A contributing factor to a high level of cynicism by citizens directed at government is the lack of transparency attached to selecting national awardees. The exercise is regarded as an opportunity for the sitting government to reward party faithful. The same with appointments to SOEs. The 2021 National Independence Awards was no different although some deserving Barbadians received recognition.
A few of the awardees caught the eye of the blogmaster.
Minister of Health Jeffrey Bostic and the COVID 19 team received the Order of Freedom of Barbados award. On the face of it one would have opined well deserved, BUT a question must be asked. Minister Bostic admitted he was unaware the role his ministry played in the mysterious attempt to purchase AstraZeneca Covid 19 vaccine through a third party at an outrageous price – see Mark Maloney Scammed!. The signature of his [Bostic] Permanent Secretary Janet Phillips is affixed on a ministry letterhead authorizing the transaction – see US Court document . Janet Phillips is also listed as receiving the national award as a member of the COVID 19 team. Should the two have received such high national recognition in the circumstances? The blogmaster’s position is if we are serious about changing trajectory to build a quality society as the newest republic, these are opportunities our leadership must seize to send the right message to the citizens. It is the only way to rebuild trust between actors in civil society.
Barbadians have not received a satisfactory explanation from the government regarding the Mark Maloney Scammed matter. Why a local businessman whose substantive profession is construction, importing cement and racing cars was involved in brokering a deal with a Miami based entertainment company to procure vaccine is beyond the pale. It is unfortunate our government continues to ignore calls from citizens for a satisfactory explanation. Fortunately for Bostic he is one of several Barbados Labour Party (BLP) sitting members of parliament who have decided to quit elective politics and will not have to subject himself to defending the indefensible on the campaign trail.
Another name of interest is Juanita Thorington-Powlett. She is one of those public servants appointed to the board of directors of Clearwater Bay company – See Four Seasons Project: Public Servants Must Serve Taxpayers NOT Politicians. In light of the unfavourable comment contained in the Auditor General report about a ‘write off’ of $124 million, it begs another question. How do you award someone who has fiduciary responsibility for a company that attracted such a negative note from a key oversight agency?
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Peter Odle -
Juanita Thorington-Powlett -
Janet Phillips
The treatment of the investment in Clearwater Bay needs to be further explained. The investment in this government-owned company was recorded at a value of $124 million investment in prior years. It represented an investment by Clearwater in the Four Seasons Hotel project. The value of this investment remained unchanged on the books of government for several years even though the property on which the investment was based was significantly impaired.
Leigh Trotman, Auditor General
Finally there is Peter Odle, a BLP faithful. Our national awards will not garner respect if the body of work of awardees is open to question marks – see Foreign Investor Unable to Have Case Heard Against Hotelier Peter Odle.
There are many names on the list that would have failed the smell test if proper due diligence was done. The Mark Maloney Scammed matter reminds us due diligence by government is not a prerequisite for informing quality decisions. Good luck to Walter Blackman who is on-air trying to highlight the bigger issue of a failure of our governance system and lack of integrity of players involved. Instead of being unanimously congratulated, he has been attacked daily by the politically motivated and ignorant.
#welikeitso
#peoplewakeup
Should the two have received such high national recognition in the circumstances?
How do you award someone who has fiduciary responsibility for a company that attracted such a negative note from a key oversight agency?
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Depends on who they can implicate because for sure they did not work in a vacuum!!
How did GPII put it .. a farce of the highest order!!
Its amazing. The world is on the brink of nuclear war.
The top hot spots being Ukraine and Taiwan. Of course, they are others.
But yet issues around foolishness which will hold no meaning whatsoever when the first hypersonic weapons are delivered bring a feeling of an early Christmas for a people whose sole civilizational claim is about false respectability constructs.
We have long estimated that sooner or later the whole country, founded by charter, or as a corporation, will be up for forced sale, as a going concern. That sooner or later somebody will offer, in exchange for the retirement of the entity’s stifulling debt, all the “chattels” be converted to the ownership of a global brand.
