The Barbados economy must grow and many have been asking where is the growth plan. At a recent Barbados Chamber of Commerce luncheon the prime minister identified several private and public sector projects expected to fuel economic activity in the short term. The Nation newspaper editor has done a fair job capturing what the prime minister shared last week.
https://www.nationnews.com/nationnews/news/243885/stuart
Stuart to have say
AFTER TWO YEARS OF SILENCE, former Prime Minister Freundel Stuart will be defending the stewardship of his Democratic Labour Party (DLP) administration which was swept out of office 30-0 by the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) in the May 24, 2018 General Election.
Stuart last engaged the nation when he conceded defeat on that night.
When contacted by the NATION, Stuart said he was still crystallising his thoughts, but stressed that he would be addressing allegations the country was mismanaged between 2008 and 2018. He will address DLP faithful at a St Philip North branch meeting on Sunday at Princess Margaret Secondary School.
“Really? Did this really happen? I will be taking a retrospective look at the ten years under the DLP and compare that to what is happening now,” he said.
When pressed further, Stuart declined to give details.
Since being ousted, the DLP has yet to announce candidates for the next election, constitutionally due in 2023. The party was dealt another blow when former minister in Stuart’s administration, Donville Inniss, was found guilty last month of three charges of money laundering in the United States. (DF)
An area that can generate growth for the MAJORITY POPULATION…but badminded negros in the parliament already made it clear that they do not want the majority population growing any wealth for themselves, they want them dependent on the toxic dangerous racist tourism only, while they enrich themselves and their bribers off the population’s back.
“Dr Smith warned that as Barbados and other countries develop the cannabis industry authorities should ensure that locals and the country benefit.”
They will never have growth in a system created just for them, not to benefit the Black majority as a collective.
The house negros in the parliament allowed the cousins in the palace to get them to CRIMINALIZE African spirituality, so intent they all are on maintaining a slave society in Barbados and the Caribbean.
..the lowlife BLP criminalized African spiritulaity in 1998….it was criminalized across the Caribbean by all the house negro governments at different times….and these stinking hypocrites recently rushed off to Africa pretending they are African and are all up in Africa after knowing what they did.
Let’s see if they remove those shite laws off the statute books.
After 2 years of silence and a party in shambles you really believe anyone want to hear from Stewart now? When you coming bring sinkler too as you would at least have somebody to talk to when no one shows up.
Take my advice it is better for wunna political cadavers to stay buried.
My concern here is that we are banking heavily on proposed projects to start when there is much we can do without them. Our agricultural sector and renewable energy sector has massive potential for growth and the conservation of FX, Yet we pin our hopes all on tourism and new hotels.
If the governor predicted growth of 1.75% this year and as of March no projects have started, I await a revised growth projection downward by September or so.
Our agricultural industry missed the boat many many years ago when consumers taste changed and demanded organic based goods/foods
Some so called intellect decided it was better to cut down many of our organic based fruits like soursop. Dunks gooseberries and a list of many other fruits which would have served barbados economy well in a global market
@John A
The projects in the pipeline are to maintain life support, however, what is also urgently needed is a transformative plan targeting medium to long term.
A little birdie told me Massy “quietly” sold all of it properties in the Pierhead area.
This is all those buildings that housed BS&T businesses that they promptly closed when the bought BS&T.
No way they sell those properties that they have been sitting on for so long unless they have advanced knowledge of developments to come.
Behind closed door decisions were made, before the election. Its all on the PM to manage the politics.
This is a 15 year plan, that is intended to give the PM three consecutive terms or more
Enjoy the ride folks, we are just pawns in the game
When will the Hyatt start. So much emphasis was placed on the start of the Hyatt giving a starting date / period of February
@ David
Agreed we need a plan that encompasses ALL and is reliable as a source of monthly income. Projects are spike income based so you get a block of income followed by a dry spell till the other spike.
Let me ask you one question. If you are planning for increased tourism and already have a food import bill in excess of $500M, wouldn t you look at agriculture along with tourism as they go hand in hand? I mean you got to feed them while here.
