The blogmaster followed with interest the passing of Bills yesterday in the Lower House of the National Payment System Bill 2021 and the Barbados Identity Management Bill 2021. The government appears to be moving to take advantage of technology to enhance and transform how Barbadians do business in a new ecosystem, pay for goods, services. Gone are the days when banks and to a lesser extent credit unions monopolized payment systems. Replacing the ‘tattered and embarrassing’ looking Barbados ID card is also overdue. From following the debate the new Barbados ID card will use current technology to store a range of data to permit the holder to do different types of transactions with optional validation with the use of biometrics etc. The improvements once implemented will improve business facilitation and other deficiencies.

The initiative by government to improve the ‘national payment ecosystem’ to quote Minister in the ministry of Finance Ryan Straughn although laudable exposes the fact homegrown businesses do not control the bulk of payment transactions. For too long Barbadians seem happy to be consumers of goods and services instead of becoming owners in the distribution chain whether financial or commodity. Unless we discover ways to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery enhancements we make facilitated by new laws in parliament will be nothing more than painting ‘lipstick on the pig’.

The other development which caught the attention of the blogmaster was the announcement last week a comeyuh promised to invest 10 million dollars to transform the 400 acre Haymans plantation to a state of the art farm. The blogmaster commends the investor who for whatever reason appears to be motivated to do something that should be part of a larger project to address food security in Barbados. Covid 19 has exposed our shortcomings as far as agriculture production is concerned. We agree there has been increase in agricultural output, however, nothing that has significantly moved the needle to address food security concerns. Did it escape Barbadians Charles Gagnon, owner of Haymans had to remove 50 truckloads of garbage illegally dumped on the site.

Related Links:

The initiative is a timely reminder to inquire what is the project status of 30 acres of land located at Dukes plantation that was donated to UWI Cave Hill Campus in 2017. There is a lethargy that seems to permeate everything we do in Barbados. Surely we have referred to implementation deficit often enough to have made a conclusion by now that we have to change how we do business if we want to sustain an acceptable quality of life for our people. There is an advantage to being a 2×3 island. It should equip us to be nimble in decision-making and project execution.

In simple less flowery language Barbadians must shed comfortable politically partisan positions and evolve to assessing what are national imperatives and just do it. The constant and banal snarling exhibited by stakeholders in civil society is unacceptable given our investment in education. We are a Black majority nation and should be embarrassed to acknowledge that our key gateways to economic activity are controlled by minority AND foreign interest.

#WhatIsTheSocialPartnership

235 responses to “Execute or Die”


  1. “Like how the CEO Doc Monroe-Knight is now promoting it to make money.”

    another show worth watching for the entertainment value….

    at least the people who are awake now know that they and their foreparents…have been SOLD OUT BY DBLP for 54 YEARS……and they are VOICING IT….

    and that alone is worth it’s weight in pure African gold.


  2. @ Hal Austin

    I guess it is.

    Moss Side unrest, resulted from a Jamaican Lad being arrested for a single Spliff by a know racist Bobby.

    I got firsthand knowledge on that incident.

    Jamaican posse gangs who controlled Moss Side during that period weren’t having it.

    In July 1981, the inner-city district of Moss Side in Manchester, England, was the scene for mass rioting. By that time, the area had been a key settlement for migrants from the Caribbean for over thirty years. The rioting at Moss Side started at the local police station and later moved into the surrounding streets over two days. Key factors seen as fuel for this riot were racial tension and mass unemployment brought on by the early 1980s recession. Unemployment was at a post-war high across the nation during 1981, but was much higher than the national average in Moss Side. There were also frequent allegations of police officers racially abusing and using excessive force against black youths in the area.


  3. When titularly Black people like halton austin talk disparagingly about cultural DNA it is never about the White people whom he loves so much.

    In fact, we have never read that ugly man making a similar statement bout White people.

    This continued as the mongrel in Downing Street represents the endpoint of White cultural expression. Indeed we postulate that White cultural dominance universally is dead, can go no further.

    But Halton Austin as a fake cultural anthropologists constantly derogatory of Non-White peoples has no eyes to see this.


  4. Continues


  5. @ Dirt Farmer

    In 1981 there were riots in nearly every black community in England. The uprising led to the MacPherson report and the paradigm of institutional racism and, eventually, to the 1984 Police and Criminal Evidence Act. It was a shock to the Thatcher government.


  6. “White cultural dominance universally is dead, can go no further.”

    400 years is a very long run….not even the remnants are effective anymore, black white and everyone else in between have awoken, sufficiently to buy the dead..