Brands as first entered the lexicon as specific markings on slaves now have the same level if respectability as national honours, if not more.
Current trajectories cannot avoid this outcome unless the pending global perdition enters first.
@Pacha
Barbados should move to DEFCON 3?
So you woud tek dese names off de list?
You tink de list could be trimmed a little?
What bout de prince? We had to gi he sum ting?
Over the past year(s), I have seen some making a genuine effort to help the less fortunate in Barbados.
Sadly, I cannot call any names but I recall a young man helping and feeding the homeless, a young lady helping when who were abused and a group of rich folks in Sandy Lane making donations.
Did any of these make the list?
We renamed the good ship, but left the chairs in the same place.
Have a great day all.
Have a great day Republic of Batbados
Have to take back at least one of my endorsements of the blogmaster
Maloney Scammed — closed😭😠
Ram covid-test scam — closed😭😡
EWB Solutions — unknown😭🤬
Rawdon posts — closed 😭😭😭🤬
@ Pachamama December 2, 2021 6:59 AM
(Quote):
We have long estimated that sooner or later the whole country, founded by charter, or as a corporation, will be up for forced sale, as a going concern. That sooner or later somebody will offer, in exchange for the retirement of the entity’s stifulling debt, all the “chattels” be converted to the ownership of a global brand. (Unquote).
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Well put, Pacha, the man with a helicopter view of pending events on the geopolitical ground!
With Hong Kong now well sealed in their back pocket, the People’s Republic of China will soon be taking (back) the RoC aka Taiwan.
Can a similar thing happen to the new Republic of Bim (RoB) when it fails to service its large debt obligations to the Dragon and to be a mere pawn in the ‘heating’ political chess and war games between the rising China and the setting West?
Do not forget Putin piling up forces on the border.
@David, excellent post. I wonder if those with the power understand the double standards and deceit their perpetuate. We still continue to wonder why the youth behave the way they do in 2021.
At the root of our societal failures are those who we hold in high esteem who abuse their privilege positions. Only yesterday, I was told by someone how nasty and ugly corruption is in Barbados and how proxies act on their own volition to silence those who challenge the dirty and ugly.
I questioned the award too. The Peter principle at work. They were promoted to their level of incompetence.
Per Stephen Covey: The Peter Principle is an observation that the tendency in most organizational hierarchies, such as that of a corporation, is for every employee to rise in the hierarchy through promotion until they reach a level of respective incompetence.
David
How do you so effectively manage to utter the soundbites from the leading Western propaganda media? Have you not yet learnt that everything they say is a simplictic lie, propaganda for minds like yours?
The truth is that the Russian Federation has been moving troops within its own border in response to half the Ukrainian military’s deployments of troops near Donetsk and Lugansk, the breakaway, Russian-speaking republics in Ukraine.
You just glibly said that Putin is pilling up forces on the border. Not one mention of NATO’s decades old, continuing expansions, surrounding the Russian Federation. Not one mention of the violations by your people of the Black Sea and Russia sphere of influence. Not a single mention of the failure of Ukraine to adhere to the Minsk Agreements. And on and on.
Imagine, that the Russian Federation has thousand of Russian supported troops on Canadian or Mexican borders of the United States. For to the Russian Federation this is an existential crisis. And the West knows well that the Russians are not prepared to put up with this rassoul any further.
This WW3 scenario gets deeper and more complex. For Russia and China are now strategic allies. They have agreed that should conflict be started, Russia will take over Ukraine and China will simultaneously do the same with Taiwan thereby dividing Western military forces, and more.
The base truth is that America and its axis of evil does no longer has the ability to defeat both Russia and China in conventional war. This makes a resort to nuclear weapons more likely because, as we before estimated, your rassoul White people do not intend to surrender global hegemony at any cost, these fuckers will destroy everthing first.
But your useless national preoccupation has no time for these real issues beyond relying on CNN for your daily fix to keep an uncritical national mind going. But you are in good company. For your leading academicians also get theirs from CNN.
