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Can Barbados Build a Norway-Style Sovereign Wealth Fund?

Futuristic Barbados sovereign wealth fund

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The video popped into the blogmaster’s feed and, for obvious reasons, piqued the curiosity – especially given the fragile state of our National Insurance and Social Security Service (NISSS). We cannot continue allocating billions of dollars to education only to produce a population unable to diagnose or solve mission critical national problems.

What is the point of education?

After viewing the video of Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre of Norway explaining his country’s 2.25 trillion dollar fund, it provoked an obvious question: can Barbados aspire to build anything similar? How can we establish a sovereign wealth fund inspired by Norway’s model?

It is clear that we cannot simply copy Norway’s structure. Norway’s fund was built on oil revenues. Equally important, its success rests on a national commitment to fiscal discipline, transparency, competent management, and a fit for purpose legal framework – supported by other pillars essential for long‑term stability. Not unlike the repeated references to the Singapore model, both cases demand unswerving discipline.

Unlike Norway, Barbados does not have large petroleum reserves generating billions annually, yet. Any Barbados sovereign wealth fund would need to be built from other revenue streams in the meantime. We should not forget that the Barbados government is at an advanced stage of approving oil exploration licences, if Minister of Energy Kerri Symmonds is to be believed.

But if the oil deal fails, what alternatives are available?

  • Carve out a percentage of tourism and related revenues
  • Levy a transportation tax on luxury vehicles over $100,000, above 2000cc, or exceeding 70kWh
  • Impose an environmental levy on plastics and fines on vehicles that fail to meet defined standards
  • Apply sin taxes on tobacco, alcohol, and sweetened drinks

There is the saying that if you want a different result, you must be willing to do something different. Surely this Mottley government — or any that follows – cannot continue believing we should borrow our way through the world. A core responsibility of any government is to look after its people. The NISSS is fast becoming a dry hole, exacerbated by an ageing population, we are told.

Are we there yet?

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17 responses to “Can Barbados Build a Norway-Style Sovereign Wealth Fund?”

  1. Pachamama Avatar
    Pachamama

    Why Norway?

    Why not Burkino Faso?

    ‘The country of upright men’

    Are we not more like them.

    And there are several others who purported to have sovereign wealth funds just to have them stolen by imperialists. Should not ending imperialism be a condition precedent?

    Libya is another, up to this day none of the Western thieves who sole hundreds of billions in gold and foreign exchange still have their proxy armies on the ground.

    Is it not a misplaced sense of a petite bourgeois grounding that such an idea could be reached for by a country begging for reparations…..

    A country still unable to find a way to make a living. As empire openly steals the sovereign resources of others as if by right.

    Should security not to come before sovereign wealth funds? How would Barbados protect such a fund? Is it best protected in the custody of thieves like the foreign reserves currently are?

    And yes, there is Guyana. A country which has been able to get an oil deal with a major giving the country 27 or 37 percent of revenues. This is exceptional!

    Maybe Barbados under Mottley should produce the oil that she has for decades argued is off shore. Get her to prove she was right and Thompson was wrong to say there’s no oil.

    But Norway may soon lose its SWF in funding the war on the march east in Europe, given the thirst for the prize to the east and America’s inability to make the investments in such a project.

    Saudi Arabia and other SWF holding countries are currently broke, with all their wealth either stolen or captive in the hands of a mighty nation.

    Sovereign wealth fuck!

  2. John A Avatar
    John A

    @ David

    We leaders past and present cant even see the people NIS money and leave it alone and you want them to exercise the discipline to see sovereign fund money and leave it? lol

    You ain’t see the Bajans say if the ever see a few dollars from the UK, dem want it pay to dem and not the government? What that tells you about the confidence they hold in our leaders, past present and future?

    Research how well that Norway sovereign fund is protected by law and how it has been handled over the decades. Nearly ever national there is practically a millionaire just from their share of that fund. Key words when talking about the Norway Fund are transparency, accoutability and strong fiscal management, coupled to prudent financial discipline. Historically how have we feared with those above disciplines here in Bim?

    So left out that talk about becoming another Singapore or a Sovereign Fund and all the other pipe dreams some of us speak of. Wish for small things like fixing the potholes and enforcing the traffic laws instead.

  3. David Avatar
    David

    @John A

    This is the crux of the issue, the discipline and supporting culture of good decision making that creating a unique wealth fund would require.

    In our dreams?

  4. Eugene Estwick John Knox Avatar
    Eugene Estwick John Knox

    What what ?

    https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dd2atHfJmHe/?stkn=Nzl6MjF3YWg4dGF2

  5. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    “The first shall be last, and the last first.” Matt 19:30.
    Right is wrong, up is down, truth is a lie, and top is bottom.

    In such a world, wealth, popularity and praise are liabilities…
    …cause Karma is alive and well… and kicking.

    What a time!

  6. Money Slavery Avatar
    Money Slavery

    I wrote a comment on the Money Slavery thread about the fine line between imitation and inspiration and not being what you are but what you could be but it is still waiting to be brought into daylight to shine bright like the morning sun or may never see the light of day.

    Slavery was funded by shares in investment funds by shady pale skin devils aka Royals.
    It seems CLICO spread out into fund accounting investment business and crashed and burned with the markets in the 2008 Global Financial Crises where Banks failed and customers lost money or they were bought by the safer surviving Banks.

    Caution should be observed as the game is rigged but money can be multiplied or divided as shares can go up or down is the regulatory disclaimer on the footnote of all contractual paperwork.

    A financial rule is to do what is right for you.

  7. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    “Can Barbados Build a Norway-Style Sovereign Wealth Fund?”
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    NO way!!
    We would FIRST need to find honest and transparent leaders (and people generally).