    Thinking is free, the truth is free but not everyone ilkes the truth, they prefer the fantasy they weaved and imposed on everyone else….just like their/our ancestors went nowhere neither did ours, their victims….too intertwined.

    https://scontent.fbgi3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/151497896_108908657906984_6686345492791287050_n.jpg?_nc_cat=106&ccb=3&_nc_sid=8bfeb9&_nc_ohc=ImDhqgQSXbIAX_sql62&_nc_oc=AQmjDyMHetmheVRwWmkpLyf0PM0R_Tw-mMOmh2bXJWk2nfN0-vS4DKx-ZNLq4sD-YO8&_nc_ht=scontent.fbgi3-1.fna&oh=14cb88ae2df9da39c0ad1062be790f27&oe=605CB997


  7. Waru

    Yes, these last 400 have been brutal. However, it really started maybe as far back as 3000 years ago with invasions, entry into Kemet.

    Yes, Afrikans were the first peoples everywhere on earth.


  8. sufficiently to bury the dead..

  9. Critical Analyzer Avatar
    Critical Analyzer

    @Pachamama February 24, 2021 12:59 PM

    CA

    What Donna said about you is really true.

    You now ask for an even playing field after 400 years of the exact opposite.

    Like breaking our legs and then complaining that we are not fast enough in the 100 meters sprint.

    Not atypical racism!

    We are so stuck in the past and so busy harping over past wrongdoings that we ignore the brighter future we could have spent that time planning for instead.

    Would you prefer to be get reparation handout money you will only use to buy more things from the same white man or would you prefer to leave out the reparations talk, get the past stay in the past and make sure things are in place so you don’t become a 21st century slave.

    If I need handouts and charity from people to keep my business viable, I don’t deserve to be in business. Any business model requiring handouts to stay alive is fundamentally broken, not sustainable and needs to put out its misery the sooner the better.


  10. “However, it really started maybe as far back as 3000 years ago with invasions, entry into Kemet.”

    yep..we are the earths first indigenous people who invented everything…….all the thefts started in Kemet, now they whitened invaders are reduced to digging up our ancestor’s 3,000 year old tombs, some still carry locks/crowns on their heads…and they think it’s going to end well….

    pity so many blacks in the Caribbean have been so indoctinated and mindwashed with their memories wiped clean, they will never know the original royal bloodlines from which we originated.

  11. Critical Analyzer Avatar
    Critical Analyzer

    All I need in business is for the artificial roadblocks to be removed. All artificial roadblocks do is encourage corruption to cut the red tape and cost the business unnecessary costs.


  12. “We are so stuck in the past and so busy harping over past wrongdoings that we ignore the brighter future we could have spent that time planning for instead”

    no one wants anything to do with THIEVES AND RACISTS…the thefts are RECENT…the racism STILL ONGOING…go to hell…..who the hell would partner with frauds….yall have the parliament rats, make do with them…hope they sell your wicked tiefing asses out too…

    yall are an embarrassment on the earth that’s why the world had to find out about you…


  13. Pacha…these frauds have some nerve on them…steupps..


  14. CA

    Only White people and their lackies think like this.

    Next time a White tourist is murdered by a man on the block we will suggest a similar defence. The man charged should tell the judge that looking back is unhelpful. That we should only look forward.


  15. A lyrical genius gone. …what is needed is for the Black majority to REDISCOVER their CREATIVITY. GIFTS, SPECIAL TALENTS..it’s still all there, just beneath the surface ..and TAKE CONTROL OF THEIR LIVES…without parliament sellouts or tiefing minorities…..this dude like so many others is an inspiration….there was a video on poverty in Jamaica and i could not watch it…but these talented people use their ancestral gifts and reach the pinnacle of success…without governments or racists.

    “Of the many innovations Jamaican music has offered to the world over the past 50 years, the lyrical art of “toasting” has had perhaps the most profound and long-lasting impact. A stylised, poetical form of chatting and scatting, it was brought to prominence in the early 1970s by the reggae deejay U-Roy, who has died aged 78, and has fed into many musical forms, from hip-hop to grime.

    U-Roy – whose real name was Ewart Beckford – did not actually invent toasting: that distinction is usually given to his fellow deejay Count Machuki, who began talking over songs at Jamaican sound system dances in the late 50s. But it was U-Roy who took it on by leaps and bounds, and it was he who successfully brought it into the recording studio, popularising the artform first in Jamaica and then around the globe.

    Rather than just talk between tracks, Machuki had begun to drop in occasional interjections as they played. U-Roy refined the idea even further, keeping up a stream of consciousness right through a record while riding the rhythm and creating, in the process, a new musical product altogether – something in its own right, rather than just an add-on.

    More importantly, and unlike Machuki, he found a way to transfer his skills on to vinyl, in particular with the producer Duke Reid, who manufactured stripped-down dub versions of contemporary tunes over which U-Roy could give rein to his rich-toned verbal dexterity, which he delivered in a relaxed, playful and conversational style.

