As if it Never Happened

Solutions Barbados
Submitted by Dr. Grenville Phillips II

My life may be described as before and after 2015. That is the year I started Solutions Barbados in response to Prime Minister Stuart’s instruction. Everyone has a right to speak, but he explained that getting into the political trench was the way to be heard by the Government on economic matters.

I was later informed that I had committed Barbados’ unpardonable sin. I should have joined one of the two established parties instead of starting a new one. PM Stuart did not specify that critical point.

CANCELLED

I was informed that my penalty would be to be blacklisted by all organisations controlled by the two established parties in Barbados, including: business and professional organisations, schools, churches, clubs, and the media. I did not believe then that they had such control. Eight years later, despite being out of elective politics since 2020, I am no longer an unbeliever.

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An Open Letter to Barbadian Voters

Submitted by Grenville Phillips II, president of Solutions Barbados

Dear Barbadian Voters:

First, let me state the obvious. The chances of a third-party candidate getting elected in Barbados at this time, is somewhere between extremely unlikely and non-existent. We are fully aware of this. Yet, we persist.

After each election, we receive the same three types of responses. They are: (i) encouragement from those who support our message, (ii) disappointment from supporters of the established parties, and (iii) ridicule from the media and political consultants, and those whom they influence.

WHY KEEP GOING?

Have you ever asked yourselves why? What would cause persons with over 20 years of professional experience, and who are at the peak of their careers, to risk it all with an impossible mission? Why do we expose our personal and professional reputations to the scrutiny of a General Election campaign? What can we possibly hope to gain through this stubborn persistence?

Do you really want to know the answers to those questions? I have yet to hear any person ask them during the seven years of Solutions Barbados’ existence. I have given the answer several times, but unless people are curious enough to ask the ‘why’ question, they are less inclined to be receptive to our answer.

DO YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW?

Each time we throw ourselves against this impenetrable wall during an Election campaign, we leave a bit of ourselves there. Is it worth it? No. It is not worth the disappointment in the eyes of our families, friends, clients, or employers. It is not worth the public ridicule, the baseless accusations of political operatives, or the derision of the media and social commentators.

So, if it is not worth it, then why continue to do it? If you genuinely want to know, then with all of the sincerity in my heart, l write, ‘thank you’. I cannot speak for the other so-called third parties. I can only speak for Solutions Barbados. We do it because we must. Perhaps a parable may help me explain that response better.

THE PARABLE OF THE TERMITES AND PAINTER.

There was once a termite infested house that sheltered several families. Every five years, the families elected a painter to maintain the house. But the painter only did what he knew, which was to paint over the rotten timbers.

One day, a Structural Engineer visited the house, and warned the families that the timbers were severely and extensively rotten. He then provided a solution of replacing rotten timbers, and strengthening the building to prevent its collapse, and offered to do so free of cost.

On hearing this warning, the painter quickly painted the rotten timbers with another coat of paint, and then declared the structure to be sound. The occupants unquestioningly trusted the painter, and never believed the Engineer’s warnings – until the building collapsed shortly thereafter.

THE PARABLE EXPLAINED.

The timber structure is the economy of Barbados – which shelters us all. The termites are inflated no-bid contracts that are given to political donors. The damage is the high debt created by borrowing to pay for these inflated contracts. We are taxed much more than we should, to repay debts we should never have been in, to pay for inflated costs we should never have been charged.

The building’s occupants are Barbadian voters. The painters are successive BLP and the DLP administrations, who allowed their donors to corrupt our national economy, so that it is no longer sustainable. The Structural Engineer is Solutions Barbados, who keeps warning Barbadians about the foreseen collapse of the economy.

THE FORESEEN COLLAPSE.

Based on the amount of damage political donors have done to our national economy, it can no longer take a major financial shock. However, major shocks are expected this year. The IMF are insisting that the rot in the economy must cease, but with the just concluded General Election, the political donors will insist on their right to feed.

A worse shock is that by removing God’s providential care in the new Charter of Barbados, we are, for the first time since our Independence, unprotected from major hurricanes. We are all terribly exposed.

AN OBLIGATION TO WARN.

Tragically, it is also foreseen that you will only believe us once you experience the unbearable austerity – that could have been avoided by addressing the corruption. The Government’s many public relations departments, that persuaded you that the economy was sound, will likely claim that the collapse was an Act of God. The foreseen collapse is due to corruption by political donors.

You have a right to be warned, and we have a moral obligation to warn you. Solutions Barbados mainly runs highly qualified and experienced persons for two reasons. The first is they are credible voices whom you know that you will ignore at your peril. The second is that they are capable of properly managing the economy if elected.

Grenville Phillips II is the President of Solutions Barbados. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

Difficult Conversations – Mene, mene

Submitted by Grenville Phillips, President of Solutions Barbados

The word among those who claim to know, is that the BLP will win a sizable majority on Wednesday’s Election Day.  Across Barbados, there is a sea of red posters that appear to support that view.

The established media are playing their normal role by suggesting that a BLP result is obvious, and the only unknown is how little the number of successful DLP candidates will be.  I am hearing different words.  They start like this.

MENE, MENE.

Mene: By forcing Barbados into a Republic, without the peoples’ consent, the BLP administration has come to an end.

Tekel:  By formally establishing thrones over Barbados for every demon under heaven, the BLP administration has been weighed in the balances and found wanting.

Peres:  For discriminatingly dividing Barbadians into vaccinated and unvaccinated people, the new Government will be a coalition of several political parties – that will have to learn to work together.

START RIGHT.

The BLP administration started in the most excellent manner.  They promised Barbadians that all ideas must contend.  So impressed were we by this refreshing promise of leadership, that we laid our political swords at the feet of our political competitors.

We made ourselves available to be deployed to fight the enemies of Barbados outside of a general election season.

END WRONG.

The BLP’s promise of allowing all ideas to contend would consistently be broken.  That resulted in a absence of any balance, to the worst possible economic advice that the BLP continually received – and tragically for us, accepted.

Barbadians are encouraged to vote for Solutions Barbados Candidates, and Solutions Barbados Endorsed Candidates.  The list of Solutions Barbados Candidates in this General Election, who are all WEALTH CREATORS, are:

  1. Ms Jacqueline Alleyne in St Andrew
  2. Mr Fallon Best in Bridgetown
  3. Mr Robert Toussaint in St Michael Central
  4. Ms Angela Edey in St Michael West-Central
  5. Ms Patricia Cox in St Michael South
  6. Ms Victorine Wilson in St Michael West
  7. Mr Kenneth Lewis in Christ Church West-Central
  8. Ms Susan Corbin in Christ Church East
  9. Mr Ronald Lorde in St Philip South, and
  10. Ms Karina Goodridge in St Philip West.

ENDORSED CANDIDATES.

The growing list of Solutions Barbados Endorsed Candidates, who have also agreed to immediately revoke the Charter, and allow Barbadians to consent, or not, to a Republic in a referendum within 3 months, follow.

  • St George North – Ms Melissa Taitt
  • St George South – Ms Alison Weekes
  • St Joseph – Mr Antonio Gittens
  • St Thomas – Mr Philip Catlyn
  • St James Central – Joseph Jordan
  • St Michael South-East – Patrick Tannis
  • St Michael West-Central – Andrew Cave
  • Christ Church South – Donald Leacock
  • St Philip North – Omar Smith

All candidates and Solutions Barbados policies are described in SolutionsBarbados.com

Grenville Phillips II is the President of Solutions Barbados. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

Solutions Barbados – List of Candidates

Submitted by Solutions Barbados

Solutions Barbados is running 10 Candidates in this General Election. All of them love and fear God. They are highly competent, capable, and experienced persons who work, and are paid for what they do. They are all wealth creators, and can be trusted to manage Barbados a lot better than what we have had before.

  • Ms Jacqueline Alleyne in St Andrew
  • Mr Fallon Best in Bridgetown
  • Mr Robert Toussaint in St Michael Central
  • Ms Angela Edey in St Michael West-Central
  • Ms Patricia Cox in St Michael South
  • Ms Victorine Wilson in St Michael West
  • Mr Kenneth Lewis in Christ Church West-Central
  • Ms Susan Corbin in Christ Church East
  • Mr Ronald Lorde in St Philip South, and
  • Ms Karina Goodridge in St Philip West.

Solutions Barbados also plans to endorse candidates who agree with our policies, and who agree to the following.

(i) Revoke the Charter of Barbados, which was passed in both houses of our Parliament, in our first sitting. The Charter formally establishes a throne for satan over Barbados – which can stop God’s blessings on Barbados, since God does not share His glory or praise with anyone or anything.

(ii) allows Barbadians to give their consent, or not, on Barbados being a Republic – because taking consent should never be tolerated or justified in Barbados. Only bad people normally take consent. This violation of Barbadians’ dignity must be corrected.

Candidates of other parties have agreed to implement Solutions Barbados favourably independently assessed economic recovery plan of: (i) lowering taxes, (ii) improving the management of government services, (iii) depoliticising the public service, and (iv) eliminating corruption – all of which are proven to improve a national economy.

Those who have also agreed to immediately revoke the Charter, and allow Barbadians to consent, or not, to a Republic in a referendum within 3 months, follow.

St George North – Ms Melissa Taitt

St Joseph – Mr Antonio Gittens

St Thomas – Mr Philip Catlyn

All candidates and Solutions Barbados policies are described in SolutionsBarbados.com

Difficult Conversations – Consensual or Rape

The BLP administration has done two dangerously reckless things in the last month. First, they needlessly ventured into a dark spiritual dimension and rejected God’s blessings from over Barbados. Then they cancelled Barbados’ defence insurance. In this General Election, Barbadians will choose whether to recover those losses, or make them permanent.

The Bible explains that there is One Living God from whom good blessings flow. At our Independence, we formally chose God – and God blessed us. No matter how bad things appeared, things had a habit of working out. We had food, shelter, and clothing, and the bills got paid.
LOSING GOD’S BLESSINGS.

On 24 November 2021, Parliament passed a new ‘Charter of Barbados’. In it, they recklessly rejected God and His blessings, and formally selected satan and his curses instead.

Solutions Barbados plans to amend the Charter to reflect the Constitution of Barbados, which states: “Now, therefore, the people of Barbados proclaim that they are a sovereign nation founded upon principles that acknowledge the supremacy of God”.  Barbadians can vote to either restore God’s blessings to Barbados, or confirm that they no longer want them – and prepare for the worst.

DEFENCE INSURANCE.

In 1966, Errol Barrow asked Barbadians for their consent to make Barbados Independent. The people gave their consent, and we became a fully independent and sovereign nation. We got rid of all vestiges of colonialism we wished. But we chose to keep defence insurance – because we cannot afford to defend this island on our own, and this type of insurance is extremely rare.

On 30 November 2021, the BLP administration recklessly cancelled our defence insurance – without our consent. Normally, only very bad people take consent from others.

TAKING CONSENT.

The DLP administration took our consent and told us to like it or lump it. The BLP administration forcibly took our consent, and told the international community that it was consensual – it was not.

Solutions Barbados plans to allow Barbadians to decide for themselves, whether they want to cancel their defence insurance, or not. Because the people’s consent must be willingly given – not forcibly taken.

Grenville Phillips II is the President of Solutions Barbados. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

Difficult Conversations – She is Infallible

Last week, I described the Leader of the Opposition’s irresponsible actions that unnecessarily delayed the Court case, and the Judge’s rejection of his adjournment request.  I will now report the Attorney General’s main arguments.

The Attorney General offered two main arguments.  The first was that the Leader of the Opposition’s appointment was not of sufficient public interest.  Therefore, it should not warrant the court’s attention.  That argument was rejected.

The second was that the Governor General’s appointment of Mr Atherley cannot be enquired into by the Court.  It is the second argument that should concern us all, and is the subject of this article.

UNVERIFIED ASSUMPTION.

The Attorney General based his argument on the assumption that the Governor-General’s appointment is protected by section 32 (5) of the Constitution of Barbados.  I responded that this assumption should be verified.  Section 32 (5) of the Constitution of Barbados follows.

32 (5) Where the Governor-General is directed to exercise any function in accordance with the recommendation or advice of, or with the concurrence of, or after consultation with, any person or authority, the question whether he has so exercised that function shall not be enquired into in any court.

IRRELEVANT SECTION.

I argued that this section is irrelevant to the appointment of Mr Atherley, since the Governor General did not need to consult, etc, with anyone in performing that appointment function.  Section 32 (1) of the Constitution of Barbados explains two categories of Governor-General functions.

32. (1) The Governor-General shall act in accordance with the advice of the Cabinet or a Minister acting under the general authority of the Cabinet in the exercise of his functions other than –

a.       any function which is expressed (in whatever terms) to be exercisable by him on or in accordance with the recommendations or advice of, or with the concurrence of, or after consultation with, any person or authority other than the Cabinet; and

b.       any function which is expressed (in whatever terms) to be exercisable by him in his discretion.

I argued that it was the latter function (Section 32 (1) (b)) to which the appointment of a Leader of the Opposition belonged.  Therefore, the appointment may be enquired into by a court.

OTHER JURISDICTIONS.

The Attorney General also argued that other jurisdictions gave persons prerogative powers, that were not subject to judicial review.  I argued that the Constitution of Barbados, section 1, states the following.

“This Constitution is the supreme law of Barbados and, subject to the provisions of this Constitution, if any other law is inconsistent with this Constitution, this Constitution shall prevail and the other law shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be void.”

Therefore, if other jurisdictions chose to give specific persons prerogative powers, that conflict with the Constitution of Barbados, then the Constitution of Barbados should prevail in Barbados.

Further, the Constitution appears to give the Governor-General prerogative powers, only when she makes decisions in consultation with other parties, in accordance with section 32. (1) (a).  I argued that those prerogative powers do not extend into appointments where the Governor-General exercises her sole discretion or judgement, in accordance with section 32. (1) (b).

INFALLIBILITY ARGUMENT.

The Attorney General and I agreed that the Governor-General was obliged to act in accordance with section 75 (2) of the Constitution.  Where we diverged, is that the Attorney General ignored the fundamental prerequisite for the office, which Mr Atherley evidently did not have.  Namely, the support of other members of the House of Assembly.  Even the Judge appeared to acknowledge that fact.

The Attorney General argued that since the Governor General made the appointment, then that alone proved that Mr Atherley met the qualification.  The Attorney General essentially argued that it was impossible for the Governor General to make a mistake – she is infallible.  I explained the absurdity of that Constitution violating argument.

THE PARTY’S INTERESTS.

The Barbadian press continues to promote the provable fake news that the case was dismissed (it was not), rather than report the extraordinary arguments made during the case – which are easily available to them.  Perhaps it has time to ask why.

Jesus stated that we cannot serve two masters.  The Barbadian press must decide whether they will pursue truth – or the propaganda interests of their political party.