@@John A
We will be forced to look at agriculture given the disruption to the global supply chain with the advent of caronavirus and other strains to follow.
@ David
We also need to look at sustained monthly income as opposed to spike income. Both agriculture and alternative energy are sustained monthly income as you have to eat daily and you require power daily.
Barbados population is only 285,719
it’s weakness could become it’s strength
a form of socialism and investment in infrastructure will work
but would upset freedom crier who loves American capitalism
Here we are asking the same questions about agriculture again. Will we ever get serious?
@ Red Guard at 10:12 AM
A very interesting move on the part of Massy to sell land on the Pier Head. What do they know that the GoB does not know?
Dirty no good black black leaders in the Caribbean who possesses the viliest minds filled with self-hatred and self-loathing for their own African culture and history, joining with the cousins in the palace to destroy African spirituality in their own people…what is your excuse for still criminalizing African spirituality in the 21st century while running down to Africa with remains claiming to be African…you lowlifes, you will pay.
“The divisions within Jamaica about the status of the law stem from the double meaning of the term. In everyday use, obeah names hostile spiritual practices that many Jamaicans fear. Yet the wording of the law and its historical use by the judicial system targets a much wider range of activities. Obeah was initially criminalised to protect slavery against uprisings; the current law was made to symbolise Jamaica’s hostility to its African connections and to suppress poor people’s religion.”
@Vincent
Or do they have a buyer that was In the nest that has flown the nest and is now negotiating privately as opposed to through the boss lady?
You in the right church but wrong pew! Lol
@ John A at 11 :05 AM
Could dear, John A.
Last week Robert Lucas kick me out of the Choir Stall and now you have me sitting in the back row?. You ought to check my genealogy.
@ Vincent
LOL no I got you in the pulpit but I giving you a different bible to use.
Sometimes I am totally lost. Do we actually think we can just jump start a new agricultural policy overnight?Do we really think an economy is like a kennel that every time the dog escapes you just find an old piece of wood or galvanize and stop a hole?
Do you have any real clue what economic planning and policy entails?
Some islands including Barbados upgraded to decriminalizing African Spirituality in 1998, but too late, the damage was already done, no one speaks about spirituality on the island, not as long as it has anything to do with Africa, they only gush about the fake spirituality in the toxic churches like a crazed mantra, hollow and empty..The people knew nothing.
“Over the last generation, many laws against obeah have been quietly repealed or revised away. Obeah was decriminalised in Anguilla in 1980, Barbados in 1998, Trinidad and Tobago in 2000, and St Lucia in 2004. In Guyana, the government last year announced its intention to remove the crime of obeah from the criminal code. In Jamaica, the last conviction for obeah that I found was that of Cindy Brooks, in 1964. The last arrest for obeah I located was in 1977.”
How does obeah work. I read that killing is a buzz, releasing souls into the atmosphere. Early religions used sacrificial rituals as part of their climax, animals replaced babies and young virgins with innocent souls.
I always wondered how the so successfully managed to knock African spirituality out of the enslaved and then out of their descendants…now i know, it makes so much sense.
‘Obeah was first made illegal in 1760, as part of a sweepingly repressive act passed in the aftermath of Tacky’s Rebellion, the largest uprising of enslaved people in the 18th-century British-colonised Caribbean. The law was a direct response to the fact that the rebellion’s leaders were advised by obeah men who attempted to give them courage, solidarity, and spiritual protection. Along with prohibiting enslaved people from holding weapons and restricting their ability to congregate, the law made obeah a crime punishable by death if done by any ‘Negro or other slave’. Those prosecuted under it were enslaved people whose actions damaged slavery, either because they were aimed directly at slaveholders or because they harmed other enslaved people – and thus might reduce the value of slaveholders’ property.
The law against obeah lapsed with the end of slavery in 1834. The Jamaican government, like other Caribbean governments, acted quickly to ensure that obeah remained a crime. The 1833 Vagrancy Act prohibited obeah. The first stand-alone Obeah Act, passed in 1854, made obeah a crime punishable by flogging and imprisonment. It equated obeah with ‘myalism’, thus defining obeah not just as acts meant to cause harm but as connected more broadly to religions with African origins.”