    Such was the originality of the approach that in 1970 three of U-Roy’s early singles – Wake the Town, Rule the Nation and Wear You to the Ball – stood at Nos 1, 2 and 3 in the Jamaican charts for six weeks running. In short order word of his talent spread to the UK, the US and beyond.

    Advertisement
    As a result Jamaican deejays – previously confined to the humble role of introducing records and filling in the gaps between them – became stars in their own right, with U-Roy’s heirs – figures such as Big Youth, Yellowman, Beenie Man, Shaggy, Shabba Ranks, Bounty Killer, Lady Saw and Sizzla – often achieving global fame.

    U-Roy was born into a Seventh-Day Adventist family in the Jonestown area of the Jamaican capital, Kingston, and got his nickname from a young family member who found it difficult to pronounce “Ewart”. His musical education centred around the church, but as a teenager at Denham Town high school he was also an admirer of the jive-talking American musician Louis Jordan, and as a young amateur deejay he came under the influence of Machuki.

    He began as a professional deejay in 1961 with the Dickies Dynamic sound system, before moving in 1965 to the rival Sir George the Atomic sound system, and then becoming the No 2 deejay to another pioneering toaster, King Stitt, with Sir Coxsone Dodd. By 1968 he was the main deejay on King Tubby’s Hometown Hi Fi, where Tubby and Reid supplied him with exclusive “dub plate” recordings over which he could toast at dances.

    It was with Reid that U-Roy recorded the three groundbreaking singles that took the country by storm in 1970. “It was like a new Jamaica was born,” said Dennis Alcapone, one of the toasters who followed in U-Roy’s wake. “All of a sudden they were treating us deejays like gods.”

    There were many more Jamaican hit singles for U-Roy on Reid’s Treasure Isle label, while his debut album, Version Galore (1971), created a stir not just at home but in the UK, where he was signed up by Virgin. Thereafter he produced a steady stream of critically acclaimed albums during the 70s, most of them, including Dread in a Babylon (1975), Natty Rebel (1976), Rasta Ambassador (1977) and Jah Son of Africa (1978), reflecting his Rastafarian beliefs.

    After a period living in Britain, in 1978 U-Roy set up his own sound system, Stur Gav, in Jamaica, helping to launch a new generation of toasters and fuelling the coming dancehall revolution that saw deejays move into the ascendancy at the expense of roots reggae singers and bands.

    From there the deejay culture dripped into the various nooks and crannies of contemporary music, most notably in the Bronx area of New York, where the influence of a sizeable expat Jamaican population informed the methods of some of the early rappers and hip-hop pioneers, including the DJ Kool Herc, who later suggested that “the whole chemistry of [hip-hop] came from Jamaica”.

    In the 80s U-Roy relocated to California, and his recorded output began to slow. He made just three LPs in that decade – one of them, Line Up and Come (1986), in collaboration with Tappa Zukie, his fellow deejay. In the 90s he teamed up with the British dub producer Mad Professor for three albums, and he continued to make records on a regular, if sedate, basis well into the new millennium.

    His last two albums, Pray Fi Di People and Talking Roots, came out in 2012 and 2018 respectively; a new album, Gold: The Man Who Invented Rap, featuring artists such as Shaggy, Ziggy Marley, Mick Jones and Zak Starkey, is set for release later this year.

    Well known for his even temper, laid-back disposition and general humility, U-Roy was awarded the Order of Distinction by the Jamaican government in 2007.

    He is survived by his long-term partner, Marcia Smikle, and by 16 children.

    • U-Roy (Ewart Beckford), deejay, born 21 September 1942; died 17 February 2021”


  16. South Africa

    Apartheid was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa from 1948 until the early 1990s. Yet, there were tens of thousands of “Half Caste”men women and kids predominantly in Cape Town, during the mid 70’s while I was there.

    White hypocrisy???


  17. Jack of My Trade / Bigger Boss

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spjEj0EbJTk


  18. Oh dear.


  19. You Don’t Care (You’ll Want Me Back)

    Call On Me, Tea Pot, Call On Me Dub


  20. Jamaican Deejay

    Music Like Dirt
    aka Intensified

    Phoenix City


  21. Pressue Drop

    54-46 That’s My Number

    Satta Massagana


  22. This is not the blues, but it is pretty blue
    https://youtu.be/IQBRnqCZylU


  23. Party in the Slum
    Slum Dub

    Rasta Business
    Thief A Man
    Gimmie Mi Gun


  24. Easy Take It Easy
    Babylon Too Rough

    Black A Kill Black
    Leaving


  25. Do you know the blues was the first kind of music. Why?
    God created the heaven and earth and when he saw what he had done, he had the blues. https://youtu.be/6xTQxSkTXww


  26. @7:30
    The imagery in #1 is amazing.