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

Election Day in St. George North

Today the electorate of St. George North will vote for a member of parliament to fill the vacancy created by the ‘retirement’ of Gline Clarke. The blogmaster’s assessment is that it will be a straight contest between Floyd Reifer (DLP) and Toni Moore (BLP). Of the so-called third parties Grenville Phillips should retain third option in the number count. We can debate if Barbadians are ready for a third party or is this a case of the quality of the options presented. The blogmaster respectfully suggest the latter.

The result of the election will answer a few questions for political pundits.

  • Has the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) regain its standing as the credible alternative in the eyes of voters?
  • Despite managing the affairs of state in the most challenging period post independence, will the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) be able to convince the SGN electorate that it is the most competent to govern at this time?
  • Will Grenville Phillips increase his penetration of support in the constituency to forge the way for third parties in the future?
  • How large will the protest vote be which has been fomenting in a climate of austerity for the last 3 years?
  • Has the last 90 days of campaigning confirm the urgent need for electoral reform in Barbados?

So far by-election activities has been largely peaceful in keeping with Bajan tradition. Let us continue to make the country proud by delivering an uneventful event. The blogmaster’s vote will be cast for David Walrond, the agriculturist and community practitioner.

Closing Arguments

I believe that all candidates in this by election are accomplished persons, who can competently represent the people of St George North.  However, can they address the specific problems facing this constituency?

The housing, drainage, roads, water, and transportation problems require engineering solutions – which I specialise in.  The unemployment problems require business development solutions, which I also specialise in.

The Prime Minister wants Toni Moore to assist her with some heavy lifting.  The Prime Minister can easily get Toni Moore in her Cabinet, in the same way that she appointed Senator Lisa Cummins as Minister of Tourism.  Therefore, the Prime Minister can get Toni Moore, and the people of St George North can get their first Engineer.

WHAT IF?

What if the people vote for their party’s interests instead of their own?

Nationally, it does not matter how St George North voters vote.  Mia Mottley will still be the Prime Minister of Barbados, and the BLP will still be in Government.  However, it does matter to the residents of St George North how they vote.

If they vote for the BLP, then they will simply switch one BLP representative for another.  Therefore, they can expect their lives to remain the same.  This sameness can be described as being house-poor and/or working-poor.

If they vote for the DLP, then since DLP projects must be approved by a BLP Cabinet, voters can expect their lives to remain the same.  The UPP, BFP, and the PdP will face the same problems as the DLP.  Therefore, that is a vote for poverty.

Poverty can cause people to justify prostitution, stealing, selling drugs, or doing any other illegal activities just to survive, and provide for their families.  Voters finally have an opportunity to vote for prosperity.

Solutions Barbados does not need any Government support for our projects.  They are designed to directly benefit the residents of St George North.  Our no-profit construction company can provide all unemployed persons in St George North with a salary, to pay their monthly expenses.  Therefore, they can pay their family’s rent/mortgage, food, clothes, school fees, school books, medicines, etc.

We can train all families in St George North to start profitable businesses, with no start-up money.  Their products may be marketed on the Internet, to countries where Barbados has favourable double taxation agreements.

St George North has this opportunity to show the rest of Barbados what a prosperous constituency looks like.  On 11 November, we will know whether voters voted for the narrow interests of their political parties, or the interests of their families and the rest of Barbados.

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer, and the Solutions Barbados’ candidate for St George North.  He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

Solutions Barbados Press Release – The Author of Confusion

Canvassing in St George North is getting congested.  There are now six political parties canvassing across the constituency.  Each party’s canvassers are known by their party colours, as is the norm in Barbados to avoid confusion during an election.

The BLP wears red, the DLP wears yellow, Solutions Barbados wears green, the UPP wears Orange, and the BFP wears black.  All of these parties contested the 2018 general election, and the different party colours avoids confusion among voters.

When Mr Atherley was appointed Leader of the Opposition, he promised the public of Barbados that he would not start a political party.  He broke that promise.  However, rather than select a colour to distinguish his party from the other political parties, Mr Atherley’s party chose the colour green.

Two parties canvassing with the same colour shirts, creates unnecessary confusion among St George North voters.  Yet this farce has been allowed to continue over the past two weeks.  There must be better management of the election process over the next 3 weeks, to allow it to be fair.

Who is the author of this confusion?  According to the Bible: “God is not the author of confusion” (1 Cor 14:33).  So, it is the other fellow.  The solution to the confusion is also found in the Bible.  “Therefore submit to God.  Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7)

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer, and the Solutions Barbados’ candidate for St George North.  He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

 

Solutions Barbados – Playing With Fire

The unemployment situation in St George North is dreadful.  Disappointing voters with false promises is not an option in this by-election.  Candidates must offer workable plans, to effectively address the mass unemployment problems in St George North.

There are six candidates seeking to work for the people of St George North, for the next 30 months.   It is important that none of us follow the bad examples of those who have gone before us.

Candidates who plan to use the desperate unemployed people of St George North as pawns, just to secure a seat in the House of Assembly for their party, are doing the unconscionable.  They are ensuring that the people continue to suffer, during these exceptionally difficult times.  The present suffering is compounded by an unnecessary IMF austerity program, and a global COVID-19 pandemic.

Candidates who make promises that they know they cannot keep, are deceiving voters’ families.  Candidates who know that they have no capacity to implement their party’s plans, push that deceit beyond tolerable levels.

Career politicians have repeatedly broken their promises to previous generations of voters.  Those voters had the patience to tolerate and forgive those, who repeatedly deceived them with empty promises.
The current generation of young voters are different – they will not forgive that type of deceit.  Candidates without any workable economic plans for the families of St George North, are playing with fire.

Audio Version

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer, and the Solutions Barbados’ candidate for St George North.  He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

What do the Residents of St George North Want?

Grenville Phillips, Candidate for St. George North and Leader of Solutions Barbados

From my visits to almost every community in St George North, I have found one consistent desperate need. The employed want work for the unemployed, and the unemployed want work. All other issues were secondary.

All five candidates in this by-election (BLP, DLP, Solutions Barbados, UPP, and PdP) have a responsibility to propose workable solutions to the unemployment problems in St George North. The plans must not depend on new government funding, because the Government will claim that they have no money.

If a candidate does not have a workable plan, then they need to devise one. The plan should be fully operational in the 30 months remaining in the current election cycle.

UNCONSCIONABLE PRETENSE

If a candidate does not have a workable plan, then they should stop pretending that they do. It is unconscionable to give desperately hurting people false hope and empty promises.

The people of St George North do not only need a Member of Parliament (MP) in this by-election. There are so many MP’s in the House of Assembly, that the Prime Minister does not know what to do with them. The people of St George North need someone to manage workable employment generating projects.

Our plan is designed to make St George North the most prosperous constituency in Barbados. Both the plan, and my capacity to implement it, are contained in Solutions Barbados’ manifesto (attached). Please contact us if you have not received your copy.

All constituencies in Barbados are hurting. St George North voters have a responsibility to give them hope, and not let them down. They can do this by voting for the best plan for themselves, not their party.

If people are prospering, then families, businesses, churches, and community organisations automatically benefit.

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and Solutions Barbados Candidate for St George North. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

Two and one half minute) audio recording of “What do the Residents of St George North Want?

Grenville Phillips: St George North Manifesto

Dear People of St George North.

Grenville Phillips II,
Structural Engineer and Solutions Barbados’ St George North Candidate.

My name is Grenville Phillips II. I am the President of Solutions Barbados, and your candidate in this by-election. Let me first tell you about myself, and then about what we plan to do in St George North over the next two and one-half years.

About Me.

I have qualified in several disciplines. I am a structural engineer, highway engineer, environmental engineer, land-use planner, and adjudicator. I am also a teacher and President of Walbrent College, which is a regional institution specialising in construction. Therefore, my Clients benefit from a range of different disciplines for the same fee.

I hold two Bachelors degrees (maths and engineering), two Masters degrees (environmental engineering and planning), and am currently pursuing a Doctorate in Engineering. I do this for only one reason – to provide a better service to my Clients.

If you elect me to represent you for the next two and one-half years, then you become my Clients, and I will work for you.

About Our Plans.

With only one seat in Parliament, I will not have a Ministry. Therefore, we can dedicate most of our time improving the lives of those in this constituency. If we form the Government in 2023, then Solutions Barbados will make similar improvements across Barbados.

Building Houses.

I have 30 years of experience in the construction industry. We plan to set-up a non-profit construction company, to participate in the government’s 1,000 affordable houses initiative.

We will train all unemployed St George North residents, who want to learn to safely construct a house. Training will take two weeks, at no cost to St George North residents. We will then employ them in the non-profit company, to apprentice with senior artisans. If the government’s 1,000 houses initiative does not happen, then we will build affordable houses for any client in Barbados.

Strengthening Houses.

The roofs of most houses in St George North are vulnerable to blowing off during a hurricane. We will offer to economically strengthen the roofs of all houses in St George North, for the cost of the labour and materials, but no profit.

Those who want their roof strengthened for only the cost of the materials, can volunteer their time with the no-profit company one day each week, for seven weeks. They will help to strengthen the roofs of other houses in St George North.

Dilapidated and Abandoned Houses.

We plan to identify the owners of all dilapidated and unoccupied houses in St George North. We will then negotiate with the owners an arrangement, where we will economically repair the house, and get it rented. The rent will be split between the homeowner and the non-profit company, until the construction cost is repaid.

Road Maintenance.

Potholes can lead to costly vehicle repairs and accidents. Therefore, we will organise a dedicated St George North road maintenance crew, staffed by St George North residents, to safely and permanently repair potholes. A volunteer force of 350 people, allows each person to work for only one day each year.

Energy Generation.

We will offer to install a Photovoltaic (PV) system on every roof in St George North at cost, with no profit. It would be connected to the BL&P grid, so that home-owners will have more disposable income.

Those who want the PV systems installed at only the cost of the materials, can volunteer their time with the no-profit company one day each week, for seven weeks. They will help to install PV systems on other houses in St George North.

Tree Planting.

To address monkeys and other crop thefts, and provide some food security for St George North residents, we will participate in the Government’s tree planting scheme. We will plant thousands of fruit trees near drainage courses, open spaces, and wooded areas across the constituency.

Construction Disputes.

Disputes between homeowners and contractors are common. As an Adjudicator, I plan to listen to both sides, and give preliminary rulings on construction disputes. This service will be free of cost to residents of, and disputes within St George North.

Any party may have the matter finally settled by the court. But the preliminary ruling should let them know the likely outcome, and prompt them to settle before starting a long and costly court process.

Finishing School.

Regardless of how well or poorly students did at secondary school, we will train all willing St George North secondary school graduates (in six weeks) to be employable, and/or ready to start their own business. Training will be at no cost to St George North residents.

Participants will learn to speak, write, listen, calculate, draw, and do tasks at an excellent level. We will teach them to become responsible adults, and model employees, and employers.

Wealth Creation.

I am the 2014 winner of the National Innovation Competition. We will train people how to start and grow a profitable business, with no start-up money. The 8-week training will be at no cost to St George North residents.

The aim is for each willing participant to have a viable Internet based business, by the end of the workshop. This should provide each household with a separate income stream.

Advocacy.

In the House of Assembly, we will advocate for the following:

  1. A referendum, to measure the public’s support for a Republic, same-sex unions, and moving the statue of Nelson.
  2. An end to the corrupting no-bid public contracts, where the public must pay up to five times the cost of products, through increased taxes.
  3. Better managed public services to an international standard, where customer feedback is valued, instead of the current ‘like it or lump it’ management method.
  4. A rearranged secondary school curriculum, so that graduates leave school with marketable skills, and the confidence to succeed in life.
  5. An improved justice system, where victims are properly compensated.
  6. The removal of all taxes on healthy foods.
  7. The abolition of taxing land, for which our enslaved fore-parents already paid for with their lives’ work. The Government can find something else to tax, but not our land.

We also plan to critically examine all proposed legislation, to ensure that it is in the best interest of the Barbadian public. That should keep us sufficiently busy for the next 30 months.

The BLP won all 30 seats in 2018. This by-election is an opportunity to do at least two things. Namely, to keep the BLP accountable, and to meaningfully benefit the residents of St George North.

You are in an enviable position, where you have nothing to lose by voting for Solutions Barbados – and everything to gain.

St. George North By-Election – First Out of the Blocks

Grenville Phillips, Leader of Solutions Barbados and Candidate for St. George North

Our Prime Minister has announced that a new election is to be held in St George North. As the Solutions Barbados declared Candidate for St George North, it seems that we are the first out of the blocks.

This election will come at a time when we are still in a pandemic, an IMF austerity program, and a plan to turn Barbados into a Republic – without a national referendum. Solutions Barbados believes that the public should be allowed to declare their support of, or opposition to being a Republic. Such a fundamental change is not something that we should be forced into.

Solutions Barbados is the third largest political party in Barbados, by measure of votes cast in the last General Election. We are also the second largest, by measure of declared candidates for the next general election.

A FAIR THIRD PARTY TEST.

With a 30-0 result in the last general election, this election should be a fair test of the viability of third political parties in Barbados at this time. However, it can only be a meaningful test if the media allows fair coverage of all political views. Therefore, their role in this experiment is critical.

Solutions Barbados was founded on 1 July 2015. Our manifesto was published on Solutions Barbados.com that same day for rigorous public scrutiny. Over the past five years, we have never told the media ‘no comment’. We have always made ourselves available for any interview, and participated in any debate on any topic.

For the past 5 years, we have published between one and three press releases every week. Our articles are well researched solutions to current national problems in Barbados. If you are not receiving our press releases, then please send us your e-mail address and/or WhatsApp number, and we will add you to our growing distribution list.

To the press, we are simply asking for fair coverage.

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

Do Not Squander the Stimulus Spending

The Government of Barbados wisely invested in upgrading the Harrison Point facility, in response to the COVID-19 threat. The derelict buildings have become a functional medical facility. Well done.
Since we are in a hurricane and earthquake prone region, it is important that opportunities to upgrade buildings, are not limited to functional uses only. They should also be upgraded to survive expected hurricanes and earthquakes.
Since the publication of our National Building Code in 1993, buildings in Barbados were supposed to be built to survive Category 2 hurricanes. However, with three Category 5 hurricanes devastating some of our Caribbean neighbours, over the past three years, new construction should be built to Category 5.
The normal response to this recommendation was to assert that it is prohibitively expensive. However, it is unlikely that those who made that assertion, actually looked at both costs. The truth is, it is not prohibitively expensive.
Our Caribbean neighbours’ tragic experiences with hurricane damage is instructive. It is extremely costly to rebuild after experiencing catastrophic damage. Foreign investors in hotels, businesses, and other properties, may choose to keep insurance payments, and not rebuild, or delay rebuilding in Barbados.
For the past 30 years, the ‘prohibitively expensive’ assumption was accepted as fact. With the Government planning to oversee the spending of approximately $2B of stimulus money, we can no longer afford to do so. It is time to compare both costs – before any of the stimulus money is spent.
Most developers may be surprised at the comparatively minor additional cost, and regret not building Category 5 buildings before. However, others may decide to maximise profits, by constructing the worst building that our Building Code will allow.
It is in Barbados’ best interests for all buildings to remain functional after a major hurricane and earthquake. This will allow business activity to resume with minimal disruption. The Government can easily facilitate this new building standard, by making it more profitable for developers to do so.
Solutions Barbados recommends that VAT on construction materials be waived, for all developments that are built to withstand major earthquakes, and Category 5 hurricanes.
Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

Solutions Barbados – Stop Blaming the Public

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Submitted by Grenville Phillips II

We have repeatedly praised PM Mottley’s efforts in calming our nation during this COVID-19 event. We believe that she genuinely cares. That genuineness is evident in her press statements, to the extent that we may feel sympathy for her, for having to deliver bad news to us.