@Redguard
did your ‘birdie’ say if they sold the former Banks property too?
Thye used a broad label for African spirituality and called it all obeah, they knew what they were doing. It was never about stopping any obeah, it was all about keeping Black minds enslaved and unable to free themselves using their African culture.
“Obeah was first made illegal in 1760, as part of a sweepingly repressive act passed in the aftermath of Tacky’s Rebellion, the largest uprising of enslaved people in the 18th-century British-colonised Caribbean. The law was a direct response to the fact that the rebellion’s leaders were advised by obeah men who attempted to give them courage, solidarity, and spiritual protection. Along with prohibiting enslaved people from holding weapons and restricting their ability to congregate, the law made obeah a crime punishable by death if done by any ‘Negro or other slave’. Those prosecuted under it were enslaved people whose actions damaged slavery, either because they were aimed directly at slaveholders or because they harmed other enslaved people – and thus might reduce the value of slaveholders’ property.
The law against obeah lapsed with the end of slavery in 1834. The Jamaican government, like other Caribbean governments, acted quickly to ensure that obeah remained a crime. The 1833 Vagrancy Act prohibited obeah. The first stand-alone Obeah Act, passed in 1854, made obeah a crime punishable by flogging and imprisonment. It equated obeah with ‘myalism’, thus defining obeah not just as acts meant to cause harm but as connected more broadly to religions with African origins.”
@John A
The food import bill is determined by market forces.
If Bajans want brie, gouda, oysters, salmon and caviar and are willing to pay the price Massy, Carlton et al are free to import.
We have signed on to the WTO, the government cannot restrict imports unless it is for health or security reasons
Instead we must find ways to increase exports, especially for high end processed products (Gourmet sea eggs)
We have enough knowledge and expertise on the island to enter the high end food market
@Northern
no they didn’t say.
555…check this out. That is why they never taught the right history in the Caribbean, the stinking scum.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/269202760462518/permalink/489122971803828/
“A supporter of slavery, Christopher once wrote:-
“I have lived among my Negroes, and seen their comforts, and I will assert (defying all contradiction), that a more happy and contented class of beings never existed , until curse with the blessings of the Anti-Slavery Society…I have bought my Negroes and cultivated my land on the pledged faith of England. Secure me from loss, or give me compensation and you may offer manumission to the above Negroes tomorrow.”
Know your history then you will understand what is happening today and why. Just replace Jamaica with Barbados, because what happened in one Caribbean island aka colonies, happened in all..
https://www.facebook.com/groups/269202760462518/permalink/489102531805872/
@ Redguard
Everytime I see imported tomatoes and lettuce in the supermarket I cringe! Don’t talk about when I saw stouffers mac and cheese that was selling for $28 for a small tray.
@ Redguard
Don’t forget though when Mr Bynoe at Carlton did his buy bajan proper pork campaign a few years back how good it was for local pork sales.
We can’t just promote local agriculture successfully without education and marketing being a part of it. Of course that is assuming we view it as a business of course.
Stop Googling and cutting and pasting nonsense.
Still not sure ’bout the obeah voodoo oodoov but it time to Africanise and mobilise the black man woman and child
@ Hal
You cross my mind today when I read we are now looking for a growth plan. I remember how bad we got cuss along with poor Vincent for saying last year BERT would produce no growth.
According to the authors of old “alas it has come to pass that no growth has occurred in the kingdom under King Bert, so the wise ones now searcheth for it elsewhere.”
Shut up Hal…ya little brainwashed, slaveminded ass.
we know you are a lost cause already.
The govt knew that the BERT program was never designed to create growth
However the govt only concern was building a foundation on paying debt
Now that reality has sink into the minds of govt and the cries and howls of the people pain is being heard
Mia delivers another long winded statement propped up with political gimmicks and meandering talk.about counting the number of growth projects coming on hand
The reality of all of what she said is that the projects of which she speaks are projects which she fought against
Her deception nature is one which would push barbadians further into the depths of poverty
@ John A
Can you see the making of an excuse: Barbados is too small, both in terms of population and physical size, so it does not have the capacity for growth. We have to import more people, preferably ones who can invest in the nation (that rules our CARICOM citizens) etc and it goes on. Note, nothing about tourism or hotel corridors; not, nothing about We Gatherin’.