  27. Fowl Enuff…we gotta talk bout de St. Lucy Project….all 146 pages.


  28. R.I.P. Daddy
    ✝️
    Just Another Girl / Runaway Girl Version Excursion

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4QzWGWJ4E4


  29. @ WURA-War-on-UFebruary 24, 2021 6:26 PM
    “A lyrical genius gone. …what is needed is for the Black majority to REDISCOVER their CREATIVITY. GIFTS, SPECIAL TALENTS..it’s still all there, just beneath the surface ..and TAKE CONTROL OF THEIR LIVES…without parliament sellouts or tiefing minorities…..this dude like so many others is an inspiration….there was a video on poverty in Jamaica and i could not watch it…but these talented people use their ancestral gifts and reach the pinnacle of success…without governments or racists.”
    +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    Well, well! Sometimes Wura, you can outdo yourself by scoring a perfect 10(0) without even realising it.

    Why not ask yourself how come a small backwater area called the Caribbean including boththe English and French-speaking territories, with probably less than 10 million black people making up its population- has been able to produce some of the greatest performers in many aspects of human achievements.

    From sports to music to literature to economics to political thought: as manifested through the outstanding achievements and works of people like Toussaint L’Ouverture, Marcus Garvey to Garry Sobers, Usain Bolt, to Bob Marley, Rihanna to Alexandre Dumas, Franz Fanon, Arthur Lewis and Derek Walcott with his white Bajan heritage(?), Caribbean people of both black and dual heritage have always made and left their mark on recent world history with a similarly impressive story which can certainly be told and, in some cases, surpassed by their African-American brothers and sisters and which has been emulated by their descendants in both (Great) Britain and across Western European countries with their black slavery and colonial past.


  30. “Caribbean people of both black and dual heritage have always made and left their mark on recent world history with a similarly impressive story which can certainly be told and, in some cases, surpassed by their African-American brothers and sisters and which has been emulated by their descendants in both (Great) Britain and across Western European countries with their black slavery and colonial past”

    All in the African bloodlines darling, ask Pacha about our great African ancestry, not many have the full story…i suspect Pacha found out much more recently…it’s a treasure trove of amazing information to sit and marvel at….hidden no more, lied about no more….coming out in the open as it should..

    ancestor power.


  31. @Hal Austin February 24, 2021 8:21 AM “I once went to the registry to get some certificates – births, marriages and deaths – and was asked for identification, which was unusual, since these are records that should be available to the general public.

    No.

    There is no way I should be able to walk into a registry anywhere and ask for and receive the birth, marriage, divorce and death certificates of Hal Austin, his parents, siblings and children unless I present valid government issued photo ID, AND evidence that I am a close relative, ie. parent, spouse, child, sibling. Imagine the capacity for fraud if anybody anywhere could help themselves to Hal’s information, or yours, or mine.


  32. “There is no way I should be able to walk into a registry anywhere and ask for and receive the birth, marriage, divorce and death certificates of Hal Austin, his parents, siblings and children”

    Information like that is in public records / public domain available to everyone


  33. @ Miller
    Afro Caribbean people have played significant roles in the struggle of our sisters and brothers in America. They have also played serious roles in they culture, music, writing etc.
    Of course we will go from kindergarten to a PHd , in our educational system, without knowing this fact.
    Many of them never viewed the Caribbean positively after such involvement . No place on the planet kills off radicals or pro Black thinkers , speaking figuratively, like the Caribbean.
    We are perhaps the best talk shops to be found anywhere.
    By the way , where’s the white man Corbin these days? Getting ready to call us niggers again ?
    Another example of a talk shop.


  34. Cuhdear BajanFebruary 24, 2021 8:23 PM

    @Hal Austin February 24, 2021 8:21 AM “I once went to the registry to get some certificates – births, marriages and deaths – and was asked for identification, which was unusual, since these are records that should be available to the general public.

    No.

    There is no way I should be able to walk into a registry anywhere and ask for and receive the birth, marriage, divorce and death certificates of Hal Austin, his parents, siblings and children unless I present valid government issued photo ID, AND evidence that I am a close relative, ie. parent, spouse, child, sibling. Imagine the capacity for fraud if anybody anywhere could help themselves to Hal’s information, or yours, or mine.

    +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    Hal

    You can go online to familysearch.org and get marriage, burial, baptismal records up the the 1880’s.

    … or you can go to the archives to view them.

    After that time you have to go to the Registry and submit to whatever rules they have.

    My grandmother’s baptism record from 1883 is online.

    You can also go to the archives and view it.

    Not my mother’s or mine or the generations after me.

    Ask your lawyer to get the documents you want to view.

    If whatever he is doing for you requires documents like you describe he can get access.