Barbadians are generally obeying her instructions. She says do and we did. We: closed our businesses, stayed away from our churches, did not visit our family and friends, and remained at home. This separation affected our emotional fragile, but we rally around each-other: virtually, on the phone, or across the yard.
Barbadians are generally a compliant people. That was proved with the successful implementation of the seat belt law in 2002. Some complied because of safety, while others feared the $500 fine, but we obeyed. That is why attempting to blame Barbadians for any part of this event is so wrong.
Whenever Governments make mistakes, they automatically blame the last administration. In Barbados, the Government continuously refers to the “lost decade”, in reference to the DLP’s management of the economy. This is an indicator of the number of mistakes that they are making.
No amount of public relations can believably blame the last administration for Government’s mistakes with COVID-19. So, to comply with the number one rule of modern politics (never accept blame), a scapegoat must be found.
The reason for the number one rule, is to prevent opposition parties from using such admissions in political advertisements. Solutions Barbados do not play those dirty games.
When operatives unreasonably attacked the DLP’s Chris Sinckler, UPP’s Lynette Eastmond, and BLP’s Mia Mottely, we defended them with facts. We may be temporary political competitors, but we are foremost, Barbadian brothers and sisters.
The Scapegoat.
But back to the scapegoat. The Government has blamed the public for: panic buying, not adhering to physical distancing, not staying at home, and listening to fake news. We are supposed to believe that Government’s mistakes are somehow our fault.
We are supposed to accept any further disruptions to our lives in silence. Now is not the time to complain – neither is later. Never is the only acceptable time to voice an independent thought.
The complying public should be allowed to express their opinions – without being swarmed by political operatives. We are designed to express our frustration with perceived injustices. Pent-up frustration is emotionally and physically unhealthy, and should never be encouraged by Governments.
Solutions Barbados intends to consistently give our best professional advice, whether it is accepted or not. Our advice to the Government at this time is simply to do what you were elected to do. That includes managing this COVID-19 event to the best of your ability.
What does that mean? It means: using available resources, considering alternate solutions, and stop blaming others for your mistakes.
Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

Order Your Casket

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Submitted by Grenville Phillips II

“Change your lifestyle or order your casket, because you will be dead in one year.” That was the blunt advice of my doctor about 25 years ago, after she reviewed my cholesterol test results.

I had harmed my body with unhealthy food, especially when I attended University. After I graduated, I added: no-exercise, very late working hours, and the stress of structural engineering, where getting a calculation 99% right can be fatal to the users of the structures that I had designed.

After agreeing to change my lifestyle, she advised me to do three things. First, I was to visit nutritionist Dr Mark Alleyne at Sir Winston Scott Polyclinic, then get a massage, and do some exercise.

Dr Alleyne advised me to stop eating all dairy products and red meat, and gave me a menu of food choices. He also taught an exercise class, which I agreed to join. When I returned to the office, I searched the yellow pages for a massage business and made an appointment for after work.

When I entered the massage business, the lady turned off the lights and lighted candles. I inquired about this and she said that it was aromatherapy. I said that I came for a massage. She asked what type. I said the type that doctors prescribe.

She asked me to remove my clothes, so I stripped down to my underwear. Perhaps seeing my embarrassment, she said that I had the option of keeping it on. I took that option. Then she told me to lie face down on the bed.

She put both of her hands on a muscle on my neck and squeezed – hard. My body immediately tensed to try to suppress the pain. She told me that it was a knot and that I must not tense up, but I could not help myself.

She then put my arm behind my back and raised it until my shoulder blade stood out. Then she rammed her elbow under my shoulder blade. I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out. I wanted to cry, but no tears welled up.

The way that she contorted my body made tensing muscles ineffective at dulling the pain from her main tool, her elbow. So, I relaxed my body and decided to endure the torture in silence. That fateful decision only seemed to make matters worse – for me, since she did not know how much pain she was causing.

There is a level of pain between what a human body can endure, and death. That is where she took me, again and again. This pain was visionary – I believe I saw the gates of heaven.

At the end of the session, she seemed exhausted and finally spoke. She asked me to grade the level pain I had felt on a scale of 1 to 10. I said that it was a 9, because I suspected that a 10 was designed to kill her enemies. She explained that she does not like to start the first session so high, but that I had a lot of knots.

I paid her the agreed sum, and she said to return in 2 weeks to get the other knots out. I had complied with the doctor’s instruction to get “a massage”. However, I did not like the idea of paying someone to beat me up, so I decided to keep the remaining knots.

The following evening, I attended Dr Alleyne’s exercise class. He led us in a stick-dance of over 70 moves, to calypso music. After about 2 minutes I was exhausted – my mouth was dry, my heart was hurting, and I started seeing those black stars.

I thought how I could gracefully leave the class, but I was too embarrassed by my comparative lack of stamina. So I pushed through the 2-hour intense class moving as little as possible. At the end of the class, I decided to give future classes 100% of my effort – and I did.

After the first week, the fat around my waist and around my face was gone. After week two, I regained the body of my youth. After week three, I was ripped with muscles. Then I had an engineering assignment in Nevis.

When I returned to Barbados, I got another cholesterol test done. This time, the results were impressively good. I have maintained good health since then.

I knew that I was not healthy 25 years ago. But it took the bluntly presented option of prematurely ordering my casket to force me into meaningful action. May it have a similar effect on you.

 

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

Solutions Barbados Press Release – Be Wrong This Christmas

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Submitted by Grenville Phillips II

Life is a wonderful gift.  Every day we get an opportunity to be better that we were yesterday.  Most mistakes that we made yesterday can be erased, and we can start over a clean slate.  If our mistakes carried consequences, then a new day is an opportunity to make wrong things right.

Once two or more people interact, someone will likely feel offended about something, whether it was intentional or not.  We normally have two responses to causing offense, and our selection of each depends on the type of outcome we want.

If it is an employer-employee type relationship, then the employer wants a productive and respectful employee, and the employee wants a competent and respectful employer.  If it is a family type relationship, then each member wants to be loved and respected.  Wherever possible, we should try to preserve our relationships following a dispute.

Disputes about facts may be resolved by simply verifying the facts.  However, disputes about personal opinions are emotional, and normally result in someone feeling offended.  People can feel actual hurt if their opinions are challenged.

On matters of personal opinions, we can either choose to be right and wrong, or wrong and right, but rarely can we achieve being right and right.

Insisting on being right on personal opinions can escalate an argument, and leave the relationship in a worse state.  Leaving the relationship in a worse state is wrong.  Therefore, we can be right and end wrong.  In such disputes, we should first define our goal before choosing our response.

If our aim is to be right, regardless of the damage to our relationships, then we may feel some temporary satisfaction of ‘winning’ an argument.  However, we may have lost a lot more than we think we gained.

If our aim is to preserve and enhance our relationships, then we must be willing to ‘lose’ inconsequential arguments and be wrong, so that we can end right.  Most arguments are inconsequential for one party.  If they would simply let it go, they would lose little but gain much.

Just before we decide to escalate an argument, or immediately after it has been escalated, we should ask ourselves if the issue is inconsequential to us.  If it will not negatively affect our health or our ability to earn, then perhaps it is inconsequential.  Consider letting it go, because it may affect the well-being of others.

If it is an inconsequential issue that we are emotionally invested in, then why not trust the Providence of life that important issues will work themselves out.  Consider that our role was simply to plant the seed, and not to get a convergence of opinion right away.

Perhaps the people will be convinced by reading similar information in a book, or listening to it on the radio, or reviewing it in their mind.  Perhaps they are to hear it in a conversation, without any further involvement from ourselves.

If we have harmed our relationships because of our insistence on being right, then during this Christmas season, may we commit to be better – by simply being wrong.

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados.  He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

We Are All Sunk

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Submitted by Grenville Phillips II,

As a small independent country, there are a few maxims that should guide our behaviour.  Never blast a hole in our boat, because it can sink, and we will all suffer.  Never contaminate the food on our boat, because we will all get sick.  Never sabotage any part of our boat, because it will hinder our progress.

The only justifiable reason for damaging the boat, is for enslaved people to protest their condition.  However, we are no longer slaves.  Our slave fore-parents purchased this land for us with their blood.

We elect persons to navigate our boat for up to 5 years.  We may severely criticise their performance.  However, there is no good reason for any Barbadian today to damage our boat.  This should be common sense.  However, there are a few Barbadians who think that they have a licence to harm our boat.

Participating in corruption, bribery, and drug-gang alliances, is to blast a hole in our boat.  Infiltrating and then politicising professional, industry, news media, and union organisations is to contaminate our water supply.  Discouraging responsible foreign investment, is to sabotage our boat.

Opposition politics in Barbados is about convincing people how bad things are, so that they will vote against the party in government.  To do this, each party relies on their political operatives.  These operatives know of only one method of maintaining discontent, that is to harm our boat.

Political operatives have adopted this slave legacy of sabotage, as part of their opposition to the party in Government.  They have a real incentive.  They are normally well-rewarded by their political party.  Therefore, they focus on getting their party elected by any means, regardless of the cost to us.

Since either the BLP or DLP is opposing the party in Government, opposition political operatives are always trying to harm Barbados.  However, this continuous harming of Barbados must stop – for all our sakes.  Since the DLP is currently out of Government, it is up to them to stop this cycle.

The DLP’s political operatives will naturally feel that they are being unfaired.  They saw that the BLP’s worst political operatives, who did major damage to the boat when they were in opposition, were richly rewarded.  They think that now is the time for them to earn their reward.

Despite how badly the BLP’s political operatives behaved when the BLP was in opposition, someone needs to decide to be the adult.  Otherwise, this toxic tit-for-tat political environment that both parties have cultivated, will never end.

If we want to preserve this country for our children, we must find a way of competing politically that does not include damaging our boat.  Perhaps all political parties can consider the following initiatives.

  1. Each party should explain how they plan to stop their candidates from accepting bribes.  The public can then decide whether their methods are effective.
  2. Professional organisations can analyse and compare each party’s social development and economic growth plans.
  3. Industry organisations can assess and compare each party’s barriers to investment.
  4. The media can provide fair, honest, and non-partisan political coverage.
  5. The unions can stop promoting and protecting one party, and frustrating and not-cooperating with the other.

After 50 years of independence, we should be mature enough to try a better path.  However, it is unlikely that political operatives will behave properly, because the rewards are just too enticing.  Since they harm our boat on behalf of their party, only their party can order them to stop.

It is foreseen that if both parties do not restrain their political operatives, then Barbados will become ungovernable.  However, simply ordering their political operatives to cease and desist will not be enough.  The DLP’s political operatives will justifiably claim that they alone are asked to bear the burden.

To ensure full participation by all political operatives, they must all be convinced that they will never again be rewarded for harming Barbados.  For this to happen, then BLP must terminate the reward-appointments of their worst political operatives – otherwise, we are all sunk.

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados.  He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

Lord Have Mercy

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Submitted by Grenville Phillips II, President of Solutions Barbados

I wanted to write about Christmas gifts today, but something horrendous happened last week.  So, I must combine both issues.  Let me recommend the following types of gifts, each of which cost under BD$100 on Amazon.

For anyone in construction, whether carpenter, mason, electrician, plumber, foreman, tiler or other finisher, let me recommend a self-levelling laser level.

For anyone with a digital camera who takes a lot of photos, or someone who needs more digital storage, then let me recommend a 256 GB SD card.

For someone who works on a laptop, let me recommend the portable adjustable laptop desk, where you have the option of working standing up.

The general suggestion is to purchase gifts that can improve the recipients’ productivity.  If your intended gift will not likely cause the recipient to make more money, then choose another gift.

Avoid buying any: photo frames, ties, fiction books, games, expensive pens, jewellery, perfume, crystal containers, decorative lamps, or any other ornament-type gifts this year.  The obvious exception to that rule is the devoted husband.

This man must buy whatever sort of gifts his wife wants – that he can afford.  Of course, if his wife asks only for a functional gift, that means that she should receive both the functional gift and the jewellery.

To allow all Barbadians to afford a wide range of gifts, the Government of Barbados has negotiated trade agreements with other countries.  For trade agreements to benefit Barbados, trade negotiators must understand what Barbadians want out of the deal.  The negotiator should be prepared to accept no deal over a bad deal.

Approximately 18 years ago, 25 national professional associations representing all sectors of Barbados’ economy, and 3 government agencies, did something wonderful.  They formed a national Export Committee and developed the most comprehensive economic growth plan for Barbados.

The purpose of the plan was to identify critical trade positions for negotiating a trade agreement with the US, Canada and Mexico.  Those three countries already had a trade agreement.  But it was to be expanded to include South America and the Caribbean.  The election of several anti-US South American leaders resulted in trade negotiations being stalled by 2005.

In 2004, Barbados and 14 other Caribbean countries started to negotiate a European Partnership Agreement (EPA) with 27 European Union (EU) states.  As Chairman of the previous Export Committee, I pleaded with our trade negotiators to see what they were negotiating on our behalf.  They refused.  I eventually got a copy of the agreement and immediately realised that we were being tricked.

I urged Caribbean leaders not to sign such a lunatic agreement, but in 2008, they did.  All except Haiti, who were probably tired of being tricked.  In my opinion, the EPA is the worst trade agreement since our fore parents were traded for trinkets.

The EPA closes Europe as a market for some of the most lucrative Caribbean trade, but opens the Caribbean as a market for European competitors.  To pretend that such lunacy is fair, our negotiators gave us an illusory 15-year head-start.  This was to delay the arrival of the European traders to the Caribbean, but to allow us to compete in Europe.

As I explained 12 years ago, if Caribbean people are disqualified from trading in Europe, they will forever be anchored to the starting block, even after 15 years.

After 10 years of signing the EPA, some European dignitaries were publicly expressing their frustration and disbelief that we were still at the starting blocks.  Especially after they spent about $200M trying to get us to move.

As providence would have it, our largest European trading partner, the UK, plans to leave the EU.  Knowing the unfair and absurd advantages for the EU in the EPA, the UK obviously want that deal after they leave the EU.