The truth is the Mottley government has no idea what to do. The population of Barbados, 280000, is the biggest in its history. At the beginning of the 1960s, Barbados had a population of 150000 and already there was talk of sending people to Dominica. And as far as I know, the physical size of Barbados (even allowing for the port) is roughly the same as it has always been.
Evangelical speeches, flaring hands, punching above your weight and being world class are all mumbo jumbo. The president has turned a personal ambition in to a wish for a nation. She is wrong. It will end in tears.
.
Ah glad UK used your taxes for 40 years to pay off slavemasters, you deserve no less…lol
It is no easy feat for a small, open, vulnerable and to a degree developed economy like barbados to sustain growth, of say even 3%, over a long stretch of time. We are not operating from a low-base anymore. And because we are so import-dependent, large capital intensive projects and even household consumption expenditure add little to growth.
Presently there are a lot slacks (high unemployment and low asset utilisation rate ) in the economy. Therefore, we are operating way below our GDP potential. We could bump up our growth rate by converting some of these slacks into production. Expansion in construction, tourism, agriculture, and business outsourcing provide the greatest opportunity to absorb the surplus labour from the system which will in turn address the low capacity utilisation problem.
@ Redguard
Your mention of gourmet sea eggs is extremely interesting. That’s where our head should have been at least forty years ago. We just got around to Culinary shows and so on.
It was refreshing to read something so progressive and enlightening . Unfortunately it may be a bit too late.
Good post.
@ 40Acres
What are you saying? That growth is a lost cause?
Did sinckler have a growth plan???? NO! but ha had many stabilization plans .
Yet he had growth of over 2% in 15 & 16
if I remembered correctly, the NR’S’L wes introduced in 2016 and there was 2.5% growth. Sinckler got “greedy”(for some reason) and bump up NRSL to high and we had a reversal of that growth.
Those that are pushing that we cannot have growth under BERT or without a growth plan IMO is pushing a false opinion.
For us to maitain a decent growth (that which can absorb the excess labour) level over a long horizon, we must become more PRODUCTIVE. In any competitive economy, productivity is a dynamic and perpetual work in process activity. Technology transfer, energy efficiency, alternative energy source, flexible labour system, quality road infrastructure, and mass transportation are just some areas that need to be seriously addressed in order to unleash our productive capacity.
@William
It is not too late.
We have world class homegrown chefs. We have research and commercial food scientists (Dr. Lucas would know the good ones)
We have a ready product testing ground at the many hotels and restaurants.
And the global market is ripe for unique healthy foods
All that is required is to get all the moving parts together.
@ 40Acres
By ‘excess labour’ do you mean full employment? If so, the only time we have had full employment in Barbados was during slavery. When you say ‘productive’ what do you mean; productive in what?
Mass transportation? Flexible labour? quality road infrastructure? Technology transfer?
@Hal. No, growth is not a lost cause. However, I think expecting growth rate greater than 3% over a long time frame, operating within this present economic model is not possible.
Heard this many times in Barbados.
” yuh can’t eat de money ”
The day will come when Bajans will be forced to change their consumption of imported food.
A lot of them will learn how easy it is to grow vegetables and some will be smart enough to plant fruit trees.
@ 40Acres
What has global growth averaged since the end of the Second World War? Why 3 per cent growth?
@John A
When did the government promote BERT as a growth plan?
BERT was always meant to stabilize.
Based on reports we have stabilized. This is why talk about growth has started to resonate at this stage of the plan.
BTW, you have read CDB forecast of 1% growth for the fiscal?
@Hal. Correct. Reaching full employment to realise maximum GDP potential is the policy of every government. In Bim that would be like an unemployment rate of 5%. By productivity, I mean getting more output with the same or less level of input.
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