    …But eventually, perhaps we can get some ‘honesty’ via immigration.
    …Like how we source construction skills.
    What a place!

  8. NorthernObserver Avatar
    NorthernObserver

    True “wealth funds” are built based on excess revenue. The Burkina Faso fund referenced began earlier this year, funded by excess revenue from gold mining.
    The Canada Strong Fund, also launched this year is not a true wealth fund, built on borrowed monies.
    Barbados, does not generate much of a surplus, if at all. And remains with significant debt.
    Given how the sibling concept the NIS, has been operated and managed, introducing another fund would be madness, but one can never discount the political value it may have.

  9. David Avatar
    David

    You never know @NO what ideas contending can do to galvanize change and transformation. We know that we cannot borrow our way to sustain citizens. There is possible oil finding in the pipeline. Let us sow the seeds.

  10. John A Avatar
    John A

    @ David

    We can’t even run a surplus so what are we going to do, borrow from the IMFand tell them we want to open a state wealth fund using their borrowed money? Even when we talk of reserves of 1 point somebody billion and clap ourselves on the back , that is practically all borrowed money and we don’t even included the finance cost owed on the loans either like interest etc.

    When Norway talks about reserves, that is their surpluses over years of prudent management that have built that fund to the point that every citizen born there has serious net worth.

    As I said keep it simple and let’s settle for pot hole repairs and other such challenges.

    Actually maybe if we wrote the UN and asked them to draw to the boss lady our concerns that might help!

  11. Pachamama Avatar
    Pachamama

    Bushie

    Your country, beloved so much, is done. Mottley has made sure of that. This writer is unsure whether it is or ever was a real country. Dreams about SWFs is a kind of jerking off while the very character of the country is dead.

    Given all the people from everywhere else now making Barbados their home. And on which future population growth will so depend, given the Mottley mandate, no claim can now be made about sovereignty. For national ethos must be anchored on the commitment to dying for one’s country. Nobody from elsewhere will die for Buhbadus.

    Naming all kinds of shiiite people, who did not so die, as national heroines/heroes will be seen as the death knel. Of course, the BFPA and the eugenicist Clyde Gollop gave yeoman service in this regard.

    There a man who employs over 50 people and maybe 10 to 15 are “foreigners”. His mantra is that Bajans don’t like to work. Only a wicker could have done so much brassbowl damage to Bahbadus in such a short period of time.

    This kind of woke-ism has infected the Western world and we shall await the backlash of the White supremacists who are on the rise elsewhere.

  12. David Avatar
    David

    @John A

    Your summary is depressing. Are we being too pessimistic given our historical, or should we be optimistic that with natural evolution favourably change is possible.

  13. David Avatar
    David

    Further, we can find 30 million taxpayer dollars to justify hosting CARFESTA.

    We can find 60 million taxpayer dollars to giveaway $300 to Barbadians to pad the popularity of BLP.

    However, finding 20 million a year to start growing a fund until we find a windfall revenue source, we allow ourselves to be deer struck.

  14. John A Avatar
    John A

    @David

    The psychologist say the best indicator of future behaviour is past behaviour.

    We are an indisciplined society which has lost all respect for law and order. Whether its schools, the ZRs or who ever else, the same holds true.

    That my friend is factual, not optimist or pessimistic but factual.

  15. Terence Blackett Avatar
    Terence Blackett

  16. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    “….finding 20 million a year to start growing a fund until we find a windfall…”
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    You mean until it get thief …like the HOPE / STEEL Housing funds? …without a trace or an audit, …or even a whimper?

    Or do you mean like the Four Seasons fund – that remains a secret between Stinkliar and his new boss?

    Or perhaps like the Carifesta ‘Culture Fund’ that gone where the monkey keeps his nuts?

    You could REALLY stop mekking laughing sport with the BU family…
    Enuff is Enuff!

    @ Pacha
    What country is what done what!!??!!

    The damn place has been ‘done’ eva since Froon built the shiite monument at the Garrison!
    We don’t have no country, …we now live in a Mafia stronghold.

    ‘Countries’ are places with at least FOUR distinct and functioning ESTATES,
    The executive
    The political
    The judicial
    The press

    We have all of these BUNCHED under ONE political skirt (perhaps scarf?)
    1 – Executive – a political appointee and relative
    2 – Judicial – A bunch of money grabbing, incompetent, extortionists, who CANNOT be trusted near client’s funds, and led by an ex CLICO key player
    3 – And a Press whose loyalties to the political are too obvious to be ignored.
    4 – and Government just purchased the shiite church and the calypsonians for a couple of the stolen millions from the treasury… so the fifth estate gone too….

    Even the blogmaster’s friend David Ellis’ slip is showing with his RIDICULOUS obsession with ’providing so-called balance’ – when callers criticize government.
    He then rants and raves with a barrage of UNINFORMED excuses for government’s non-performance.
    …perhaps there is not enuff money to do that..
    …What is YOUR solution to the problem (like the caller OFFERED to be a minister)
    … or ‘Government will say that they are giving cost-of-living handouts’…
    Lotta shiite!

    The ROLE of the press is NOT to make excuses for APPOINTEES, … BUT to provide fora for the RESPONSIBLE persons to respond to the concerns raised, bringing ACTUAL FACTS to the public – or let them suffer the one-sided criticisms.

    Ellis is effectively providing COVER for the politicians by his uninformed ‘balancing’ shiite.

    What a place nuh!
    NOTHING works as it should! … not even when well intentioned.

    What wealth fund what??!!
    You eva see a PARRO with a savings account yet?
    Steupsss!!!

  17. David Avatar
    David

    @Bush Tea

    Some of us feel your pain.

The blogmaster invites you to join the discussion.

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