Miraculously, we were given an opportunity to remove the fatal flaws in the EPA, that kept us chained to the starting line for the past 12 years.  This good fortune only supports the assertion by our elders that God is indeed a Bajan.

Last week, our members of parliament debated whether to extend the EPA to the UK.  After 12 years of evidence of its gross failure, all that was required of them was to negotiate out the fatal flaws that have held us back.  By some witchcraft, they did not.  They all voted to keep us, and our children, chained to the starting line, for the rest of our natural lives.  May God have mercy.

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados.  He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

Solutions Barbados’ Independence Message

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Submitted by Grenville Phillips II, Leader of Solutions Barbados

This wonderful little island has been well-positioned to succeed as an independent nation. We were provided with well-managed public services, a professional civil service, and an active economy. Then we were allowed to develop as an Independent nation.

We have done well, despite our elected representatives’ habit of overspending. No matter how much they put us in debt, we were always able to bear the high taxes and pay our creditors.

There must come a time in our development when we realise that this cycle of overspending and severe austerity is not normal. It is simply bad economic management. We should not be paying some of the highest taxes of all nations on this planet.

If we are to prosper as an independent nation, we must all learn to work together outside of the Election period. The Government seems to understand this and should be encouraged in its responsible efforts. However, those positive efforts can be overwhelmed by the constant negative political rhetoric.

During this time of austerity, the public needs some objective assurance that their sacrifices are not in vain. Solutions Barbados’ hope is that all opposition parties would publicly support Government’s good policies, provide practical improvements to its weak policies, and vigorously oppose its bad policies. All citizen should provide the Government with their best advice – even if it is rejected.

To facilitate this hope, the Government needs to start leading and stop blaming the last administration for every little thing. It was not a lost decade, only a badly managed one, as was the decade before that. If we do not pull together, regardless of who is in Government, then we will pull this nation apart.

Happy Independence everyone from Solutions Barbados

Will the Real Opposition Leader Please Stand Up?

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Submitted by Grenville Phillips II, Leader of Solutions Barbados

After the BLP won all seats in Parliament, we were told that our Constitution is flawed. It is not that our Constitution did not anticipate all members of parliament sitting on the Government side with no Opposition. Rather, our Constitution does not allow it. Constitutionally, there must always be an Opposition in our Parliament.

To increase the protection of the public’s interests, our Constitution (section 74.1) makes it mandatory for the Governor General to appoint a Leader of the Opposition. If an opposition leader is not appointed, then the voters get to decide with another general election.

To avoid holding another general election, Mr Atherley decided to be the Opposition Leader. However, there are mandatory constitutional requirements that Mr Atherley must meet in order to qualify for that post.

Our Constitution (section 74.2) gives the Governor General strict instructions for appointing the Opposition Leader. There are only two options available to her. The first option is to appoint the person who “is best able to command the support of a majority of those members who do not support the Government”.

When the Governor General appointed Mr Atherley, he was a formal member of the BLP, who had sworn, on his sacred honour, that he would support the BLP’s policies. Moments after he was appointed, Mr Atherley confirmed that he did not oppose the BLP’s policies, but intended to ensure that the Government carried them out.

By his own admission, Mr Atherley disqualified himself from being appointed under the first option, which specifies that the post is for the leader of those “who do not support the Government”. However, even if he did not swear fealty to the BLP, Mr Atherley would still be disqualified under the first option. This is because the Constitution requires him to have “support” of other opposition parliamentarians, which he did not have.

The second option is to appoint the person who “commands the support of the largest single group of such members who are prepared to support one leader”.

Mr Atherley explained that he was only becoming Leader of the Opposition to satisfy the constitutional requirement that there be an Opposition Leader, and for no other reason. With the Bible on which he swore nearby, and with his family beside him, he promised the public of Barbados that he would not form a political party.

Mr Atherley was one individual, and not a leader of a group of parliamentarians. Therefore, this automatically disqualified him from the post under the second option, since a group is comprised of a minimum of two persons.

To force Mr Atherley’s appointment, some argued that since the Interpretation Act supports singular and plural being used interchangeably, his appointment was in order. Let us examine this assertion. The Interpretation Act (section 36.2) states: “words in the singular shall include the plural; and words in the plural shall include the singular.”

In the first option, Mr Atherley needed the support of other “members”. The Interpretation Act can only reduce this requirement to one other “member”, which Mr Atherley clearly did not have. In the second option, Mr Atherley needed the support of a “group”, which is already singular (the plural being “groups”). So the Interpretation Act cannot justify his appointment.

Since Mr Atherley is disqualified by both available constitutional options, then on what basis did the Governor General appoint him? We are told not to ask such questions. Instead, we are supposed to shut up, accept the farce, and believe the absurd idea that only in Barbados, the singular of “group” is “individual”.

If our Constitution can be broken (not bent) so easily, without any recourse, then our Constitution offers us no protection whatsoever. This establishes an extremely dangerous precedent, that is foreseen to be also abused by any other political administration. The members of the Barbados Bar Association, who believe this to be a farce, are doing our country a grave disservice with their silence.

Instead of trying to solve a non-existent constitutional crisis, the Governor General should have informed Mr Atherley that he did not qualify. To avoid another general election, Mr Atherley could have resigned from the BLP, and encouraged one other Member of Parliament to join him (the PM would likely have allowed it). Only then could he qualify for the post of Opposition Leader. Our Constitution simply does not allow him to qualify by himself, and the Governor General should have known that.

Since we cannot have a Parliament without an Opposition Leader, and since Mr Atherley’s appointment appears to seriously violate our Constitution, is Parliament, as currently constituted, rogue? If so, then we may now have a constitutional crisis.

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

The Phartford Files: Agenda for a Third Party Part I

Submitted by Ironside

The PdP should not let the recent rumblings of the honourable PM of Barbados at her party’s recent conference get under its skin. Anytime a third party in Barbados makes any ground, no matter how little, you can expect retaliation from the old guard as sure as night follows day.

I recall Donville Inniss belittling the new parties that emerged for the 2018 election, specifically Solutions Barbados, early on in the campaign. His arrogance has been duly rewarded. I absolutely love Madame Karma!

The first thing that any new party that hopes to make a significant impact in the next election must do is to recognize that there is mental space, however small, for a third party in the minds of the electorate. For some, it is a default position resulting from the systematic abuse and betrayal of the two entrenched parties, viz. the BLP and DLP, the Bonnie and Clyde of Barbadian politics. But that space is there, nonetheless.

This is the right time to advance the agenda of a serious “third” party. Now is the time to exploit the growing disaffection with the incumbent BLP and the betrayal of the wasted DLP. Divide and rule, we call it.

Expect retaliation from Bonnie and Clyde because, make no mistake about it, when the chips are down, like any good husband and wife team, Bonnie and Clyde will close ranks to keep out the upstarts!

The second thing that a successful new party must do is define itself in that available mental space. That means it must study carefully the contours of that space and be very strategic about how it intends to capture it. In Marketing we call that positioning.

However, the third party must take careful note that many of the masses are unable to think outside the B&D box. They are suffering from what I have called elsewhere on this blog “mental rigor mortis” (“MRM” as dubbed by one blogger). It is the case, that despite the evidence of their eyes, these sufferers just can’t see anything else but a two party state. We boast of being so highly educated but it seems that that has NOT produced any open-mindedness! Looks like a case of “clouds without water” to me!

Moreover, the third party must grasp the fact that, in a perverse way, many Barbadians are also suffering from political “trauma bonding”. Trauma bonding is that difficult-to-understand behaviour of victims who return to their abusers in the face of [pun intended] sometimes brutal physical abuse. It is something that MAM should understand very well!

I do not wish to get side-tracked here so I suggest you read the following articles on this topic for a start:

I am yet to see a third party with a discernible, coherent and viable strategic positioning plan. The strategy itself is not something you shout out in so many words but one which you “drip irrigate” onto the public. Over time, your positioning becomes evident to those who are studying your [party’s] communications and behaviour.

It follows logically from the above analysis, that the third thing the successful party must do is devise a deliberate, ongoing, consistent, focused communications campaign to support its positioning in the electorate’s mind. It must start this long before any formal campaigning for the 2023 begins! Coincidentally, that campaign must also build trust. Trust is hard to build, but so easy to destroy, as many a one-night-stander can testify!

Now, to extent that Solutions Barbados followed the approach I am suggesting, in the last election period, is the extent to which they were able capture 14% of the vote. However, a lot of their under-performance was due, in no measure, to the naivety and egotism of the party leader Grenville Phillips. As you can see from the posts below, Mr. Phillips still neither understands nor accepts this criticism.

Perhaps Mr. Phillips should stick to his Tuesday Sermon. Perhaps, he may find more support there. May I suggest that his next sermon be on the message to the Church in Laodicea? [Rev. 3: 14 -16]

I am firmly committed to seeing the acceptance and success of a third party in Barbados. However, that does NOT include the absence of other parties; by no means. We need a rich and strong democracy here! So expect me to push the third party concept with all the warp power that Mr. LaForge can call up from the engine room!

Found and Lost

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Grenville Phillips II, Leader of Solutions Barbados

In 1776, the United States of America (USA) declared its independence from Britain, and there was war. France joined the USA in 1778, and attacked British interests in the Caribbean the following year. The French captured St Vincent and Grenada, and there was general panic in Barbados that we would be next.

On 16 June 1779, Spain joined France in the war, hoping to reclaim Gibraltar and the island of Minorca from the British. The Spanish quickly blockaded Gibraltar, hoping to starve the defenders.

Barbados was defended by about 22 coastal forts, which could easily be overpowered if Barbados was invaded. On 26 July 1779, Barbados’ legislature voted to construct a defendable fort. A hill called Mount Charity, in the parish of St George, was selected for the construction of Fort George.

On 10 October 1780, a Category 5 hurricane struck Barbados, with wind speeds estimated as high as 200 mph (by comparison, Hurricane Dorian was 185 mph). It destroyed all forts, and every building in Barbados was damaged or destroyed. It resulted in the deaths of an estimated 4,326 people in Barbados. It also caused about 9,000 deaths in Martinique from the 25 ft storm surge (Dorian produced a 23 ft surge).

On 1 June 1781, the French captured Tobago. On 14 August 1781, the French navy informed George Washington, that they were travelling from the West Indies to Virginia, with a fleet of 29 warships and 3,200 troops.

On 28 September 1781, the combined USA and French forces had a major British force trapped at the coastal town of Yorktown, Virginia. After a few weeks of heavy bombardment, the British surrendered on 17 October 1781, which was a decisive defeat. Approximately 8,000 British troops were captured, and the 29 French warships returned to the West Indies.

On 19 August 1781, a combined French and Spanish force invaded the island of Minorca. The island had a fort which had been massively strengthened to survive a siege for one year. The combined force started bombarding the fort on 11 November 1781. The British lasted 3 months before surrendering on 4 February 1782.

In January 1782, twenty-nine French ships, with about 8,000 landing troops, sailed to invade Barbados. They were to join 18 ships already anchored off Barbados. However, a strong wind blew them away from Barbados, so they captured St Kitts instead. By February 1782, the only Caribbean islands that remained in British possession were Barbados, Antigua and Jamaica.

On 25 May 1782, the British troops at Gibraltar started digging siege tunnels and underground galleries in the limestone rock. On 18 September 1782, a grand assault of Gibraltar by French and Spanish forces (60,000 men and 49 ships) decisively failed to defeat the 5,000 British defenders.

On 3 September 1783, a final peace agreement was signed between Britain and the USA, France, and Spain. The Barbados Assembly met that same day and decided to abandon further construction of Fort George, rather than raise new taxes to complete it. The main reason was that they “could not discover its utility”.

What Were They Building?

From 1741, the Royal Military Academy started teaching the scientific principles of gunnery and fortifications. Therefore, the final design of Fort George would likely have been informed by at least four events. The destruction of forts in Barbados by the Great Hurricane of 1780, the successful bombardment of Yorktown in 1781, the successful bombardment of Minorca’ fort in 1782, and the successful defence of Gibraltar in 1782.

Perhaps the reason why the Assembly could not discover the utility of Fort George, was because its main asset was a military secret. We are still discovering secret military installations in Barbados. In 2011, the secret troop movement tunnels were discovered by accident at the Garrison. So far, approximately 10,000 ft (3 km) of tunnels have been identified.

This year, the general public learnt of a massive underground building at Fort George. It comprised a series of majestic arches, and was large enough to house many people and supplies. The coral-stone masonry work was exquisite, and the arches were reinforced with two rows of brickwork. It appeared to be in very good condition.

The building seemed to be the British’s solution to a shelter that could survive a Category 5 hurricane and military bombardment, and be finished for use by a Governor. Thus, Barbados seemed to have constructed the first, and only known masonry military bunker on this planet. No record of a military bunker was found in the historical record until approximately 150 years later, where it would be made of concrete.

Approximately one month ago, the Barbados Water Authority ordered the complete destruction of this priceless international treasure. There is a heavy price to pay for rewarding political supporters with managing our public services. We are normally on the losing end of their skills. But sometimes, so is the entire world.

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

Grenville Phillips Column – Miracle Workers

A miracle is when something happens that we think is impossible, even after it has happened.  People travel across the world to see such impossible things, and to experience the thrill of astonishment for themselves.  The BTI should use that as an attraction to draw such thrill-seekers to Barbados, the land of miracles.

It was generally agreed that the DLP managed public services extremely poorly.  So extreme that their quality of incompetence was perfect.  So perfect, that many people could not bear to watch Barbados fail and do nothing.  So, several new political parties were formed, bringing the total number to 11.

The BLP won all 30 seats and started governing with a lot of public goodwill.  Many offered them very good advice.  However, like the DLP before them, the BLP seemed to reject good advice and accept only the worst kind.

The Bridgetown Port, BWA, SSA, QEH, BAMC, BRA, Licensing Authority, Transport Board, and Education were all perfectly managed under the DLP.  Managing them any worse was impossible.  The DLP had reached rock bottom, and there was nowhere else to go but up.  Yet, the boards and authorities managing these entities are today achieving the impossible.

At first, the BLP rightly blamed all of Barbados’ problems on the incompetence of the DLP.  Since the DLP were the last administration, they should take all the blame – but only for the first three months of a new administration.  After three months, any poor management is only a reflection of the current managers’ incompetence.

Why are our public services always being so badly managed?  The simple answer is that extreme supporters, who behave more extreme with every election, must be rewarded for their extreme behaviour.  Normal supporters do not qualify for such rewards, since they are unwilling to do the things against their fellow Barbadians that the extremes may do.

The typical reward for extremes is to allow them to play with our public services.  Letting such highly unqualified persons have fun with our public services, has never worked well for us in Barbados.  The perfect mismanagement of our public services during the last DLP administration, led to every DLP candidate losing in the last general election.

The current boards have achieved things that defy explanation.  They have fouled-up public services so much that the former DLP Ministers now appear capable by comparison.  How is that even possible?  These boards have now put the lucrative lifetime pensions of the new BLP Ministers at risk.