    You probably can’t on your own.

    I know there is a process for applying from anywhere in the world for a death certificate from the UK and it will be delivered via the internet, relative or not.

    https://beyond.life/help-centre/admin-legal/how-to-get-a-death-certificate/

    Never seen it done for other legal documents.

    But it sounds from your question that all the documents you list are readily available to the public in the UK.


  35. “No place on the planet kills off radicals or pro Black thinkers , speaking figuratively, like the Caribbean.”

    there was bound to come a time when they met their match…the first think ya had to do with anti-black….anti-African trash like them, is EXPOSE THEM EVERYWHERE…get EVERYONE talking about them….especially on the Continent…they are so dangerous they’ll try to weasel their way in to see what they could tief…to help white racist trash….after what they’ve done to Black populations for over 60 YEARS to keep racism, poverty, apartheid and colonialism alive…they are a talking point in Africa…we made sure of that.

    ..they perfected crimes against Black/Africans in the Caribbean..testing ground and staging area ….with Barbados heading the list, the textbook to Black/African HATRED…….ah waiting for the lying excuse from them that UK/Elizabeth made them do it….what they don’t know is, we understand what happened….and that excuse HAS A DATE STAMP…it’s long EXPIRED…..but the whole Caribbean continued their anti-black wickedness against Black populations..

    Only racist Barbados would create the poverty that has trapped the people, by allowing in diseased tourists then lock up Black people for trying to put food on their tables…..i remember when COKEHEAD Blades told the parliament rats to arrest Black people for poaching sea eggs and they’ve been doing it ever since……some people on the island have not eaten properly for 8 months or more, neither have their children.

    https://barbadostoday.bb/2021/02/24/man-broke-law-to-put-a-meal-on-the-table/

    but yall will pay for your crimes against Black people…yall will start by PAYING BACK..the 6 billion dollars OR MORE that yall and the minority racists tief from the Black population/island that’s not yours and shared it amongst yaselves… ……yall have no respect…just as Caswell recently said.

    “Opposition Senator Caswell Franklyn yesterday absented himself from the first sitting of the Senate for 2021, as he complained about the timeliness of submission of information to senators pertaining to the bills set down for debate.

    The outspoken Senator sent a letter to President of the Senate, Reginald Farley, indicating he would not be attending the sitting of the Upper House and “that starting today, I will no longer tolerate this abuse and disrespect from Government”.


  36. Ah can’t wait for the fowl Slaves to jump out and attack..


  37. Every blog must see the same tired comments resposted? We cannot make the point and move on? What is this blog about as it relates to promoting ideas to move the country forward? The reality if we take a pragmatic view is that the average John Citizen has been socialized to think how hethink. A romanticized perspective of where we need to be will not penetrate. A plan to disrupt must be pragmatically cloaked.


  38. ya promoting ideas for racist minorities to TIEF…so it will NEVER benefit the BLACK/AFRICAN population who fund the island….good luck….look what the welcome stamp PLT gave as a gift devolved into..

    ya will soon figure out what ya should be promoting instead to actually benefit the black population…….am confident….William can help ya with that..

    The never ending geniuses that is BLACK/AFRICAN mathematician bloodline.

    “Gladys Mae West (1930- )

    Dr. Gladys West inducted into Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame
    Dr. Gladys West is a mathematician whose calculations and computer programming helped construct a geoid (a mathematical model of the earth’s shape). West’s modeling directly contributed to the ubiquitous use of the global positioning system (GPS) today. Born on October 27, 1930, Gladys Mae Brown … Continue readingGladys Mae West (1930- )”


  39. that bell CANNOT be unrung.

    it’s best to go with the flow and clean up the mess so the population who fund the island can see some benefits….much UNSEEN work has been done behind the scenes to start that ball rolling…

    this is not the 60s, 70s, nor 80s-present where sellouts STILL use the Public Order Act to STIFLE BLACK PROGRESS, OPPORTUNITIES and WEALTH GENERATION…this is a new era….a new BLACK WORLD ORDER…time to adapt…and get with the program.

    The only blog that lasted to expose all of this, should not now be the one left out or trying to mend shit to include racists, thieves and sellouts…which will only cause a wash, rinse and REPEAT..

  40. Critical Analyzer Avatar
    Critical Analyzer

    @David February 25, 2021 3:59 AM

    I feel sorry for @WURA-War-on-U. It is sad to see a smart man like him getting taken in by his own propaganda.

    If he is so aggrieved by what he expounds, he would be in front parliament with his other supporters and petitions lobbying for changes to laws and constitution to prevent future atrocities and miscarriages of justice from happening.

    Surely he can get his black brothers and sisters in parliament to see the folly of their ways or does he consider them to be white people painted black to fool the public.

