The Barbados government unveiled its economic program a few minutes ago. Time to buckle up and ask what you can do for your country it all the blogmaster will say.
Government’s Team Shares Information about Next Phase of Economic Program
171 responses to “Government’s Team Shares Information about Next Phase of Economic Program”
-
Critics of Prime Minister Mottley about her leadership style will take note she delegated the unveiling of the next phase of government’s economic plan to her economic team.
-
@ David,
Pardon my language but i’m off to bed soon and have no time to listen to one hour and forty-eight minutes of government bullshit. Please explain in one paragraph what was discussed, what are the conclusions and recommendations. -
I have seen technocrats and so-called consultants, but where were the elected ministers?
-
re The Barbados government unveiled its economic program a few minutes ago. Time to buckle up and ask what you can do for your country it all the blogmaster will say.
WE WILL ASSEMBLE AT KENSINGTON OVAL AND WUK UP AND KEEP NOISE AND CHEER WHILE THE “BARBADOS TRIDENTS” GET BEAT AGAIN
THAT IS WHAT WE WILL DO FOR OUR COUNTRY oh me am!
-
@Talking Loud Saying Nothing
You can listen to the last 15 minutes to the Q&A with the press corp.
In a nutshell the government is committed to a fiscal plan that will see rationalization of SOE i.e. the CBC, Transport Board, Urban, BIDC and a few others. The central government and wider public service will be made fit for purpose by re-engineering i.e making system/processes relevant read fit for purpose is the buzz words used. About 1000 employees will go home read retrained for other jobs.
By committing to a program- said to be homegrown- the IMF and other international financial agencies like the IADB, World Bank and our own CDB will release cheap funds that will have the effect of reducing arrears given our debt stock. The IMF will be reviewed semi annually.
-
Wait the long and short of the PR meeting
Govt workers going home tighten yuh belt buckle another couple notches
Growth.. hear long talk but no home made solutions
Privatizing of some govt entities woth a plan for bajans to buy and invest -
David,
The usual Caribbean opera. No robust information so far.
Is there any script with data?
-
Agreed. the use of a fixed camera, when the charts are displayed elsewhere, adds little for the viewer. At this level the inability to synchronize external data with a continuous video feed is shocking.
-
After 100 days, two junior ministers, a consultant, an ambassador and a seconded technocrat, is this the best the BLP can do? I am off to bed.
-
Just imagine you are not a local Barbadian, but a foreign bankster on the Cayman Islands or Toronto or one of their top-consultants, -accountants and -lawyers in NYC or London, sitting in your chair and watching this. What would YOU think?
-
@ Mariposa
You are truly a DLP yard-fowl, picking at everything without knowing what it is
-
@Hal Austin Get you basic facts right none of them are junior ministers.
-
Hear the Director of Finance,Ian Carrington, “I have been in the public service 38 years and the only time I have seen the level of fiscal indiscipline exercised is over the last eight or so years!”
Stuart and company need to be (in the words of Donville Inniss) locked to f@#% up! Verla De Peiza included.
-
@ Tron
You is a fellow that I like
THEY have absolutely not one badword clue about presentation or bluffing
This required multiple camera shots and simulcast feeds from the computer to the feed WIGH an interactive mouse/pointer
But that is not Jong’s area of expertise it is spying.
De ole man going try and see if dem want any help in truth.
I may not be Mia’s favourite person but she knows I got dis heheheheh
She needs new avenues that will deliver and if she wants all hands on board I am prepared to let de grandson help her.
Why you think?
You still emigrating?
You going need to come before the mid terms and Trump’s impeachment
WUNNA fellows does wonder where de ole msn does get me hook-up but when I tell wunna NOT a feller does believe be BUT…..
-
@ Hal Austin
Your DLP took 10 + years to mess-up .
-
Watchman go to bed we got this
-
Paraphrased it boils down to this. There will be layoffs, we spending $175 out of ever $100 we earn and nuff of the statuary boards losing money hand over fist. We going try and sell what we can but the gap big so brace for more taxes in One form or another. We going get somr money from the IMF to help but we got a hard road ahead. End of statement.
-
Piece,
I recommend next time a professional presentation at the Sandy Lane, for the IMF and for the foreign creditors with a post-presentation massage at the Spa to “intensify” the story. No publicity but stealth, please! Compliance is for church and textbook, non-compliance for the real business.