Our Ministers have a problem.  Their extremes believe that their partisan behaviour entitles them to play with our public services.   However, if they keep abusing our public services, they will only frustrate the public, and bring down the Ministers.  If they are fired, as their appalling performance justifies, then they may not be as extreme during the next general election.  So what can our Ministers do?

One effective solution is for every Minister to appoint two advisory boards.  A technical board for the benefit of the public, and a political board for the benefit of their party.

The members of the technical advisory board should be experts in the relevant field.  These should be volunteer (unpaid) positions.  Monthly advisory meetings should be held with the Minister and the CEO of the statutory corporation, with the only agenda being the improvement of the public service.

The political advisory board is to reward the extremes.  They should be paid the same salaries as they are currently receiving, by the political party.  They should meet with the Minister as frequently as the Minister wishes, but they should have no contact whatsoever with the public service.

This is a win-win-win solution.  The Ministers win by receiving credit for dramatically improving public services, which improves their chances of being re-elected and achieving their lifetime pension goal.  The extreme political supporters win because they get to maintain contact with their Minister, and keep receiving spillage.  The public wins through much improved public services.

Our Ministers know the harm that unhappy extremes can do, and now seem intimidated by those whom they have appointed.  They have allowed the tail to wag the dog for so long, that the tail believes itself to be the dog.  Our Ministers need to muster the courage to get their politically appointed boards to stop working miracles.

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados.  He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

The Grenville Phillips Column – The Curse of Special Magic

The historical record of Barbados shows that Barbados welcomes responsible development.  To ensure that developments are built in an orderly manner, the Town and Country Development Planning office has published, and maintains a Physical Development Plan to guide developers.

Every developer who wants to build something in Barbados, whether a house or commercial building, must apply to the Planning office for permission.  If the development is found to be within Planning’s guidelines, then it is normally approved.

Sometimes, a developer may wish to build something that is outside of the Planning guidelines.  The developer may still submit an application, and the Planning office would inform them of any additional regulations for the application to be approved.

That is the normal method of obtaining approval to build.  But our political leaders have allowed a special way of getting building approval – just go and see the Minister.  At these meetings, our Ministers, who are normally woefully inexperienced in construction, are supposed to magically transform into development planning experts.

Tragically for us, the magic on which our politicians rely, by writing such loopholes in our laws, does not appear to work very well – for us.  Special developers tend to out-smart, or out-magic, our Ministers.  It is quite mysterious.  They not only get our Ministers to approve their developments, but they also get very favourable concessions, like not having to pay the normal.  Thanks Ministers.

Since the Government must still pay for public education, health, transportation and infrastructure, the taxes that the specials avoid paying, must be added to the taxes that the rest of us already pay.  Sometimes those taxes are hidden in higher costs to obtain public services, like higher bus fares and water rates.  However, a convenient way for the Government to make us pay their costs is to increase land taxes.  Thanks specials.

Specials tend to rebuke the public if they dare question their Minister-approved developments.  We tend to get rebuked for not seeing the blessings to Barbados from their developments.  Perhaps in their rebukes, they can explain these benefits to Barbadians?  I have tried to find the benefits, but I mostly find curses.  Let me try to inform them.

There is the curse of discriminatory business practises, where you can build what you want because you are special, while we cannot.

There is the curse of an unfair market-place, where you do not pay taxes that the rest of us must pay.  You do not do this by legal tax avoidance, or illegal tax evasion.  Rather, you do not pay these taxes just because you are special.

There is the curse of a corrupt market-place, where Ministers decide who wins and who loses in Barbados’ economy.

Perhaps the most damaging curse of all is that of mendicancy, where the next generation stops trying.  They give-up because they can easily see that a person’s effort in Barbados does not matter.  They can see that prosperity in Barbados does not depend on merit of your efforts, but on whether you are special.  We have gone backwards as a nation.

The problem with the curses of the specials, is that the curse only falls on those who are not special.  Perhaps the next time that they plan to rebuke us, they can explain their superior magic of getting our Ministers to both approve their developments, and lay their massive burden of tax obligations onto the rest of us.

[Author’s note: We seem to have been banned from the traditional media in Barbados, so Social Media is all that we currently have. If you like the article and are willing, then we would appreciate it if you would share it.]

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados.  He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

The Grenville Phillips Column – The Best Day of Your Life

The displays at the recently held BMEX 2019 shows that Barbadians can create internationally competitive products. With the health and education investments made in our people, we can easily surpass the achievements of a country like Singapore within a decade, if we choose to, or are allowed to.

Many of us choose not to because we do not believe that we can. We believe that great achievements are for those of another: class, race, colour, gender, or nationality. It is time to change that, and the first step on that path is to change our perspective on our life-journey. This awakens us to opportunities easily within our reach.

Your past achievements are not monuments to be adorned and admired, but foundations to build upon. Regardless of your age, health, past achievements, or current circumstances, the best day of your life is always today; and tomorrow is always going to be a better day for you than today.

Today, you get to correct the mistakes that you made yesterday. You get to redo things that did not work-out well before. You get to try something new. You get to repair relationships, and say what you meant in a kinder way.

Today, you get to be a better: child, sibling, parent, employee, employer, and friend. You get to be a better you, and correct any deficiencies you are now aware of, because of the criticisms you received yesterday. You get to learn how to do some things better. You get to improve your products, attract more customers and make more money.

Every day you will face obstacles. Today, you get to try another way around or over them. You do that by identifying opportunities. If your landlord increases the rent, then remind yourself that you are no longer a slave. You do not have to stay there – make arrangements to find a more affordable place. If your employer is giving you grief, then you are no longer a slave – you do not have to work there. Find another job or start your own business.

If a business is giving you bad service, acknowledge that you do not have to purchase anything from them. They have no power over you. Stop wasting your time complaining as if you were a slave with few options, and go and shop elsewhere. You have options that our slave foreparents never had. Earn their sacrifice.

The only obstacles that can limit our success, are bad political decisions that result in unnecessary and excessive regulations and taxation. The aim of these policies is to keep everyone down, so that political leaders can selectively waive the regulations and taxes from their political supporters. Thus, the Government decides who wins and who loses. What is appalling is that those who benefit from this corruption, are then promoted by the Government as persons who succeeded by merit.

Excessive taxation is the normal result of the mismanagement of public services. We entrust the management of our public services to our elected political leaders. If health, sanitation, water, transportation, and all other public services are well managed, then we will spend less time waiting to use them. We will also be taxed considerably less to fund efficiently delivered services.

If public services are poorly managed, then we must spend more time waiting to use them. We must also pay considerably higher taxes, to fund the poorly managed inefficient operations and unproductive employees.

We are not the only country facing the problem of poorly managed public services. This is a common problem faced by every country on this planet. In response, the International Organisation Standardization (ISO) developed specific guidance for managing public services and Government operations to an internationally competitive standard. Unfortunately, despite Barbados being a member of the 161-member ISO, our political leaders have decided that those standards are too good for us.

Instead, we continue to use the same ridiculous management method, that has consistently failed to provide relief to the public and public workers. That is, to appoint extreme political supporters, who have no management experience whatsoever, to boards where they direct the mismanagement of public services. The only time that Barbadians can hope to experience well managed public services, is if we travel to countries that have implemented high management standards.

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

Solutions Barbados’ Response to Joseph Atherley’s PPfDD – Wheel and Come Again

Political parties select different colours to allow the public to identify their party and Candidates.  This well-established practise in Barbados avoids confusion.  The party colours of the three political parties that received the most votes in the last general election were: red for the BLP, blue for the DLP, and green for Solutions Barbados.
Political parties select different colours to allow the public to identify their party and Candidates.  This well-established practise in Barbados avoids confusion.  The party colours of the three political parties that received the most votes in the last general election were: red for the BLP, blue for the DLP, and green for Solutions Barbados.

We have been asked to comment on Atherley’s party, PPfDD, selecting the colour of Solutions Barbados, rather than choose their own separate colour.  Our comments follow.

Solutions Barbados do not think that Atherley and PPfDD have done anything illegal.  They have a right to select any colour they wish, including red and blue.  However, while their action may be legal, it is highly unethical.  It is also highly deceptive since their action can only confuse the public when they are trying to identify candidates.

Their actions are particularly disturbing since they claim to be morally and ethically superior to the BLP and DLP.  If they were a party of rebels, then this type of unethical behaviour would be expected.  But they claim to be a party of God, with several pastors among them who know that doing what is ethical, is more important that satisfying a legal standard.  They have started very badly.

According to Atherley, the PPfDD formed about seven months ago.  Why did they not spend that time creating a separate identity?  Why attempt to deceive the public, while prominently claiming God as a supporter?  They must know that God is not the author of confusion, so why are they trying to confuse the public?

The Bible describes satan as a deceiver, and the god of this world.  The PPfDD are invited to confirm which god they are serving, by either repenting, or stubbornly continuing with their deception.  They should know that their unethical behaviour is entirely consistent with that of the other fellow.

Grenville Phillips II is President of Solutions Barbados.  He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

The Grenville Phillips Column – Slapping and Patting

The public justification for using White Oak, was that the BLP thought that no Barbadian financial consultant was sufficiently competent to negotiate with our external creditors. That was a shockingly unfair criticism of Barbadian financial services professionals. Having read the White Oak contract, the list of services should be within the competence of any accounting firm experienced in liquidation or judicial management.

The BLP administration has now confirmed that White Oak also advised on the local debt. Surely advising on our local debts is well within the competence of our local consultants. If the Government thought that our local consultants lacked some experience, then they should have allowed them to participate in a joint-venture contractual arrangement. However, even that was not allowed.

After the Government disqualified all Barbadian accountants and economists, by publicly questioning their competence, why was there no objection by the Institute of Chartered Accountant of Barbados (ICAB), or the Barbados Economics Society (BES)?

Actually, there was a response. However, instead of defending the reputations of their members, the BES gave a fawning assessment of the BLP’s first year. Why are these professional associations assuming that defaulting on our debt was our only option, when it was not?

Why are they not educating the public on the clear difference between debt restructuring and debt default? No one is objecting to debt restructuring. But for a country to default, when there is money available to pay creditors, is recklessly irresponsible and carelessly damaging to a country’s financial reputation. Why are our local financial professionals unwilling to provide an honest analysis of the current administration’s options?

To find the answers to these types of questions, we need to be reminded of Solutions Barbados’ unique experience. With the economic ruin of Barbados foreseen, Solutions Barbados designed an economic recovery and growth plan that provided approximately $1B in surplus during the first year, without increasing taxes, laying off persons, or requiring external funding.

It was to be done by facilitating the international competitiveness of Barbados. The method included: removing the excessive wastage and inefficiency costs of public services by properly managing them; eliminating the corruption costs; depoliticising the public service by promoting public workers on merit alone; and reducing taxes. Using the actual government expenditures and revenues, the plan gave the predicted surplus. It was also independently favourably reviewed by a Chartered Accountant.

We appealed to the national associations of accountants, economists, bankers, and commerce to honestly evaluate our economic growth plan, and inform the public of their findings, but they would not. The BLP then publicly stated that they would never share their economic plans with any of them, and they cowered, and then renewed their determination not to review ours.

When journalists become politically compromised, then political leaders know that they can say and do anything, and always be guaranteed fawning coverage. When the media fails in this manner, professional associations must assume the role of educating the public. When profession associations become politicised, then the public is left defenceless against the political wolves.

Professionals who mislead the public with politically biased advice, sell their professional integrity cheaply. They may be repaid with invitations to parties for some free food. Those who tell some woppers for their party may get appointed to a board or the Senate, but that is the most that they can ever hope for.

Political leaders know that politically compromised professionals who shield them from scrutiny, can never be trusted to give honest professional advice – ever. They certainly cannot be trusted anywhere near any important contracts where unbiased advice is critical. Tragically, after selling their integrity, those professionals cannot even qualify for a single ordinary crumb from White Oak’s table.

The current administration seems assured that they can publicly question the professional competence of Barbadian consultants, and be assured of their absolute loyalty. Our financial consultants seem to possess a rare internal fortitude that allows them to be publicly slapped about with contempt, and then respond by pitiably grovelling for an affirming pat on the head from their slappers.

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

The Grenville Phillips Column – BLP Administration’s Grade

What grade does the BLP deserve after their first year in Government?  Solutions Barbados compared their achievements with those of the last DLP administration.

The BLP administration continued the DLP’s poor practises of: giving corrupting no-bid contracts, increasing taxes, laying off public workers, making commuters wait hours for public transportation, and rejecting the international management standard that could have significantly improved the general poor management of public services.

The BLP has also continued the DLP practise of only listening to the economic advice of their most partisan supporters.  The BLP has addressed the sewerage problem which the DLP seemed incapable of doing; but they also defaulted on paying our foreign debt, something that the DLP, and no previous BLP administration, has ever done.

The DLP deservedly attracted the bad press, criticism, and public marches for their gross mismanagement of the economy and public services.  The BLP administration has not provided better management.  But their effective public relations exercises make it seem that they have.

The decision to default on our foreign debt is something that would have attracted near-riots if done by the last DLP administration.  Instead, such a failure has been met with understanding or applause.  Shockingly, rather than try to be discreet about this unprecedented failure, we are wiping our foreign creditors’ faces in it, as we boast about the amount of foreign reserves we have – by not paying them.

For the management of their business, the BLP administration deserves an A.  For their management of our business, they deserve, at best, the same grade that we would give the DLP for their gross mismanagement.

Grenville Phillips II is the President of Solutions Barbados.  He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

The Grenville Phillips Column – The BLP’s Own Goals

An own goal is when a sports team scores a goal for the opposing team, by sending the ball into their own goal. The BLP has scored many unnecessary own goals during their first year in Government, and are showing no signs of correcting this habit. Coincidentally, during the same time, we have been forced to pay significantly more taxes.

Outside of a destructive war, the greatest threat to a national economy is political corruption. This type of corruption is normally in the form of bribes paid to politicians when governments contract to buy products. The bribes are normally included in the inflated costs of the products.

To pay the bribe component of the cost, taxes on citizens must be increased. One way of significantly reducing the size of any bribes, and any resulting tax increases, is to allow competitive tendering (or bidding) with an impartial evaluation of the bids.

Before the General Election, the BLP assured the public that they would not be engaging in any of the gross corruption of which they were accusing the DLP. To convince us that they were serious, every single BLP candidate swore to protect us with a Contractor General, who would review government contracts, including those of State-Owned Enterprises.

No-bid contracts are not illegal, since our laws allow for them in specific circumstances. But they are, by their nature, corrupting. The allure of corrupting no-bid contracts has proven too much for many politicians of other countries to resist.

The very least that we could have reasonably hoped for, is that the promised Contractor General would be appointed before any corrupting no-bid contracts were signed. Having a Contractor General is not effective if a politically compromised person is appointed to that post. However, it is better than the nothing that we currently have.