    The past cannot be changed and is only there to learn from with the future yet to be written. Where will you live, past or future?


  41. Franklyn: I won’t accept disrespect
    OPPOSITION SENATOR Caswell Franklyn yesterday absented himself from the first sitting of the Senate for 2021, as he complained about the timeliness of submission of information to senators pertaining to the bills set down for debate.
    The outspoken Senator sent a letter to President of the Senate, Reginald Farley, indicating he would not be attending the sitting of the Upper House and “that starting today, I will no longer tolerate this abuse and disrespect from Government”.
    In the letter which was circulated to the media, Franklyn explained that he received an email from the Clerk of Parliament on February 19, informing there would be a sitting of the Senate on February 24, 2021. It added that the Order Paper would be circulated in due course.
    Come prepared
    “I was further informed that the House of Assembly was expected to debate the Barbados Identity Management Bill,
    2021 and the National Payment System Bill, 2021. The email went on to say: “In the event that these bills are passed, the Honourable the Senate will be asked to debate them in all their stages at the sitting of February 24, 2021.
    “We were then told to come prepared to debate these bills. Up to that point I had seen neither of the bills,” he charged.
    He explained that on February 20, he received an email addressed to all members of the House and copied to Senators with the National Payment System Bill, 2021 attached.
    Two days later, he said he received another email informing that along with the other two bills mentioned earlier, the Bills Of Exchange (Amendment) Bill, 2021 would also be debated today (yesterday).
    However, Franklyn said he never received the Barbados Identity Management Bill,
    2021 or the Bills of Exchange (Amendment) Bill 2020.
    “It is not my place to tell the Government how to conduct its business, but I have a duty to the Leader of the Opposition and the people of Barbados to come prepared to debate matters before the Senate. In these circumstances I am unable to do my duty,” he said.
    “I have been complaining from day one about Government abusing its majority to unfairly oppress the Opposition using these tactics. One of the most important duties of a presiding officer is to protect the minority from oppression of the majority. The Opposition and indeed Barbados need you to reject this behaviour.”
    The letter ended: “Sir, I said all that to say that starting today, I will no longer tolerate this abuse and disrespect from Government. I would like to suggest that the emails from the Clerk of Parliament do not suffice to replace common courtesy from the Leader of Government Business in the Senate, when the Government proposes to the sidestep the Standing Orders of the Honourable the Senate.”
    When contacted by this newspaper, the President of the Senate confirmed that he had received the letter of complaint from Franklyn and that he had also responded to him.
    Explaining the process for the circulation of Order Papers, Farley said the three bills which were dealt with yesterday, were circulated to members of both the Lower House and the Senate on February 2.
    Before formal notice
    “There was one email that went to all and that was to give early sight of those bills and those are all dated January 30,” he said, adding that before the formal notice of a bill was received, the information was sent out so that the Senate would be aware that it would be coming up.
    Farley, however, stressed that the Senate could only consider matters referred to it by the Lower House.
    He said the reason why there was no subsequent email of the Identity Management Bill
    and the Bills Of Exchange (Amendment) Bill was because there were no changes to those bills since the first circulation.
    “My aim is always to work for the improvement for any processes. In matters such as these where any Senator experiences inconvenience of such a nature we would work with the office of the Clerk of Parliament,” the President said, adding he would be happy to meet with Franklyn and the Clerk “to review our procedures and hear any suggestions concerning improvements which can be made.” (MB)

    Source: Nation


  42. De Peiza criticises National Payment System Bill
    THE JUST PASSED
    National Payment System Bill further perpetuates the perception of two Barbadoses, says Verla De Peiza, president of the Democratic Labour Party.
    In a statement yesterday, she criticised the introduction of the regulation requiring bank accounts to be able to transact business.
    “This present administration seems oblivious to the way Barbadians live and how small businesses operate. The most recent evidence of this is the tone-deaf National Payment System Bill
    2021 which requires an individual or business to have a bank account at this time in order to participate outside of banking regulations. This bill further perputates the concept of two Barbadoses- as it is very clear this bill is seeking to cater to investors over the longstanding local customers,” she said.
    Broaden the scope
    The National Payment System Bill
    makes provision for a system of electronic payment for financial transactions that employ technology more widely, and thereby broaden the scope of doing business locally and internationally. It was debated and passed in the Senate yesterday.
    De Peiza explained that since deregulation of the banking sector, interest rates on deposits plummeted to an alltime low. Simultaneously, bank fees rose “to prohibitive levels”, some even included minimum opening balances, she said.
    “This is overlaid on a reality that a significant proportion of Barbadians live from pay cheque to pay cheque; some who hustle and earn on a daily basis simply cannot afford to bank as every cent is budgeted for in their families’ daily existence.
    “Some small businesses are also feeling the pinch as they watch their finances being whittled away by onerous requirements to obtain loans. At present, there is no incentive to deposit funds as persons cannot afford to do so in this current economic environment where the cost of living has increased significantly despite a global pandemic on the island,” De Peiza said.
    She said the DLP remained committed to finding balance between the economy and society “as we promote a more just society- where there is the widest possible distribution of assets to give a wider group of individuals a stake in the operations of the economy”.
    She said while banking regulations was a must in order to encourage wider participation in the digital economy, Government must be cognisant of the harsh realities which individuals and the global economic communities were facing in the height of COVID-19. (AC)