There is no reason to believe that … do not use the naughty term corruption … let us say incentives must always work from the white local businessman to the black politician. That is an old-fashioned post-colonian script. There is no natural law telling that the black man MUST be the victim. Barbadian politicians must turn around the table and learn to enchant the other side, they must learn to rewrite the narrative …
They must learn to become like Bolt and Rihanna, the two top-performers and top-artists of the known galaxy. Cool outside, but focused and determined to beat everybody else inside. Maybe Rihanna would also be helpful with one or two songs in the Sandy Lane at said event.
Those external Barbadian debts are peanuts for the big players and easy to waive, PROVIDED they like the fairy tale you tell them and the song they listen to. And I guess ONE Rihanna-song is worth at least 1 billion USD in debt forgiveness 😉
-
I searched GIS for this PC but couldn’t locate it, are we destined to get all Gov’t news through the BLP portal?
-
Most knew all along the present govt had no plan for growth initiatives or plans gor the economy but hope that the govt would have found alternative home grown methods before defaulting on govt debt resulting in a fast pace for the IMF
This PR conference did not give any measure of hope or any need to have confidence in the economy but a future laced with more pain and hardship for all -
@Sargeant
The blogmaster is also searching for a response to the announcement from the Opposition political parties nearly 4 hours later.
-
@Sargeant
Clearly the GIS personnel were present as can be seen from the photos posted to its Facebook page. For whatever reason Jong is preferred to stream the many jobs it seems. Perhaps one day soon it will be revealed why.
https://www.facebook.com/gisbarbados/photos/a.271911646306988/1044697859028359/?type=3&theater
-
@ David,
$ 30 million for training.
Digitizing government department files.
Amazing.
-
@Hants
The IMF has to acknowledge the plan. The government will only be able to access drawdowns if declared targets are met. Clearly what the last few years have taught us is that we have not disciplined in our fiscal management.
More importantly borrowing and or servicing debt at high rate in a market where low cost funding is available is madness and unsustainable.
-
David
I did note that the IMF man on the team presented the plan, which he said was prepared by the government. Go figure. -
@enuff
Kevin is a Bajan working at the IMF who worked in Central Bank Research Department. He would have crunched the numbers when he worked there and knows the under the hood issues of the economy. It maybe a good thing to have him the face of the program and not a White face. What is your opinion?
-
@ David,
I will wait to see if this plan works.
They have had 5 years to prepare it. Let us not forget the BLP were in opposition with 14 seats for the last 5 years.
-
@Hants
Whatever plan is rolled out it will not gain traction unless all players in society are persuaded to get onboard.
-
@ David re ” all players in society are persuaded to get on board.”
players will get on board if the drivers of the buses inspire confidence.
-
This is the point Hants. The last government failed miserably to engender the confidence required in the people. We will have to see what happens with this one. It has a better communications plan.
To what extent does the average Barbadian needs to be engaged in the rebuild out of a forced sense of being personally responsible?
-
@ David,
the average Barbadian did not create the problems.
Politicians and greedy business people did.
Note I did not accuse any of them of corruption.
-
@David August 30, 2018 10:31 PM “To what extent does the average Barbadian needs to be engaged in the rebuild out of a forced sense of being personally responsible?”
The average Bajan never disengaged, never stopped working, never stopped building, never stopped paying our paying taxes, never stopped raising our children and gently lowering our elders, the average Bajan never stopped doing the right thing.
Even as we were disrespected, treated like idiots, lied to, deceived, taxed nearly to death
Hants is right, the business class and the political class need to fix themselves. They need to stop over pricing their contracts–the average Bajan has never seen a government contract; they need to stop asking “where is my cut?” they need to start doing the jobs for which we pay them very well. They need to remember that they are our servants–we pay them–not our masters.
We the average Bajans are tired, tired, tired of carrying the political class AND the business class on our backs.
P.S. Please note that the average Bajan continues to visit New York to visit their elderly aunties and young cousins, and that it was not an average Bajan who suffered the disgrace of being arrested for money laundering. I am sure that dozens of ordinary Bajans travelled to the United States on the same plane as Donville, and none except Donville was arrested. Does that tell us anything?
The average Bajan is NOT the problem.
Don’t blame us.
Blame them.
-
Too many of the business class and the political class are too eager for their own good…
Or ours.
-
The “problem” was created over many years by our governments spending and wasting much more than they were earning. If you want to know what happens next google Argentina. You dont undo printing 1B dollars, decades of high deficits, a dysfunctional public sector, no reserves, defaulting on your debts etc. easily. So governments future actions under the IMF are well known and they dont need a press conference to tell us. What remains shockingly missing are the areas to be targeted for growth. Casions? New international tax treaties and rates to compete with Cayman? A tech hub to go after Google etc like Ireland? Or are we just going to continue to export our young for other countries to continue to benefit from our taxes that educated them? We need USD income now, and not more tourists that consume more USD in imports than they bring in.
