I recently spent a week in Belize and was distressed to observe that the contagion affecting other CARICOM countries has spread there. It seems no CARICOM country was spared from someone’s harmful agenda.
When I arrived in Belize and the immigration officer saw my Barbados passport, he said enthusiastically, “Welcome Home.” He then explained that I could work in Belize and stay as long as I wished. I have worked in almost every Caribbean country and normally had to explain to immigration officers the work I was planning to do. Not in Belize. I felt welcomed and every interaction I had with Belizeans was pleasant.
THE GOOD.
Barbados, Belize, Dominica, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines passed a Caribbean Community (Free Movement of Nationals) Act allowing citizens of those countries to live, work, vote and access educational, health and other services in each other’s countries from 1st October 2025.
Belize has a population of approximately 430,000 with a land area of approximately 8,867 square miles, which is over 50 times the size of Barbados. Our currencies have the same value: BD$1 = BZ$1 and we both speak English. It seems like a good fit. Thank-you Prime Minister Mottley.
THE BAD.
Despite this praiseworthy initial step, we need to carefully analyse foreseen consequences if we plan to expand this initiative. What is our plan if we extend it to Haiti with its 12 million population. If only 10% of them choose to relocate to Barbados, that is 1.2 million people. They would automatically become the majority and form whatever Government they wished – since they can vote.
Given the Government’s established precedent of: (i) confiscating private property, (ii) changing our laws to make that confiscation legal and (iii) unilaterally passing laws with no public discussion, a Haitian administration can justify doing the same.
THE UGLY.
The Haitians will likely support a political party that promises to: (i) transfer most crown land to the new immigrants on compassionate grounds, (ii) make the official language of Barbados the language of the majority – which would be French and (iii) make being proficient in French mandatory for working for the Government or applying for Government contracts. Have we thought this through with any rigour? We did not.
The meaningless speeches in the House of Assembly and Senate did not carefully analyse the bill. Instead, the speeches suggest aims of: (i) blindly passing the legislation quickly and (ii) accusing anyone requesting a careful analysis of the bill of being xenophobic. So, it passed quickly – evidencing the effectiveness of compliance through fear-of-attracting-a-slur. But back to the contagion.
THE CONTAGION.
I visited major lumber stores in Belize and found the highest grade of Southern Yellow Pine (SYP) being No.2, which should not be used on roofs due to multiple knots being in the same transverse plane – which are known breaking locations when timber is bent. Further, no timber pressure-treated against termites was found. Therefore, a hurricane is foreseen to result in unnecessary catastrophic damage – by someone’s design.
Unlike Barbados, Belizeans seem willing to improve their construction quality. Their willingness to improve touched me and I plan to assist them. While writing this, Venezuela was impacted by an earthquake. Multistorey buildings collapsed. Who is checking Barbadian: houses, schools, offices, hotels and stadiums to confirm that they are structurally stable before they are built? No one.
SACRIFICES.
We are the most backward Caribbean country in this regard. Whether intentionally or not, we are following someone’s script to ensure that a major hurricane or earthquake is catastrophic in Barbados. Almost every house and school in Barbados with a concrete floor or roof is unnecessarily vulnerable to collapse in an earthquake – when the cost to have prevented such an occurrence before construction was zero.
We are now so dead to this issue that we are willing to sacrifice our: families, friends, neighbours, employees, students and their teachers so that we can apathetically do nothing. The measure of our apathy is now at a certified lunatic level – but we do not seem to care.
Grenville Phillips II is a Doctor of Engineering and Chartered Structural Engineer. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com
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