    Source: Nation


  43. @ Dirt Farmer

    Correction: I earlier said the McPherson report came out of the 1981 riots; that was incorrect. The Scarman report was the outcome from the 1981 uprisings, which led to the 1984 Police and Criminal Evidence Act.
    The McPherson report came out of the brutal murder of Stephen Lawrence.


  44. “Every blog must see the same tired comments resposted? We cannot make the point and move on? What is this blog about as it relates to promoting ideas to move the country forward?”

    If you step back to listen and analyse the situation from the (same old) complaints from Waru / Hal / John / GP et al as a clinical social worker specialising in depression anxiety relationships trauma grief etc you would conclude Barbados, UK, USA, Jamaica etc are suffering from dysfunctional issues manifesting in it’s people politics business news social demographics and all other social aspects of human life manifesting from legacy of cultural white supremacy racism and prejudice where people are treated as superior or inferior due to complexion of their skin colour and stereotyping of people by other people who do not integrate with them and look at them from afar. Like a Hillbilly Elegy communities of people have given up on life and take opiates and other substances to dull the pain. People never change as they get older they just become more extreme. The youths are an opportunity to break the cycle of behaviour, but their sensitive minds are also affected but what they see and sense around them which can affect damage and delay their development the same way.
    It can take counselling therapy hallucinogenic plants exercising meditation reflection crying over a length of time to address the underlying psychological and emotional problems and release the issues in the tissues through a cathartic relief.


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBM4wDnN6lI


  45. Political Scientist Tennyson Joseph’s second point makes sense. The majority of Barbadians are not equipped to move to where they need to be. It will require some tactical intervention by some one or group. The constant snarling, bickering and adversarial approach will not do it.

    A task for Trevor
    THIS ARTICLE HAS been prompted by two separate, but related issues confronting Barbados. The first, and most revolting, was a viral video of a Caucasian-looking man, a heavy-duty vehicle operator by apparent profession, who refers to African-descendent people in the most disparaging terms, and expressing the uneducated assumption that they should have stayed in Africa, as if Caribbean slavery was a step up from freedom in the most ancient of lands, Africa.
    A subsequent Whatsapped “apology” exposed further racist assumptions. (As background, the individual acknowledged that his remarks, though reprehensible, were prompted by the fact that his property – a tool of his trade, – had been vandalised by neighbourhood youth).
    The second issue is the reluctance of the Barbadian public to appreciate the office of Special Envoy for Reparations and Economic Empowerment, now occupied by MP Trevor Prescod. Following his removal as Minister for the Environment, many Barbadians view Prescod’s Special Envoy role as an act of political appeasement. The video, however, provides a clear indicator of a deep socio-economic racial problem in Barbados, and suggests the need for a more actively central role for the special envoy in economic policymaking in Barbados. This article offers some suggestions. Interestingly, the individual in the video hinged much of his “self-justification/ apology” on his importance as an employer of black people whose families he apparently feeds.
    What is significant, however, is the near absence of anti-racism and equal opportunity legislation in the Caribbean. In many of the advanced democracies
    of the world, mostly European-majority countries, there are protections against racist employment practices and behaviour in the workplace and against unequal and incestuous hiring, with attendant legal remedies and business penalties.
    Ironically, in the black-majority Caribbean, minority business people feel themselves empowered to engage in the kinds of vile behaviour revealed in the video, and assume that their roles as employers serve an adequate excuse for such behaviour.
    The office of the Special Envoy could: 1. examine the best practices of countries which have passed anti-racism laws, and make appropriate recommendations to the Attorney General for implementation in Barbados; 2. cause to be implemented a policy in which the winning of (taxpayer-funded) Government contracts could be linked to the ethical racial practices by employers (who is feeding who now?).
    Finally, the “unapologetic apology” attempted to “frighten” the video maker by referencing the Computer Misuse Act. What is interesting, however, is that in more advanced democracies, there are sophisticated whistle-blower protections for people who expose unethical, and in this case, racist behaviour. In addition to its ongoing work on reparations and economic enfranchisement, Trevor’s office could: 3. assist with strengthening whistle-blower legislation to allow for protections of civic-minded people who assist in exposing the dirty and unforgivable wound of overt and hateful racist behaviour against the black-majority population of Barbados. Black Lives Matter!
    Tennyson Joseph is a political scientist at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, specialising in regional affairs. Email tjoe2008 @live.com.