-
Actually by accepting mediocrity from our politicians and business people we are partially responsible for the current state of the country.
Over the years they have kept (and we have allowed them) moving the goalpost back to the point we are at now, when we finally admit we are heading towards failure.
“Fit for purpose” sounds like optimum quality which is just another term for mediocrity
So essentially the goal is to get us back to mediocrity. HURRAH!
-
@ Simple Simon,
In 2015 “Individual residences overlooking the beach often command prices in excess of $20 million.
Mr. Kelly is listing The Dream, a five-bedroom house on a plot of 2,064 square meters, for $25 million, and Footprints, a new five-bedroom villa on Garden Beach that is attracting interest because of its price of $12 million.
“It’s almost impossible to find prime beachfront for under $25 million,” he said.
-
@BA August 30, 2018 11:46 PM
We need something Barbadians are accustomed with … What about converting Bim into a global porn hub? 😉 The IMF and the foreign creditors are also able to google and to retrace BFP …. Surely the feds in the NY case spent more time on that than on that ridiculous, small bribe.
-
ENUFF:
Question: IDB and CDB will lend another 300 mill. dollars as gambling money to Bim. Why should any commercial creditor waive any debt?
Quote: “We anticipate a resumption of payments once they’ve worked out their [IMF] programme,” said research manager at VM Wealth, Nicole Adamson.”
Tell the people of Barbados that the new loans go directly into their pockets. Please be honest.
-
is a Bajan working at the IMF who worked in Central Bank Research Department. He would have crunched the numbers when he worked there and knows the under the hood issues of the economy. It maybe a good thing to have him the face of the program and not a White face. What is your opinion?(Quote)
This is the kind of irrational deference that gets one angry. There was nothing about that presentation last evening that convinces one of a progressive economic programme. BERT is largely waffle. It is over-ambitious: for example, with debt to GDP of 175 per cent, the plan is that by 2030, 12 years, that will be reduced to about 60 per cent. Where is the evidence that this has occurred anywhere in the developed world, far less an tiny island-state? Greece has just agreed a plan that will take them to 2060 to pay off their debt.
The plan is to raise revenue from 1.3 per cent to 7.1 per cent, including a reduction in expenditure. At the same time, capital expenditure will be increased from 1.5 per cent to 2.5 per cent, all this within 18 months. Part of this reduction in public subsidies will be from what they call enfranchisement ie selling off the family jewels, but such sales will be a one-off earning. Dr Greenidge gave as an example a worker-owned Transport Board (which is very good) but sees government’s role as simply regulatory. How will hard-pressed workers buy in to the Transport Board if it is for sale at market valuation?
There should be huge benefits from the proposed digitalisation of the public sector, but it is better to be late than never. Turn government in to a paper-free administration.
But it is the so-called five pillars of growth that are fanciful: investing in a knowledge economy; a very good idea, but this assumes that other nations are standing still, and, more importantly, a knowledge economy is based on a high level of education. We have had a long debate on BU about CXC exam results. What is the government going to do about the state of education?
Then there is domestic savings; what do they mean? A proper financial economic programme will include investment vehicles for the retail sector and in this master plan there is none. But, most of all, no mention was made of the banking sector nor of re-launching a Barbados domiciled bank. Financialisation drives the private sector, this seems to have been ignored.
Again there is the fall back on tourism and international business, but these have failed for over 50 years. We badly need a tourism and leisure industry, they go hand in glove, and I know that the prime minister has had at least one discussion on this. What is the unique selling point about Barbados tourism?
No mention is made of developing the rum industry, our only world-class manufacturing product, yet one of the pillars of growth is diversifying the economy. It is sixth form nonsense. How are we going to diversify? What sectors do we see as having growth potential? None of this was explained. Then there is the gigantic waffle about removing impediments to growth. What are these impediments? How are we going to remove them?
Dr Greenidge also talked about Barbadians owning the restructuring programme, but that is business school speak. It is meaningless. It is the sort of thing managers tell their teams, like ‘buying in to the deal’, or this is a team effort. It is a feel good slogan.
What I find interesting is that in looking at efficiently gains, the is a proposal to merge the Government Printery (which should have been sold years ago under the Arthur regime), the Government Information Service (which should have been disbanded years ago with each department having its own information officer) and CBC. Are they planning to sell CBC? If so, why? Is that the only way out for a badly managed CBC?