When future anthrpologists dig up our bones, reconstruct the social histories of this period, they will say “what an ignorant set of people” talking shiiiite ’bout honoraria as Rome burns.
Again Pacha, should Barbados raise the defcon level.
Reborn
@David, u are a barrel of laughs this morning with “Barbados should move to DEFCON 3?”!
Why would winds of warfare across the globe necessarily cause us greater anxiety right now!
Obviously any actual war could evolve into WWIII and create much angst for Bim and all others but that’s a bit in the distance yet …
Anyhow, the real joke re your deacon levels is why are u worried NOW, brother!
MAM has been steering HMS Bim Trident into serious peril since she was made PM and before that she had the governance at defcon 5 on a few occasions: it’s a fact that she was dismissed from her ministerial roles because of catastrophic deliberate missteps; it’s a fact Bajans’ privacy was illegally invaded when their electronics device were tapped ALLEGEDLY under her direction !
In the scope of OUR sphere of concerns that was defcon 5!
Soooo, what’s the genesis of your comedy this morn, Mr Blogmaster!
We CANNOT stop any nuclear torpedoes or other nuclear fallout heading to compass grid 13.1939° N, 59.5432° W so whats to fuss about right now … moreover, we don’t seem to fret about the local warfare of stiffling autocratic governance that’s devastating our society!
So why worry about Putin at this moment … real jokes today, Mr Blogmaster.
I gone.
@Dee Word
The point Pacha is making in his provocatively blunt manner is that although we are small in the geopolitical cesspool, we have to formulate policies to optimize greatest benefit for Barbadians. We do not exist in a fishbowl.
I inverted the defcon levels above … that should read: “In the scope of OUR sphere of concerns that was defcon 1!
And otherwise!
What an idiot!
The Corona virus, as a military weapon, is said to have started in China toooo
Is it not the primary real preoccupation of this Mottley regime.
Does anyone here still has a critical mind?
Wuhloss! Maloney crying in his beer that he didn’t make a list! That must be the last thing on his mind. One would think that he is focused on how to recover the funds that he is out of pocket ((providing what we have been reading about his loss(es) is correct).
A year ago there would have been questions about who was deserving of Knighthoods, now we are quibbling about who got what, I hope that we are not turning stupid under the Republic.
True @David, I get that.
However, the related point is that we also need to think deep and hard about what’s happening here as we point fingers at the other world hotspots.
The psychology of leadership is quite clear and how a Putin or Xi, Trump or Mia Mottley acts are absolutely similar.
In fact, based on what we have seen before us here in Barbados one can make a very solid argument that Mia Mottley is more ruthless (dynamic), autocratic (confident with her power) and visionary (it’s my way or get out the eff***g way) than any of the others mentioned.
They have a bigger stage but as they say in boxing parlance : pound for pound she is the best!
She doesn’t terminate with prejudice like Putin; censure from the Central Committe like Xi; nor primary and dismiss opponents like Trump but she gets rid of her adversaries just as effectively.
OSA fired her and boldly warned us about her excesses: she put that powerful PM in his place and then lived to see him put in the ground; Payne and others moved against her: she has jettisoned all of them to outskirts of the party power grid or coopted them to her will.
And she just accomplished the Republican status that all others tried and pissed around… and with an awesome sleight of hand added another national heroine TOO.
One has to be impressed with her nous and all consuming power … and if sensible, also frightened as sh****te!
I gone hear!
“When future anthrpologists dig up our bones, reconstruct the social histories of this period, they will say “what an ignorant set of people” talking shiiiite ’bout honoraria as Rome burns”
now ya see why i bypass all politics and nuisance titles that those who know no better cling to…
“We have long estimated that sooner or later the whole country, founded by charter, or as a corporation, will be up for forced sale, as a going concern. That sooner or later somebody will offer, in exchange for the retirement of the entity’s stifulling debt, all the “chattels” be converted to the ownership of a global brand.