During their first year in Government, the BLP has reportedly signed an astonishing amount of no-bid contracts, for well over $100M. Tragically, there was no oversight by the Contractor General, who each BLP politician promised, on their sacred honour, that they would provide to stop political corruption. This is definitely not in our best interests.

By refusing to allow the promised oversight of their no-bid contracts, the BLP invites unnecessary speculation. Why do the prices seem so massively inflated? Why allow only one business to tender when there was no urgency? Why were other more competent companies excluded from tendering?

The way of no-bid contracts is the proven way of political corruption. To stay on that path is to invite rigorous public scrutiny of all no-bid contracts. To stay on that path, while disallowing the promised oversight, is to attract valid suspicions of gross corruption.

The BLP administration has only itself to blame, because they can correct this mess whenever they wish. If they choose not to, then we can expect them to score more own goals. However, if we are forced to pay more taxes after each of their own goals, then we should no longer assume that it is coincidental.

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

Solutions Barbados Easter Message

Jesus’ resurrection confirmed to us that we are being trained for something greater. Jesus explained that there was an enemy of humanity who wants to distract and divide us, so that we harm eachother and accomplish less. This Easter, let us determine to reject what divides us and encourage eachother on our individual training paths.

The most influential dividers in a nation are its political operatives. They have developed a method of political success, but economic failure, in all developing countries, using the same four steps.
Step 1 is for a newly elected administration to alarm the population that that there is no money. This is used to justify sending home supporters of the last administration, regardless of how competent they are.
Step 2 is to place the least competent political party supporters in management positions, thus guaranteeing low efficiency, low productivity, and low national competitiveness. Step 3 is to give no-bid contracts to political supporters.
Step 4 is to damage the professional reputations and businesses of anyone seen as a threat to their party being re-elected. Economic harm of the nation is guaranteed by starving about half of its most productive resources of business opportunities, for political reasons, for 5 years periods.
There is a defined political season of about one month when the proverbial gloves come off. But after that time, there should be unity for the benefit of Barbados. It is in the political operatives’ interests to keep us divided outside of the political season.
Political operatives limit the definition of Barbadian to mean political party supporters. While their party governs, they direct rewards to those who praise the administration’s every failure as an achievement. They also direct persecution towards any who dare offer an honest analysis.
We need to acknowledge that we are all Barbadians, and all entitled to the same opportunities. Our political leaders normally repeat this ideal, but their operatives ensure that it is never achieved. It is time for political leaders to restrain their operatives, for the good of all Barbadians.
Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

The Grenville Phillips Column – The End Game – Part 4, Chasing An Illusion

The EPA was negotiated in the worst possible manner, resulting in the worst of all trade agreements for the Caribbean.  When I asked why they had signed such a bad agreement, I was told that we had to sacrifice the sunset industries for the sunrise.  Suddenly everything made sense – there was a method to the madness.

During the EPA negotiations (2002-2008), I kept hearing that the EPA would facilitate the trade of the Caribbean’s rich cultural industries.  The Caribbean has popular events, talented artists, and competent supporting businesses that the EPA was supposed to launch to international recognition.  Eleven years later, we can confirm that it did not.

I was the President of the Combermere School Old Scholars Association from 2006 to 2008.  During that time, Rihanna became a member, and her popularity was rapidly rising internationally.  While the EPA was being negotiated, Rihanna was noted as an example of what the EPA could facilitate.  With Rihanna’s undisputed international success, that EPA justification went unquestioned at the time.  Let us question it now.

Rhianna’s Success

Rihanna became successful without the need for the EPA.  No artist will likely become successful because of the EPA.  Achieving international recognition in artistic work is something that cannot be predicted.  That is the risk of the cultural industries – no one can accurately predict what other people will like enough to spend money on.

There are many talented artists in every country.  However, the most skilful artists are not necessarily the most popular.  What makes a person with lesser artistic skills have significantly more mass-appeal than someone with significantly more skills?  It is an undefined and unknown quality that some have called the ‘X-factor’.  To promise an artist international appeal is to promise an illusion.

Sporting achievements, by contrast, are different.  If you can dribble a basketball out of traffic and shoot three-pointers consistently, while under pressure, then basketball teams will pay for your talent.  If you can dribble a football out of traffic and consistently score goals from outside of the penalty area, then football teams will pay for your talent.  If you can consistently run 100 m in less than 10 seconds, then people will pay to see you run.

Physical and mental skills can be developed through practise, and there is a defined standard that the practitioner knows that they must meet to get to the next level of development.  The standard for artists is less certain, even if the product is enhanced with better support services.  Once a business depends on an undefined emotional appeal, rather than fulfilling a defined physical need, then that is a risky type of business.  But we were convinced that we just needed the EPA.

Giving Away the Crown

In exchange for facilitating an illusion, we gave up the crown jewel of modern trade agreements – the lucrative and nationally important construction industry.  A single large construction project typically earns BD$100M.  The Sam Lords Castle hotel reportedly cost $340M.  The construction of a referral hospital may exceed $500M.  The Sandals project is reportedly a $900M investment.

With such large sums on the table, construction projects worldwide attract political corruption.  The common corrupt component has been measured at between 10% to 30% of the cost of a construction project.  Since governments do not meaningfully address corruption, international funding agencies have taken the lead.  They normally publish lists of contractors and consultants who engaged in corrupt activities.  Those listed can be barred from tendering on their funded projects for up to 15 years.

Despite its vulnerabilities to corruption, the construction industry is important to national development and stability.  The Construction industry allows persons to enter at any skill-level, and advance to the top on merit alone.  A teenager with no academic certificates can start as an unskilled labourer, and become a skilled artisan, supervisor, and then contractor.  A teenager with drawing skills can start as a draughtperson, and become an architect or engineer.

The EPA will open the Caribbean market to competition from the combined European construction industry, but effectively closes the European market to us.  Unlike when our fore-parents were purchased for trinkets, we gave away the crown jewel that sustains national development for nothing, an illusion, a promise of Rihanna-like potential for our artists, which after 11 years has not been realised.

We Are To Blame

We have no-one to blame but ourselves.  We took the lunatic decision to negotiate the EPA in secret.  Our trade experts lacked the experience to recognise trade barriers written into the EPA, that effectively disqualified Caribbean construction practioners from trading in Europe.

The trade barriers with the FTAA were hidden, and we had to find them.  The EPA trade barriers are plainly written, with a no apparent effort to disguise the obvious intent.  The European negotiators appeared to employ the ‘hiding-in-plain-sight’ strategy, which tends to work when playing against relatively inexperienced players.

The construction industry is about 15% to 20% of our total annual economic activity.  It also facilitates social stability – turning wayward youth into responsible adults through the apprenticeship system.  With so much at stake, we should be trying to make the industry internationally competitive, but we seem to be trying to do the exact opposite.

The selective regulation of local and foreign construction companies is discriminatory, and grossly unfair to local contractors.  For example, the Chinese construction companies appear to be almost unregulated when compared to the effort made to regulate local construction companies.  When the Government awards no-bid construction and consultancy contracts, it can only corrupt the industry and damage our most competent companies.

Artificially raising construction costs discourages demand for new-construction.  Smaller contractors rely on building houses so that they can develop into medium sized companies.  However, VAT on construction materials makes construction unnecessarily expensive.  The VAT on construction materials alone, can take a homeowner about 5 years of a 30-year mortgage to repay.  We should not have to go in so much debt to pay a tax.

There is so much that the current administration can do to adequately prepare Barbados for what is to come, without the need for austerity.  They simply need to start listening to other advice, and then determine whether it is better than what they have received.  However, they serve BERT alone, and BERT has publicly admitted that they never looked at any of the non-austerity economic plans for Barbados – and will never look at them.  If we continue on our present path, then we are sunk.

Next week, the conclusion of this 5-Part End-Game series.

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados.  He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

The Grenville Phillips Column – The End Game, Part 3 – Taking Milk from a Baby

Internationally competitive European industries wanted to legally exploit the developing Caribbean markets.  To achieve that aim, their governments wanted to negotiate a trade agreement with the Caribbean.  That trade agreement was called the Economic Partnership Agreement.

With the benefit of our FTAA preparations in 2002, Barbados and the rest of the Caribbean were well-positioned to negotiate a favourable trade agreement with Europe.  However, the European’s ‘Aid for Trade’ incentive proved too much of a distraction.

The Europeans would go on to secure an advantageous future for Europe’s children and grandchildren.  We seemed blinded by the short-term benefits of European aid, and squandered it.

For the next five years, European aid money flowed across the Caribbean, chased by consultants who fashionably called themselves trade experts.  Consultants would assemble practitioners from different disciplines in a room, where we seemed to be pitted against each-other.

I attended several of those discussions.  Each discipline’s ‘must-haves’ were diluted to get some sort of comprise, as if we were negotiating among ourselves.  It made no logical sense, but I was reminded that I was not a trade expert and they knew what they were doing.

I tried explaining how important it was to try trading with Europe in order to identify the actual trade barriers, since each European country had different regulations.  When we were trying to trade in the US and Canada in preparation for the FTAA, we were told that there were no trade barriers.  However, we tested that assertion.

We tried to offer our services in the US but learnt that we needed a State License.  To get a State License, we needed to pass that State’s professional examinations.  When we tried to apply to take the examination, there was a small mandatory section on the application form us to insert a Social Security number, which we did not have.  When we applied to get a Social Security number, we learnt that only US citizens and residents could apply.  Therefore, there were hidden barriers that would automatically disqualify all of us from trading in the US.

Whenever I made any suggestions based on our experience with preparing for the FTAA, these trade experts seemed more interested in completing their contracted assignments, so that they could get paid and chase another EPA consultancy.

Five years later in 2007, I learnt that negotiations were being concluded.  I asked our trade negotiators to see a draft of what they were negotiating on our behalf.  I was told that the draft was a secret document so I could not see it.  I was chided for even asking for it, and for being unaware of how trade negotiations worked.

Given the permanent consequences for our children, I said that I would approach the Europeans for a copy.  I was ridiculed for even expressing such a thought.  I visited the European’s web site where they were encouraging their practitioners to download this ‘secret’ document.

While we in the Caribbean were encouraging isolation and secrecy, the Europeans were encouraging transparency and feedback from their practitioners.  Our side, with little knowledge of the industries that they were trading, seemed to be motivated by whatever prestige they thought came with negotiating a trade agreement.  The Europeans seemed to have no such cravings.  They seemed focused on negotiating the most advantageous trade agreement for European industries.

After reading this ‘secret’ document, I was horrified at what we had ‘negotiated’.  I can only imagine that when the European negotiators saw what we were willing to give up, they must have struggled to contain their delight at their good fortune.  The best analogy I can think of is that they found themselves in the favourable position of taking milk from an unsupervised baby.

I literally begged our trade negotiators not to recommend that draft for our politicians to sign.  They were arrogantly dismissive.  I then wrote publicly about the dangers of signing the EPA document in its present form, and recommended that we take another look at it, since I was unaware of any other Caribbean practitioner who had read it.  However, our politicians chose to believe these trade experts, signed it despite published objections, and forced an unsuspecting generation of Caribbean people into the End Game.

The Europeans are willing to wait 25 years before our children are forced to compete against a combined European market.  This will ensure that most of the current generation of internationally competitive practitioners have retired.  Approximately half of that time has now elapsed – and has been squandered by our politicians.

Our FTAA preparations showed that we did not need European Aid, we just needed people who genuinely cared.  After ‘investing’ about BD$200M of Aid, the Europeans publicly expressed their surprise and disappointment at the lack of any meaningful preparation in the Caribbean – but those who received this money probably could not believe their good fortune.

While the Europeans are actively preparing the next generation of Europeans to compete in an EPA market, both DLP and BLP administrations irresponsibly pursued policies that would prevent the next generation from becoming internationally competitive.  They also encouraged our children to believe an illusion, which will leave them unprepared to succeed in the new reality.  To be continued next week.

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados.  He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

The Grenville Phillips Column – Speaking Truth to Power

‘Speaking truth to power’ is a phrase that been adopted by the most partisan of us.  They use it to convince the public that they are non-partisan observers who can remain silent no longer.  They claim to be principled individuals who are compelled to speak against the governing administration regardless of the personal consequences.

It appears like a noble quest, but history has shown that it is a common method of deceiving desperate-for-change voters to turn against the party in power.  If their party is successful, then they are always found gorging on the fatted calf prepared exclusively for the most extreme partisan supporters, who would do anything that their party asks of them.

Those who have essentially sold their souls to their party tend to exhibit two traits to prove their devotion.  If they do not do these things, then they tend to lose their places at the table.  First, they must be critical of the other established political party for as long as they occupy their seat.

Second, they are never to criticise their party, regardless of how badly their party performs, unless they are authorised to do so.  Criticism is sometimes allowed if it fits part of the overall public relations strategy on a specific issue.

The last administration attracted severe criticism like a magnet.  While they are not expected to publicly share their post-mortem of the last general election, they seemed to be trying their best to lose it by being as toxic as possible to voters – there does not seem to be any other rational explanation of their baffling behaviour.

Solutions Barbados was specifically formed to restore Barbados’ ruined economy, without austerity, by doing what neither the BLP nor DLP have done.  That is, meaningfully addressing corruption and the mismanagement of public services.  Simply talking about problems does not solve them.

The BLP’s response to Solutions Barbados was to first personally attack my family on their public platform and on their official web-site – dishonouring an excellent tradition that families should never be targeted.  When that failed to work, they declared that Solutions Barbados was funded by the DLP – a lie from satan himself, or someone similar.

By falsely linking Solutions Barbados to the toxic DLP, the BLP deceitfully positioned themselves to benefit from the dissatisfied voters who voted overwhelmingly against the DLP.

The problem for Barbados, is that the BLP has admitted to receiving a ruined economy from the DLP that they were not prepared to manage.  So they quickly gave-up and asked the IMF to manage it for them, through their puppet government, the disorderly BERT – whom no one voted for.  Barbados does not deserve this.

What happened to Barbados?  What happened to all of those: financial analysts, accountants, economists, unions, teachers, public workers, merchants, professional associations, journalists, talk show moderators, columnists, merchants, and editorialists who claimed to have no choice but to speak truth to power?  Where are any of those 20,000 who marched, and where is David Comissiong, who fearlessly and consistently stared down the DLP?  Where is everyone?

They are all telling us that BERT is our saviour and we must bow before it.  They tell us that there were no other solutions – another lie of course.  They tell us that if we do not submit to BERT, then the dollar will devalue.  Were these not the same people who predicted that the dollar will devalue every year under the last administration – and were they not proven wrong?

It seems that we are all alone.  Nevertheless, we shall offer ourselves once more, and Barbados will then get the government that we truly deserve.  Seeing that Barbadian voters seem to be gluttons for punishment, there is a real possibility that after the next general election, our economy will either be back in the hands of the hapless DLP or the confused BERT – same difference.

