Submitted by Kemar Stuart
Barbados is still under a state of emergency and the Emergency Management Act holds supreme as law of the land as it was extended for no logical reason by the Ministry of Health yesterday September 13th. AG Dale Marshall in the press conference sought to defend the state of emergency legislation which de facto keeps the country under a prime ministerial dictatorship. This state of emergency legislation has a clause that gives the PM absolute power over the country as previously stated in my video and in the nation newspaper.
(4) When a proclamation of a public health emergency referred to in is in force, it shall be lawful for the Cabinet to make any Orders whatsoever it considers desirable in the public interest. This is a parliamentary dictatorship
(6) In an Order made pursuant to subsections (4) the Cabinet may delegate to the Prime Minister the power to make such directives as may be required in the public interest. Prime Ministerial Dictatorship
There is no emergency existing in Barbados, there will be no need to tighten protocols as we proceed full steam into the tourist season. These dictatorship type laws need to be removed to bring democracy back to Barbados’ political system. The WHO and USA President Joe Biden declared the pandemic over however the government still finds a need to hold onto a power grab not because of a non-existent pandemic but the advantage of side stepping traditional processes under the old independence constitution which have some checks and balances in place.
While the Acting PM Santia Bradshaw and AG Dale Marshall were addressing the issue of relaxing covid protocols as recommended in my previous video and publications, a point also made by the Head of the private sector and also the head of the BHTA. The real PM mia mottley was meeting with the IMF to discuss BERT 2.0 as the countdown to the end of this current IMF comes to an end september 30th having divulged that her team are in advanced stages on pension reform . In her press conference previously she told a reporter that pension reform will indeed happen under this current program which is soon at it’s end.
Having feeling both internal and external pressure Barbados recently announced that majority of the covid-19 restrictions are to be dropped from 23rd September the financial losses are becoming too deep and this decision was announced in a press conference by acting PM Santia Bradshaw The loss of money from absent cruise ships and empty airplanes along with the fact most countries have moved past Barbados months ago is high on the list of reasons for the dropping of these restrictions as articulated by the acting PM.
This was long overdue as we had many mishaps, discrimination in how some classes of persons were treated by these covid laws and public events like general elections, crop over, unctad conference , the Afri – caribbean Conference as the public which includes the PM long ago decided that they will live with the presence of covid and lived life accordingly often ignoring the protocols.
However purposely left out the fact that The public should note Barbados has no declared constitution in place since the transition of the country to republic in 2021 and an update on when the new republic constitution should’ve been on the agenda for the acting PM and Ag’
Barbados is still under a state of emergency and the Emergency Management Act holds supreme as law of the land as it was extended for no logical reason by the Ministry of Health yesterday September 13th. AG Dale Marshall in the press conference sought to defend the state of emergency legislation which de facto keeps the country under a prime ministerial dictatorship. This state of emergency legislation has a clause that gives the PM absolute power over the country as previously stated in my video and in the nation newspaper.
(4) When a proclamation of a public health emergency referred to in is in force, it shall be lawful for the Cabinet to make any Orders whatsoever it considers desirable in the public interest. This is a parliamentary dictatorship
(6) In an Order made pursuant to subsections (4) the Cabinet may delegate to the Prime Minister the power to make such directives as may be required in the public interest. Prime Ministerial Dictatorship
There is no emergency existing in Barbados, there will be no need to tighten protocols as we proceed full steam into the tourist season. These dictatorship type laws need to be removed to bring democracy back to Barbados’ political system. The WHO and USA President Joe Biden declared the pandemic over however the government still finds a need to hold onto a power grab not because of a non-existent pandemic but the advantage of side stepping traditional processes under the old independence constitution which have some checks and balances in place.
This act must be discontinued and government should not pursue another IMF deal or pursue pension reform with this act in place.
Barbados is now a country that has no opposition leader , a country without a constitution and a country with directives that gives a PM such absolute power without any checks or balances in repeat is bordering on rouge governmental practice
Therefore committing Barbados to another program spells uncertainty especially for the future of democracy especially if your livelihood is dependent on government payout .
The blogmaster invites you to join the discussion.