Brands as first entered the lexicon as specific markings on slaves now have the same level if respectability as national honours, if not more.”
under the current colonial construct they can only swap slave nasters…..doubt they knew that…AND DOUBT THEY KNOW A LOT MORE……but they will learn as they muddle along..
“
War
I’m not sure if I buy into all of your views as they seem a tad extreme although may have essence of some truths
why don’t you write in the genre of a fictional horror movie about them as you would then have license to have a field day with full blown exaggeration and visions of the revolution by poor working classes against Government and their rich exploiters and would not be held liable by the powers that be
Those are not public servants they are SLAVES to government shenanigans and party politics who are paid TOO MUCH MONEY BY TAXPAYERS…for doing nothing but being parasites on the treasury. and ENABLING CORRUPTION…
“why don’t you write in the genre of a fictional horror movie.”
already have a book out, if ya haven’t already check it out for what ya asking…
https://african-online-publishing.com/books-2/
just in case ya haven’t, i do know people buy books and don’t read them right away.
I take it that the vaccine scam screwed up the shitehood..
@ David
Exactly what is Maloney “ out of” and exactly what is Bostic “ in” ?
@Blogmaster
Have you now joined the headline spin club?
WTF has Maloney to do with any of those receiving National Honours?
That two (at least) recipients had involvement with the failed vaccine acquirement debacle, in which he was involved?
You can do better.
https://www.nationnews.com/nationnews/news/2021/12/02/esso-staff-upset-closure-paynes-bay-station/
This is written by the most dishonourable Hants. lol
We now have a kazillion ” Most Honourable ” Bajans.
@Hants
You are hereby nominated to Most Excellent
Elevating you beyond your most honourable fellow citizens.
Cause you doan miss one RH when it comes to the ladies….RiRi had two fingers taped with black tape the night of Nov 30, by the next day when she rec’d her Honour, she had on a long sleeved blazer to hide what was now a full blown removable cast over the same two fingers. Wazz up?
@NO @William
What is difficult to figure?
There is always a method to the madness.
Jordan is new chairman at FSC – Jordan is new chairman at FSC:
https://barbadostoday.bb/2021/12/02/jordan-is-new-chairman-at-fsc/
@David “Janet Phillips is also listed as receiving the national award as a member of the COVID 19 team.”
I noticed this too.
I didn’t mind awards going to the doctors, nurses, respiratory technicians, ambulance drivers and laborers who have had to go face-to-face with people infected with Covid19. But I would not give awards to people essentially doing their well paid desk jobs.
Maloney is accountable to only one person: our Supreme Leader.
The masses must therefore finally realise that you can elect your parliamentarians and ministers, but not our business tycoons and our Supreme Leader. These entities are beyond any public responsibility and can do as they like.
Supreme Leader!
The only country in the world which has a leader so named in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Entities elsewhere have supreme this and that mainly in militaries.
Of course, this does not mean that there are not others, persumnely as powerful, but operating under the cloak of elections.
But even in Iran their Supreme Leader is not as all-powerful as maybe inferred. For Ayatollah Khamenie’s bahavior is closely supervised and monitored by the Guardian Council and/or the Assembly of Experts. Even Iran provides gaurdrails.
We fail to recognize any such in Barbados baring elections, which might be questionable, sometimes delayed and subject to the inordinate influence of the party in power.
In Iran however their Supreme Leader spends most of his time seeking national consensus. He has nothing on Mottley, or Stuart.
@ Pacha
These jokers like being called Maximum Leaders. Prime Ministers have more power than we want to admit because we have a belief that democracy means the right to vote every five years.
These “maximum leaders “ micro manage their cabinet and ministers are treated worst than primary school children in our authoritarian education system.
This is so throughout the region.
I think this post by you should be instrumental in reminding people that some things are not as funny as they seem.
From Barrow to Mottley ; Williams to Rowley ………….Only time it was seriously challenged was when Gairy was overthrown.
Food fuh thought.
Peace.