If that happens, then there will be little chance of escaping the End Game.  Since the writing appears to be already on the proverbial wall, I suggest that you share, print and save each of the next few End Game articles as soon as they are published.  You deserve to know the type of Barbados that the BLP and DLP have prepared for our children over the past two decades.

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados.  He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

The Grenville Phillips Column – Of Tooth and Tongue

Our detractors keep insisting that we should stop writing about the ISO 9001 international management standard, because the public is generally unaware of it. Only in the politically partisan world does one stop educating the public about benefits that they do not yet understand. Only in that world are proven failed initiatives promoted, while proven successful ones are rejected.

That the public is uneducated about the ISO 9001 management standard is an indictment of the established press, who ignored it in favour of failed management initiatives.

The Public Sector Reform initiative was created with fatal flaws. Every year, it failed to improve public services. Yet every year it was promoted and funded. The National Initiative for Service Excellence (NISE) was also created with fatal flaws. Every year it proved to be a failure, and every year it was promoted and funded.

The judiciary is a national disgrace, and the CCJ keeps reminding us that it is a regional embarrassment. Rather than implementing the ISO system and actually manage the judicial system properly, we have, for the past decade, been talking about implementing some form of mediation and other initiatives.

The government is now ignoring the Public Sector Reform, closing the NISE and the Productivity Council, and embarking on a new management initiative that can best be described as ‘Management by Talking’. However, it is the same failed management approach that we have been trying for the past 4 decades. Its direct opposite is the ISO approach of ‘Management by Doing’.

The BLP’s propaganda directive is to keep repeating the phrase ‘lost decade’ in reference to the DLP’s obvious mismanagement of the economy. However, it is more accurate to speak of a lost two decades, with one decade being managed by the BLP and the other by the DLP. We should remember that it was approximately 20 years ago when the BLP structurally damaged Barbados’ economy.

The established media appear to have received their orders to ignore this and other facts unfavourable to the BLP. Therefore, the public is generally unaware that there is little difference between the level of gross mismanagement by the BLP and the DLP. By our detractors’ reasoning, that is reason enough for us to stop mentioning it. For the record, a section from 13 Oct 2009 Moody’ report follows (capitalised emphasis mine).

“Barbados’ KEY DEBT INDICATORS have been on a deteriorating path OVER THE PAST DECADE, and are now at levels that compare poorly with other countries in the same rating category,” said Moody’s Vice President – Senior Analyst Alessandra Alecci. “While the global crisis has clearly exacerbated this trend, the worsening of debt indicators OVER A LONG PERIOD OF TIME suggests that structural issues are at play.” .. “These include a steady increase in expenditures, INCLUDING OFF-BUDGET, as revenues have remained at roughly the same level in terms of GDP.”

The political administration that led the government during the decade prior to 2009 was not the DLP. To my knowledge, Clyde Mascoll was the only person in Barbados who was warning us of these “off budget” corrupting no-bid contracts being awarded, and the increasing unsustainable debt. However, when he became a B, the BLP’s bad debts were somehow magically transformed into good debts and our watchdog economists conveniently lost both tooth and tongue – until the re-election of the DLP.

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

The Grenville Phillips Column – Let Sleeping Dogs Sleep

We should celebrate good news, and the recent upgrades by international rating agencies is good news, especially after a decade of consistent downgrades. So, well done BLP.

Despite their partisan behaviour during the last general election, the national watch dogs are whispering a word of caution. However, before we review their caution, let us put Barbados’ economic situation in context.

The only economic plan that the BLP had before the last general election was to seek funding from the IMF. To secure those funds as soon as possible, the BLP took the risk of defaulting on our foreign loans. That gamble worked for them, but we must endure a severe austerity plan.

Our foreign reserves appear healthy mainly because we are borrowing foreign currency to repay foreign creditors, but we are refusing to pay them. The BLP is hoping that the foreign creditors will be as compliant as the managers of our pension and retirement savings plans, who voted to allow the Government not to pay us all of what we are owed.

Eventually we will be forced to repay our foreign creditors. In the meantime, the accumulated foreign reserves have given the BLP sufficient time to improve the management of public services, which can facilitate economic growth. This time should allow the Government to repay our foreign creditors from revenues accumulated from a larger economy.

So far, the BERT plan of raising taxes and laying off persons is not growing the economy, but hindering growth. The BERT spokespersons keep reminding us that their austerity plan has no other option but to work. That is because they placed all our eggs in the IMF basket, and have stated that they will not consider any other economic solution.

Once the IMF money is exhausted and there is still no economic growth, then there are no good options for us. Our national watch dogs, who overdosed on partisan political pills before the general election, are finally waking up to the foreseen economic ruin that lies before us if BERT fails.

In 2002, Lynette Eastmond was director of International Business when Barbados was negotiating international trade agreements. To her credit, she invited private sector representatives to help prepare Barbados to compete internationally. My assigned responsibility was to prepare the professional services sector of the economy to be internationally competitive.

I chaired a committee comprising leaders of 25 professional associations in Barbados. For the next three months, we collectively donated $0.5M of our time, and prepared a comprehensive report detailing the strategies and actions that each private sector stakeholder should pursue to be internationally competitive. It also included the critical actions that the Government needed to complete in the immediate, medium and long terms to facilitate this economic growth. The principles are relevant to all sectors of the Barbados economy.

The plan worked exactly as designed for those who chose to implement it. I led from the front by becoming the first person to qualify as a Chartered Structural Engineer in 15 years in Barbados. I then trained others, including my competitors, to successfully achieve the same international qualification.

Our firm became the first service company in the Caribbean to attain the ISO 9001 quality management standard, for which we won the BIDC’s Exceptional Quality award. I subsequently worked on projects worth over $500,000,000 over the next 5 years, and earned foreign currency in 10 Caribbean countries.

I continue to benefit from following that plan. For several years, over 80% of my earnings were in foreign currency. It was principally due to that plan that I was the 2014 winner of the National Innovation Competition, and president of Walbrent College.

When the economic ruin of Barbados was foreseen, I prepared an economic growth plan and tried to share it with the last DLP administration, but they would not listen. That growth plan became the backbone of Solutions Barbados’ economic plan, where we could repay all of our local and foreign creditors in full, by growing the national economy for the benefit of all, not just the few. The plan’s only vulnerability was political corruption; hence the reason for a contract against corruption for Solutions Barbados candidates.

We appealed to the national watch dogs to honestly evaluate all plans, including ours, but they would not. The BCCI responded by passing a new regulation to exclude everyone except members of Parliament from talking to their members about the economy. (Are they not the least capable to do so?).  ICAB, BES and BBA followed BCCI’s lead by refusing to allow us anywhere near their members, and the established media essentially shut us out.

I write 52 articles every year, but only a handful ever make it past their editors. So, we post our articles on Facebook to this limited audience, and appreciate everyone who reads, comments or shares.

After their shameful politically partisan behaviour, our national watchdogs are timidly suggesting to the BLP that in the midst of their celebrations, they should perhaps consider thinking about strategies to grow the national economy. They should either tell us something that we do not already know – or go back to sleep.

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

The Grenville Phillips Column – Eyes Wide Shut

Solving crime in Barbados is analogous to a man sitting next to a functioning water faucet and complaining about being thirsty.  However, rather than turning on the faucet, he encourages others to complain with him.

We already know what to do about crime, but we refuse to do it because it is so much easier to simply complain, and commission meaningless studies to make it appear as if we are doing something useful.  We have tolerated the collateral damage for decades, and watched the anguish of crime victims, but we have chosen to do nothing meaningful except talk and complain – why?

We know the root cause of why our students gravitate to a life of crime.  It is primarily because we have designed a school curriculum to make most graduates leave school with no marketable skills.

We know why our school-leavers gravitate to a life of crime.  It is primarily because we have accepted a method of teaching that reinforces the lie that learning complex information is reserved for the few, and that the majority will forever be excluded from that few.

Solutions Barbados has advised both administrations on how to rearrange the school curriculum, so that the easier-to-learn, more exciting practical aspects of subjects can be taught before the more complex theoretical aspects.  Therefore, the entire curriculum will still be taught, but in a way that benefits all students, not just the few.  However, complaining requires significantly less effort.

We seem not to care about the damage that we have done to the self-esteem of most of our school leavers, leaving them vulnerable to being led into a life of crime, drugs and prostitution, because they believe that there is no realistic alternative to acquiring wealth.

We can easily find the drugs and guns if we wanted to, but evidently, we do not want to.  How else can we explain how the least educated school drop-outs can find these illicit things with minimal effort, but our highly trained experts and highly paid consultants claim to have no clue whatsoever.  The simple answer is that they are terrified of exposing what they are likely to find, so they prefer to play it safe and see nothing, rather than suffer the consequences of being courageous and honest.

I cannot blame them for being terrified, but they are solely responsible for their dishonesty.  Anyone who wants to know what the real Barbados is like under the curtain, need only start a political party and run in the next general election, or listen to those who have done so.

The only persons who can meaningfully address Barbados’ crime situation are our Members of Parliament.  They will only do so if they choose to.  For decades, they have chosen not to, and have instead pacified an alarmed public with effective speeches.  Sometimes, the police would be allowed to make examples of a few token criminals.

Solutions Barbados’ policy on the symptoms of crime is to make every offense carry a fine of 10 times its value.  This cost is to be used to compensate the victims and pay for the criminal justice system.  The criminal justice system is designed to serve offenders.  Therefore, they should pay for their service.

Those who plead guilty should not have to pay for a full-service, but a settlement of 3 times the value of the offence.  Those who cannot afford to pay their fines will work them off in providing labour to the nation.  For example, in restoring the Empire Theatre, and other state properties.  Imprisonment is to be reserved for violent offenders and those who choose not to attend work.

Like all effective solutions, these are simple, but not simplistic.  History has shown that simple solutions tend to be initially opposed, but through persistence, the public may eventually benefit.  The unnecessary delays tend to be caused by a small group of individuals who remain in their armchairs, loudly complain, and criticise any measure that either risks their sociopathic emotional high from watching others suffer, or their prominent positions.

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados.  He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

The Grenville Phillips Column – Finish Your Training

Regardless of what we are pursuing in this life, we all need encouragement to keep going.  If no one is encouraging you, then be encouraged by someone who reached the mountain top and was able to put life in perspective.  The following is my paraphrase of Simon Peter’s final letter (2 Peter) written shortly before he was executed for speaking the truth.

My dear fellow Trainees:

Our Employer has graciously given us everything that we need to complete our training, and He has promised us that all the training exercises are achievable once we start with the right attitude.  If you are committed to becoming productive employees, then please read the employee manual so that you may understand the Employer’s standards of work and behaviour.  With this knowledge you can then begin practising the exercises.  You may find them challenging at first, but please do not become discouraged.  They will eventually become easier if you persist with them.

Once you have become proficient in the exercises, then please encourage your work colleagues and teach them everything that you have learnt.  Your own training will be complete when you have unselfishly helped to train enough of your colleagues.

Please try to encourage those who find the exercises challenging, especially if they seem discouraged.  If they give up, they may never develop the confidence that comes with completing an exercise, and will probably develop a fear of failure or a crippling belief that such exercises are unachievable.

I have completed my training and will shortly be leaving this department.  However, before I go, allow me to give you some important advice. I hope that after I am gone, you will reread this letter to remind and encourage you during your own period of training.

Firstly. Please understand that the Company is not a myth or a cunningly devised fable. I personally know the Chief Executive Officer, and I heard when the Employer confirmed his appointment. The Employer Himself actually dictated the employee manual for your benefit.

Secondly. Please be aware that some members of your class may not appreciate the purposes of the training exercises, or they will think that the exercises are too challenging, irrelevant, or unachievable.  They will then try to promote their own low standards of productivity.  Unfortunately, this will only ensure that they and those who they mislead are unprepared for the work of the Company, and they will find themselves unemployable after their time of training has expired.

If those promoting low standards are able to influence most of the class in unproductive behaviour, then the Employer may have to take drastic measures.  He has had to do this at least three times in the past.

The first time was when a vice-president and some associates attempted to take-over the Company and they were fired.  The second was when the entire student body rejected the training and the Employer had to wash down the facility.  The third was when a class engaged in abominable behaviour and the Employer had to sanitise the classroom.  However, if you remain faithful to your training, despite the unproductive influences around you, then you will be retained.

Those who try to frustrate your training are ignorant, presumptuous and self-willed.  Most of them only attend the training classes to impress and seduce those of the opposite sex with smooth words. They continually try to entice others away from their training and promise them a fun time, while they are actually addicted to corrupting behaviour that prevents them from attaining any reasonable level of productivity.

Both the enticer and the enticed will become unemployable, just like those who refuse to start training and instead, waste all of their precious time on the playground.  If a person starts training and then becomes addicted to corrupt practises, then it is better if they had not commenced training at all.

Thirdly. Please remember that the Employer’s expansion project will commence. However, He is waiting patiently, and He will suffer delays and be inconvenienced for as long as practically possible for you. You see, He has no desire that those who are not training properly, or those who are not training at all should be destined for unemployment. He is desperately hoping that those on the playground, and those playing the fool in the classroom will commence and complete their training respectively.

Since the expansion project will start, please prepare yourself for the wonderful responsibilities that you will receive upon completion of your training, and do not be distracted by those who have no interest in your future.  Above all, grow in the favour and knowledge of our Chief Executive Officer, Jesus Christ.

Good-bye.

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados.  He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

The Grenville Phillips Column – Judgement Day

Today’s weekly article is in response to recent questions about my motives for founding Solutions Barbados. I believe that everyone’s actions attract consequences. This belief is based on Jesus’ promise that He will reward us for the beneficial consequences of our responsible actions, and judge us for the harmful consequences of our irresponsible actions. Part of this judgement follows.

“Then He (Jesus) will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’

“Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matt 25:41-46)

In my youth, Jesus’ warning was motivation enough for me to try to avoid doing the wrong, and actively do the right. As I accepted responsibilities that impacted others, I intentionally designed plans with the main criterion of not causing harm, for the same reason.

I believe that there is a separate judgement for politicians who oppress others. This belief is based on the description of their judgement recorded in Enoch.

“And all the kings and the mighty and the exalted and those who rule the earth shall fall down before Him on their faces, and worship and set their hope upon that Son of Man, and petition Him and supplicate for mercy at His hands.”

“Nevertheless that Lord of Spirits will so press them that they shall hastily go forth from His presence, and their faces shall be filled with shame, and the darkness grow deeper on their faces. And He will deliver them to the angels for punishment, to execute vengeance on them because they have oppressed His children and His elect.” (Enoch 62: 9-11)

Since people can be oppressed through economic measures that leave them homeless, hungry, or imprisoned, I had no intention of attracting judgement to myself by mismanaging Barbados’ economy. There seems to be a special place in hell reserved for politicians whose policies harm others, and I was determined to avoid that place.