The Professor Persaud came on with his version of voodoo financial economics about no nice tasting medicine. Reassuringly, he said government could not send home 4000 workers (maybe the exact number will be 3999) and this is coupled with a widespread programme of re-training and re-tooling, re-re, with a $30m training budget. Peanuts. Persaud also talked of government renting/loaning/giving land to displaced workers. This in an island the size of a sugar plantation in Australia or Brazil.
In the final analysis, there is nothing to be optimistic about this proposed programme, nothing about it is new, nothing about it is progressive, nothing about it will give the economy the lift off it badly needs.
If after 14 years in government, ten years in opposition and 100days back in government this is the best this BLP government can do, I suggest we all rush for the lifeboats. -
This BLP plan sounds like how Clyde Mascoll and the wonderful plans for Hardwood Housing FIASCO under a former Arthur BLP which cost the taxpayers over $2 million with little or no housing but big money in some peoples pockets.
-
@ Barbados Underground Whistleblower.
Remember that the BLP CANNOT TOUCH A CENT OF THE IMF money which is not going to be tracked back to the source and the recipient.
However IF YOU AND I SET UP A “TRAINING” facility for displaced government workers what is going to happen with this “training”?
Sandra and Lynette going get their pals to set up companies and submit proposals for $x dollars and then they going approve said training.
Of course there will be backdoor agreements for a % of $x and what Chairman Mia Mao DONT KNOW? will not hurt her.
Now here is whu de ole man wud do to chech dat shit.
What is you training de beneficiaries in?
Let us use and example. I training you to retool yourself from being the BIDC staff member dat pay out dat lawyer all that excessive money whose bank statements i have due to my forensic reports
No doan let me use that example cause those people going get fred.
Anyways we say that we are going to train x to do y and be gainfully employed after x training IN Z TIME!.
That means that the Monitoring and Evaluation should show that of that $30 Million x many people were trained and y many jobs were created by z time RIGHT?
So when z time rolls around and that target y has not been achieved then somebody got to pay for that $30M right?
Ooooops that would mean accountability and that is not what this slush fund for the MPs who are handling it is really for.
Sorry I am on the wrong thread I thought we were bing serious about this recovery programme
-
At the Honourable Blogmaster
Your assistance please with an item for Barbados Underground Whistleblower thank you
-
read, watched listened
Still clueless.
Just observing
-
Steupsss
Hal is right about the lifeboats.
Simple Simon is wrong (again) about it not being the brass bowl people’s fault.
This set of politicians sound hauntingly similar to the last set in their unrealistic optimism.
Bushie’s new Theory of Relativity;
If you cant resolve small problems like the bus system and the Court…
Then you CAN NOT resolve large problems like culture change for brass bowls, and the deficit.
So…
Either find someone who can…
Or prepare your ass for some grass (look for a lifeboat) -
If this is truly home grown, why should it fail? Its govt of the ppl by the ppl for the ppl. Any home grown proposal should succeed if the ppl are truly the beneficiaries. My question is will the ppl benefit or will the “usual” suspects benefit.
If i am hand to mouth; due to bads habit and low pay and taxation. After i get send home i will still be hand to mouth; the only thing is that i am not get the low pay. Where do i find the money to “invest” and will these investment be “real” investment spaying above inflation rate.
I don’t think these ppl know how bajans are towards investments; we don’t invest in financial things becuae we know how they are run. The boys/girls at the top does use the “investment” funding to make certain “investors and their ilk” or non investors rich as par for the course.
Therefore if you want to be in the big money dont be the “investor”; but be part of the “non-investors” that Really REap the sweets.
We have a long way to go. The RE RE may need to be RE-thought and RE-done because in a short space of time for it maybe asking the average bajan for to much investment will lil REturns while the “selected few:” continue to REap the benefits.
-
More SMOKE & MIRRORS, dis-heartening to see few government officials present, this ia an indication government is not serious.
-
@Observing
What are you clueless about? You guys are if the view this will be a cakewalk? Barbados has to walk a path we have never travelled before because we are in a place never occupied. There will be a comfort position held by Barbadians that will say to them, this is wrong.
-
“Note I did not accuse any of them of corruption.”
But David Simmons the former Chief Justice did and he was and is still well placed to know.
-
@ David
You guys are if the view this will be a cakewalk?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
…and do the measures announced suggest to you a serious attempt to address the dire situation that we face…?
Or do you see yet another political game of appeasement of mediocrity ….and kicking the ball further down the road….
Somewhat like we see with the corruption, sewerage, court and other issues…
The problem with such approach is the big precipice ahead…. -
Do not know Bushie, we have to trust our knowledge and instinct as far as participating in the exercise is concerned.
The blogmaster invites you to join the discussion.