
LOL
Up de damn ting do!!!
Check Bushie tomorrow – OUT FRONT!!! 🙂
The Alien Dictionary
“Up de damn ting do!!!” – If you are so ignorant to go marching, be prepared to suck salt when that time comes. Businessmen and politicians have their security, retirement plans and overseas accounts in place.
Why only march when you could jump and wave
@ Albino-centric Alien Bowl
Suck salt shiite!!
Bushie could suck salt while breadfruit trees growing…?
…while mangoes in season?
The people sucking salt will be the albino-centric bribe taking lackies ..who have leveraged themselves with expensive foreign toys that they cannot maintain without being allowed to continue their parro behaviours….
The ones driving bout in SUVs that they CANNOT afford…
The ones looking for bribe monies to pay their mortgage..
The Yard fowls like angela ..living off scratch grain thrown by low-life politicians
What suck what salt what??!!
Bushie is ‘sucking salt’ all these last 9 years to see our national assets being HANDED back to the same damn white people that Barrow and Crawford sweated blood and tears to wrest them from in the first place…
Sucking salt was hearing Stinkliar hand 40 years of tax free status to a red-assed foreigner who pissed up and down Paradise – one of the best beaches in the WORLD… for years.
Sucking salt was watching Stinkliar attempt to implement an illegal SHIITE TAX to raise money to GIVE to Bizzy – for doing something that a black Bajan was PAYING the public to do…
…don’t talk shiite to Bushie bout no sucking no damn salt…
…lotta albino-centric shiite scare tactics about money….
HOW ABOUT BLACK PRIDE?
BBBBB
With sincere apologies to Simple Simon’s mother (rest her soul)
…and to David (BU)
Mek Bushie vex!!!
http://www.nationnews.com/nationnews/news/98935/removing-govt-unions-roleTAKE THE FIGHT with Government to Parliament and not in the streets of Bridgetown”
And I remind Owen that the Barbados Constitution GUARANTEES freedom of assembly. The marchers are doing nothing more that exercising their constitutional rights.
Bushie, everything that you identified in your narrow analysis was facilitated by the eye servants, bribees and business people that will be marching.
@David July 23, 2017 at 5:59 AM “Diplomat is Fair and Balanced, waiting, Fan, Commentator etc. A DLP yardfowl who is of the view he has to operate under multiple monikers.”
Thanks David I suspected as much. Trying to give legitimacy to his DLP yard fowlism by pretending to be a diplomat. Fake diplomat. Fake news.
Lolll!!!
And even if he was a diplomat I would tell him “be-off”, because dis is we ting, and diplomats have no business interfering in Barbados’ internal affairs. They don’t pay taxes here, and they don’t vote here, so they need to mind their business and let us mind ours. This ain’t got nutting to do wid dem.
Hal Austin July 22, 2017 at 7:33 AM “If there is a national strike which cripples the nation, the military will become involved, supported by the RSS. We are playing with fire.”
Stupseee!!! You forget that Barbados is a small place, and that we raised the soldiers and the policemen, and that they eat out of our pots and that they sex in our beds. You forget that the policemen are our sons, grandsons, brothers, husbans, and lovers. The same with the soldiers.
If they shoot us and crack our heads where will they get hot meals? Where will they get sex?
@Hal Austin July 22, 2017 at 7:33 AM “If there is a national strike which cripples the nation, the military will become involved, supported by the RSS. We are playing with fire.”
If they are playing with fire, well so did Bussa, so did Sarah Ann Gill, so did Charles Duncan O’neal, so did Samuel Jackman Prescod, so did Clement Payne, so did Hugh Springer, so did Frank Walcott,
Barbados has a long and honourable history of having to take fire to the ruling class.
So what is your point again?
That the DLP can shoot us and crack our heads, that they can arm our sons and lovers and send them to shoot us?
Is that your point?
@Alien July 23, 2017 at 8:16 AM “I smell unions collecting members’ fees every month and not paying members on strike.”
So when Frank Walcott, Bobby Morris and Leroy Trotman were union heavy rollers, was there a strike fund? And did the lack of a strike fund prevent unions from calling industrial actions?
Stupseee!!!!
We are neither Simple nor stupid.
@ Simple Simon July 23, 2017 at 10:13 AM
Is this the same stinking hypocritical OSA who came to power because of the same marching and back-stabbing that brought down the Sandiford administration?
Is this the same diabetic-stricken OSA after cussing the whole world became totally ‘impotent in keeping his administration alive when the David Thompson-led Opposition fired the same “poor-rakey” Parliament in 2007 forcing the then lame duck PM to announce elections months before they were Constitutionally due?
How come he did not dock the pay of those MPs who walked off the people’s job without the Speaker’s permission as he is now insisting should be done to the poor unionized workers?
After being treated like a naked boy in the yard in the same Parliament by Fumble and Stinkliar he ought to have more self-respect.
The People’s Parliament is on the streets as it was in 1937 and 1994. That is where talk end and action begins.
@angela Skeete July 23, 2017 at 8:17 AM “One day march is in effective and will not topple govt.”
So who says there will only be a one day march?
You know that there are 7 days in a week right?
You know that there are 30 days in a month right?
The government can sit and talk on day one, or they can sit and talk on day 30, or day 60.
Winners, losers and numbers? The questions for the analyst about Monday’s March
Be assure that it will be a peaceful and docile protest lacking the aggression to bring political change, because of massa control not grassroot from the soul of the workers. A dress rehearsal for kadooment, let the workers vent for today
Continue comments here.
https://barbadosunderground.wordpress.com/2017/07/23/the-march-to-dj-vu/
@Alien July 23, 2017 at 9:42 AM “politicians have their overseas accounts in place.”
Ok. So now we find out why the DLP politicians don’t care.
They belly full, and they have hidden their excess ill gotten money in London and New York and Miami?
Thanks for telling us.
That is why we have to up de ting.