William Skinner
There has never been more precise words about where we are politically, culturally, than those just written by you.
What makes them more prescient is that there are people on this blog going through life with the gross misperception that Barbados is some oasis for what they call democracy.
Those poor souls are mentally conditioned to disparage countries like Iran and China without even having been to the countries or studying their political systems.
Ayatollah Khamenie, as Supreme Leader, could be dismissed at any time by his monitoring councils. This idea has no place within any of the systems in the Caribbean, and it should.
And China’s titularly communist system has higher levels of economic democracy than anywhere in the Caribbean. Evidenced by it bringing 800M people out of poverty within a few decades.
We must remove the mole from our eyes. Dispense with these misperceptions.
@Pacha
What you smoking?
@William Skinner December 2, 2021 8:52 PM “…ministers are treated worst than primary school children…”
So what motivates ministers to accept being treated like primary school children? Sometimes for 10 or 15 years at a time, since no primary school child would accept being treated like a child for 10 or 15 years at a time?
David
A ganga grown by two countries which built sophisticated civilizations and ruled the world when White people lived in caves and drank from the skulls of their dead.
setting the bar law with old racist faces in racist places
leaders are childish children with juvenile thinking
in an era of trump and johnson
mia is a tower of power
setting the bar low
apologies for the mixed up words
The political supporters nowhere to be found. Corruption plagues BOTH administrations. There is no defense, the best approach is to ignore.
“Corruption plagues BOTH administrations”
Kings and Queens of Corruption
Is the 1st woman PM lining her pockets like all her male predecessors
I think not
what kind of corruption are you banging on about explicitly
@ Cuhdear Bajan
When people believe in nothing they fall for anything .When you enter politics without any guiding ideology, philosophy or determined purpose, you are just that-a politician and you are treated as that and that’s what you really are. Hence any leader can treat you any how.
That’s why prime ministers like to be called maximum leaders but they are more like maximum politicians. And usually it’s an inferior maximum.
OTTAWA – The Supreme Court of Canada has sided with Loblaw Financial Holdings in a dispute over the tax treatment of a subsidiary the company ran in Barbados.
In a 7-0 ruling today, the top court says Canadian provisions at issue in the case did not apply to the company, Glenhuron Bank Ltd., meaning tax on its income was not payable in Canada.
Source: Nation
@PachamamaDecember 2, 2021 9:53 PM
Great that you admit that our democratically elected Supreme Leader has more informal power than many dictators.
Tron, Day 5 of our Supreme Leader´s New Republic
Shave me once, shame on you.
Shave me twice, shame on me.
Government officials are unduly optimistic or they are counting on our short memory syndrome.
@DavidDecember 3, 2021 4:36 PM
Printing money is a great plan. It brings us a bit closer to the devaluation I so much desire.
@TheO
if I interpret Prof Howard correctly, the CBB will purchase the bulk of the issue (ie printing money). Given the souring relationship with commercial banks, they cannot be counted upon as the former MoF would insinuate from time to time.
At least the issue doesn’t offer up 9%, as a hook, to be cut at a later date.
I continue to believe the underlying issue is ‘cash flow’ at the GoB level. And, without specifics, the IMF usually has a “say” is how/where funds borrowed from them are spent.
Addendum to Tron December 4, 2021 9:04 AM
In view of our deep friendship with China, I shall henceforth refer to our Most Honourable Prime Minister only as “Paramount Leader of the Caribbean”. Barbados is far too small for a personality and genius like Mia Mottley.
https://barbadostoday.bb/2022/10/17/statement-circulation-of-public-warning-alert-on-covid-19-vaccines-fraudulently-using-pahos-name-and-logo/
“Washington, D.C. (PAHO) – A social media video from an unidentified source unlawfully using the logo and name of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is circulating in English-speaking Caribbean countries as a “Public Warning Alert” on COVID-19 vaccination in children..
Our children are under attack. They survived the survey and are now being bombarded with ‘false’ information about the vaccines.
Will not speculate but will wait and see what develops.