  46. AG: Step closer to new ID card
    GOVERNMENT HAS MOVED a step closer to providing a secure, relevant, and accessible form of the Barbados national identification card, making it “fit for purpose, in a modern and dynamic Barbados”.
    Speaking during debate on the Barbados Identity Management Bill, 2021, which was later passed during Tuesday’s sitting of the House of Assembly, Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Dale Marshall said that some of the new features of the single ID card include chip technology, your drivers’ licence, medical information, biometrics (fingerprints, if the individual desires), and reduced opportunities for fraud.
    Chip embedded
    “This ID card for the technophiles, will have as part of its features a chip . . . [that is] a device that is embedded in the physical ID card itself which has data on it. What kind of data? That data would include such things as your fingerprint if you wish because at the end of the day when you present your ID card somebody ought to be able to authenticate it. You want to be able to authenticate it.
    “And therefore, your national ID card when now issued, will have a chip which will have data on it, and that data is protected … and available to the individuals with whom you’re dealing, if you so desire,” he said.
    He emphasised that fingerprints are not mandatory and persons “cannot be compelled” to provide theirs.
    The Attorney General said while Government does not feel it needs to “get into everything”, there are some things that could be done to “hopefully eliminate some of the headache that we have to contend with” such as opening accounts at financial institutions some of which, if not all, require three forms of identification and proof of address.
    Marshall said what was needed “today was a secure form of ID, that is available for Barbadians, that is available for anybody who is entitled to register and that will establish with the maximum level of certainty, that I am who I say I am”.
    Authority of statute
    “Happily technology has brought us to a place where we are now able to do that, and this National ID Bill will once and for all give our ID the power and authority of statute that it so badly needs, and will establish a certain framework for its issue and its management,” he said.
    Stating there was “a certain and clear regime for the issuing of the Barbados ID”, he noted that “a lot of what we had in the 1979 statutory instrument is replicated” with all the documents, such as birth certificate, marriage certificate where applicable and change of name – that have to be produced presently when applying for an ID card, would be required for the updated one.
    (GBM)

    Source: Nation


  47. De Peiza criticises National Payment System Bill
    THE JUST PASSED
    National Payment System Bill further perpetuates the perception of two Barbadoses, says Verla De Peiza, president of the Democratic Labour Party.
    In a statement yesterday, she criticised the introduction of the regulation requiring bank accounts to be able to transact business.
    “This present administration seems oblivious to the way Barbadians live and how small businesses operate. The most recent evidence of this is the tone-deaf National Payment System Bill
    2021 which requires an individual or business to have a bank account at this time in order to participate outside of banking regulations. This bill further perputates the concept of two Barbadoses- as it is very clear this bill is seeking to cater to investors over the longstanding local customers,” she said.
    Broaden the scope
    The National Payment System Bill
    makes provision for a system of electronic payment for financial transactions that employ technology more widely, and thereby broaden the scope of doing business locally and internationally. It was debated and passed in the Senate yesterday.
    De Peiza explained that since deregulation of the banking sector, interest rates on deposits plummeted to an alltime low. Simultaneously, bank fees rose “to prohibitive levels”, some even included minimum opening balances, she said.
    “This is overlaid on a reality that a significant proportion of Barbadians live from pay cheque to pay cheque; some who hustle and earn on a daily basis simply cannot afford to bank as every cent is budgeted for in their families’ daily existence.
    “Some small businesses are also feeling the pinch as they watch their finances being whittled away by onerous requirements to obtain loans. At present, there is no incentive to deposit funds as persons cannot afford to do so in this current economic environment where the cost of living has increased significantly despite a global pandemic on the island,” De Peiza said.
    She said the DLP remained committed to finding balance between the economy and society “as we promote a more just society- where there is the widest possible distribution of assets to give a wider group of individuals a stake in the operations of the economy”.
    She said while banking regulations was a must in order to encourage wider participation in the digital economy, Government must be cognisant of the harsh realities which individuals and the global economic communities were facing in the height of COVID-19. (AC)

    Source: Nation


  48. “Do you know the blues was the first kind of music. Why?”

    Blacks were taken from Africa and put on slave ships and taken to foreign lands where people said they were their masters.
    Their religion language culture and music were taken away from them and banned like the musical instruments they used to communicate their messages and stories. The blues are an expression of life of slaves and suffering of blacks and their hopes fears goals and ambitions as is other genres of black music like jazz gospel soul ska reggae in the roots of contemporary music from hip-hop to dance sub genres and beyond


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IevJvXKXAo0

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