“Hell from beneath is excited about you, to meet you at your coming; It stirs-up the dead for you, all the chief ones of the earth; It has raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. They all shall speak and say to you: ‘Have you also become as weak as we? Have you become like us? (Isa 14:9-10)

I did not have good examples to follow. Both the BLP and DLP appear to have generally pursued the same 5-point economic strategy of: raising taxes, laying-off the supporters of the other party, employing their own supporters, giving donors corrupting no-bid contracts, and placing the country further in debt.

Both parties were aware that their strategy was not sustainable and would eventually ruin Barbados’ economy. However, they would not change their ways. With only 2 main political parties, our democracy forced them to play a game of musical chairs. Each of them desperately hoped that they would not be seated when the music stopped, and oppressive policies would be required.

To avoid the foreseen mass suffering, we designed an economic recovery plan that provided over $1B surplus revenues within our first year, without raising taxes, without laying off any public workers or reducing their salaries, and without any external borrowing. We achieved this by growing the national economy, improving the management of public services, generally reducing taxes, and effectively addressing corruption.

I tried sharing it with the last administration. However, in response to various armchair advisors at that time, former Prime Minister Stuart gave the criterion of being willing to be judged as a politician, as the qualification for reviewing economic advice. To qualify, we started Solutions Barbados on 1 July 2015 and published our entire plan for public scrutiny the same day.

During the last general election, DLP evidently did their best to avoid the seat when the music stopped. However, the BLP convinced the electorate that they had examined all plans, and that theirs was the best. The public believed them. Now we know that this was not true.

Dr Greenidge of BERT, recently publicly admitted that they did not look at any of the non-austerity plans when developing their severe austerity plan. When I asked whether they would now look at our plan to spare the public any further suffering, there was a resounding no.

To date, the media have decided not to report these critical public admissions. Instead, they have taken the politically partisan decision to promote severe austerity as the only solution. Solutions Barbados continues to exist because the non-austerity solution is still workable, despite the IMF agreement.

If severe austerity was the only solution, then I would join the news media in promoting it. But I know better. The suffering that many have endured under BERT Phase 1, and are about to endure under BERT Phases 2 to 4, is entirely unnecessary. It is still possible to meet the IMF targets without the planned austerity.

Our plan was independently verified as workable without the need for austerity. However, the national associations, whom we approached to also review it, appeared too invested in having the BLP govern, that they provided ridiculous reasons for not reviewing our plan, and not allowing us anywhere near their members.

If any action that I am a part of is found to be oppressive, then I would seeking the public’s assistance for an alternative. If after public consultation oppression was found to be unavoidable, then I would be prepared to make that my defence on judgement day.

None of the Solutions Barbados policies are oppressive, and either Party can implement them. All Members of Parliament are responsible for implementing the best plans for Barbados, regardless of which Party developed them. Before the implementation of BERT Phase 2, all Members of Parliament are well-advised to examine our plan, if for no other reason than to save themselves from an undesirable destiny.

 

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

The Grenville Phillips Column – A Year of Plenty

For those who took advantage of our free public workshops in starting and growing a successful business with no money, this will be an exciting year for you.  Everything has already been provided for you to prosper during this time of severe austerity, so go forth and prosper.

For others, the only thing holding you back from prospering is you.  Selfish politicians, employers, managers, and work colleagues will always exist.  They are not holding you back, unless you allow them to by blaming them for your situation.  Do not fret about them because they will regretfully reap what they are sowing.  Let me explain that.

We spend our entire lives on Earth planting seeds, cultivating what we have planted, and reaping what we have cultivated.  Our seeds will either benefit us and others or they will not.  Therefore, it is wise to plant good seeds to help your future self.

We cannot reap unless we go through the habitual routine of cultivating.  If you have planted good seeds, then expect to be criticised and ridiculed for continuing to do what is right and responsible, despite long periods with no apparent results to show for your efforts.  Being responsible is an investment in yourself and others.

Eventually, you will reap.  While you reap, continue planting new responsible seeds, and keep cultivating.  In this manner, you will continually reap good things.  These seasons of sowing, cultivating and reaping occur in every area of your life.  However, I have observed that persons tend to reap the fruit of bad seeds much sooner than the fruit of good seeds.

The New Year is typically a time of sowing good ideas in areas of your health, relationships and business.  You sow by making determined decisions.  You cultivate by implementing plans, either carefully or carelessly.  You reap intentionally, otherwise the cultivation effort can be wasted.

You can make good decisions about your health, like eating less processed foods and more whole foods.  You can also make good decisions about your relationships, like being more helpful and polite, and trying to represent those who are unfairly disadvantaged.  You can also make good decisions about improving the management of your business.

Here are some tips to invest in your future self while helping others.  Eat more ground provisions grown in Barbados, and less imported processed foods.  If you are in a supermarket line and there is an elderly person in front of you, then quietly offer to pay for their goods.  If you are paying a utility bill and there is an elderly person behind you, then overpay with an instruction to the cashier to apply it the elderly person‘s bill.

You want to treat others the way that you want to be treated.  In your old age, do you want others to assist you in your time of need?  Well, invest in your future self by helping others in their time of need today.  I can guarantee that you will feel the approval of your Heavenly Father as you become His means of assisting one of His creation.  If you work for God in this manner, then it is highly unlikely that you will experience lack.

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados.  He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

The Grenville Phillips Column – A Year of Empty

Jesus explained that we only have two paths before us, namely, the broad way of irresponsible behaviour that most choose, and the narrow and more challenging way of responsible behaviour.  I believe that when we reach our individual ages of accountability, we are each given 3 virtual bags containing the good deeds, encouraging words and healings that we are to empty before we go to the great beyond.

Every one of us have plenty of opportunities to give out of our bags, but something holds us back.  Something tells us that if we meaningfully help someone else, or say an encouraging word, or speak a blessing, that we would be ridiculed.  Imagine that.  We have been deceived into thinking that being responsible is something to be ashamed of or embarrassed about.

We are to receive no earthly benefit for most of the good things that we do, because we are to do them in secret.  Jesus said that our good deeds must be so private that figuratively, our left hand does not know what our right hand is doing.

During this time of severe austerity in Barbados, we have many opportunities to give out of our bag of good deeds to help those in desperate need.  Let us resist the temptation to selfishly guard our time and other resources for our own use.  It would be tragic, for us, to squander such opportunities.

As we interact with others, we will be tempted to withhold our compliments, advice, and encouragement out of a fear of how they may be received – we may even cringe at the very thought of saying something nice.  How it is received is not our responsibility, emptying that bag is.  Therefore, tell your loved ones that you love them, compliment persons for their efforts, and encourage persons to do what is right.

All three bags are to be emptied together, so we must also empty the contents of that third bag – the blessings.  We will be tempted to avoid blessing others because it may appear awkward if the blessing is not realised.  Again, the result is not our responsibility, emptying the bag is.

I follow my own best advice that I freely give to others, so I am happy and content with reason.  Two days ago, I was thanking God with a heart overflowing with gratitude, while walking towards my car after shopping in Bridgetown on Christmas Eve.  I happily realised that if I could choose any car in the parking lot, that I would honestly choose mine without reservation.

I then realised that if I could choose any house on this planet, that I would happily choose the one we built.  I then reflected further – and gingerly.  I slowly contemplated that if I could choose any woman on this planet, that, after deeper and honest contemplation, and with God, who knows all of my thoughts as my singular witness, I would genuinely choose my wife.  I asked God that I not outlive her, and I have already put my house in order for that eventuality.

I continue to improve myself so that I can better serve others, which is why I am currently pursuing a Doctorate in Engineering in addition to my other duties.  So, I write this blessing to every person who reads this.  May you be empty so that you may be full.

May you prosper financially during this time of severe austerity in Barbados, so that you will have abundance to assist those in desperate need.  May you be in good health and be healed of any and all diseases or ailments, so that your testimony may increase the trust others have in God’s love for them.

May you understand all information that you read, hear and perceive.  May your ability to analyse this information far exceed my own abilities (hence the reason for revealing my studies).  May you be filled with wisdom from above that may be applied to this analysed information so that the productive result will benefit you, your family, and everyone who follows your best advice.  All of this I write in the name of Jesus, our Messiah, the Son of God, Yeshua.

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados.  He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

Christmas Message – Don’t Be Foolish

In this time of austerity, it is important to be reminded of Jesus’ encouragement to hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.  Jesus taught this through his story about a planned wedding.  Ten virgins were supposed to walk with their oil-lamps burning during the ceremony.

Five of the virgins assumed that the bridal plans would run as scheduled, and only carried enough oil in their lamps that would last for the duration of their assignment.  The other five hoped that everything would run as scheduled, but took additional oil just in case the plans failed.

We are living under the Government’s BERT plan.  It was promoted as 18 months of severe austerity, and we have one year left.  We were told to bear the suffering for the remaining 12 months and then all will be well.  Given the general agreement that the BERT plan has been implemented with a high level of incompetence, we would be wise to plan for the worst regardless of our expectations.

After the initial set of layoffs during BERT’s first phase, Solutions Barbados offered free public workshops in starting and growing a successful business with no start-up money.  We will hold additional free training workshops after the next set of mass layoffs during BERT’s second phase.  As repeatedly explained during the training, you need to help your future self.

In 5 years, you can be trained to become anything you wish, and 5 years goes by very quickly.  Therefore, you are well-advised to start your training now.  This Christmas is an opportunity for spending on others.  Please do not squander this opportunity.

Purchase gifts to help others to start or grow their business.  If someone is a mason, then purchase a laser level to help increase productivity.  Give gifts like additional memory for digital equipment, higher capacity tools, printer cartridges or fuel gift cards.  Love your neighbours in this manner this Christmas.

Please resist the temptation to be foolish this Christmas.   Jesus gave a ratio of 5 wise to 5 foolish.  Given the pattern of shopping observed this Christmas, that ratio may hold true for us in Barbados.  Why would anyone purchase a limited-use toy or ornament or drapes in a time of severe austerity?  Why not purchase some tools for yourself and make a better toy, or a sewing machine and make better drapes?

How will an expensive necklace, bracelet, watch or pendant help someone to become more productive?  We all need to wise up.  Of course, all husbands are exempt from this criticism – their productivity depends on them spending foolishly.  On behalf of the 17 candidates of Solutions Barbados, Merry Christmas.

 

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados.  He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

The Grenville Phillips Column – The Road to Hell

As a teenager visiting the Plaza cinema to watch Kung Fu movies, there was always at least one unruly person who put his feet on the chair in front of him and behaved badly. During those times, I would wonder where the adults were.

I remember promising myself that when I reached 30 years of age, I would be the adult whom I expected to intervene. Since reaching that milestone, I have tried to keep that promise in defense of others. It is one of the reasons why I entered politics, and is the main reason why I write these weekly articles.

During my career, I have witnessed much wickedness in high places. The level of corruption is so shocking that anyone reading about it could not be faulted for concluding that it was fiction.

In 1995, Transparency International (TI) published their first Corruption Perceptions Index report, which exposed the extent of corruption globally. They published their second report in 1996. The Caribbean was not included in these early reports, but it was only a matter of time before TI would focus on the Caribbean.

In an act of pure coincidence, in 1997 our parliamentarians effectively discouraged any public discussion of corruption by passing the Defamation Act. Under this act, anyone who revealed genuine cases of corruption, with incontrovertible evidence, could be found guilty of defamation and punished accordingly. However, the Act protects politicians if they talked about it in parliament.

Not long ago, I attended a committee meeting of a statutory corporation, where some members were formally discussing giving a no-bid contract to a contractor. I stated that what they were proposing was corruption. There was a very heated exchange – the fellow actually rose to his feet to fight me. They seemed completely unaware of what corruption actually was, but were highly offended at being associated with it.
The corrupt operate in the secret political economy, which is normally exclusively reserved for political supporters in exchange for bribes. The way of corruption is for Ministers to instruct that no-bid contracts should be awarded to specific companies.
Inexperienced Ministers tend to deceive themselves by their good intentions. They tend to stumble onto the path of corruption by trying to justify allowing no-bid contracts. The current BLP administration has many inexperienced Ministers just waiting to stumble, and I am trying my best to prevent them from falling.
A root cause of our economic problems is the corrupting practise of Ministers directing no-bid contracts. The DLP made themselves highly offensive with that deplorable practise over the past decade. Shockingly, the BLP appear to be carrying on where the DLP left off, but in an even more brazen manner, as if that were even possible.
Last week, many BLP parliamentarians delighted their supporters by accusing the last DLP administration of gross corruption. Ironically, during the same week, the BLP appeared to play the hypocrite by announcing several major no-bid contracts, and they had the gall to boast about it. No! No! No! No! No! and ten thousand times No! We simply cannot go down that road again. All of this austerity cannot be in vain.
Has the BLP learnt nothing from the DLP’s unconscionable behaviour? Why is the government persisting, even more brazenly, with this corrupting political economy? Why is the government intentionally disqualifying competent companies from tendering for tax-payer funded projects? Why is the government shielding politically favoured companies from competing? Are the Ministers aware that when they give no-bid contracts, the public tends to pay many times over for the resulting bad work and bad advice?
Let me write directly to the BLP’s inexperienced parliamentarians. We have been here many times before. We are sick of the ‘good intentions’ excuses that have been used to justify keeping a political economy for the exclusive use of the Party’s politically protected companies. The end never justifies the corrupting means – ever.
I implore you to reject the political economy and the way of the corrupting no-bid contracts. Those who go down that road rarely find their way back, since they sell their souls to the master corrupter who will not easily let them go. Expect some political supporters to demand their pre-paid share of the political economy from you.
They will pressure you to award them no-bid contracts with the typical excuse of urgency. Once you have been tricked into starting down that dark road, the nation will suffer. Companies who bully their way to the trough of the political economy, knowingly disqualify the most competent companies from tendering on government contracts. They should be utterly ashamed of themselves.
You will also be pressured into believing that it is specialist work that only they can do. Unless they own the patent, or have an exclusive-use contract for the technology, then that is a well-worn lie from the very pit of hell. Why not challenge their ridiculous assertion by allowing a competitive tender? What is the possible benefit to yourselves or the country of disqualifying the country’s most competent companies from tendering? I expect an answer to this question from each of you.
There is no right way to do wrong things, and giving no-bid major contracts is definitely wrong. Further, giving no-bid contracts in a depressed economy is so far beyond wrong as to qualify as satanic.

I implore you, repent of this evil and do right things. In your manifesto, every one of you promised, on your sacred honour, that you would provide a Contractor General to review government contracts and those of State Owned Enterprises. You have had enough time to establish this critical post, yet you have failed to do so. What happened? Was this another initiative that must be a sacrificed casualty of the unnecessary BERT austerity plan? Have you even read that secret plan?

Your options are simple. Either repent and terminate those corrupting no-bid contracts and allow a fair tender process, or be deceived with your ‘good intentions’ and continue down the road to hell.

 

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

Solutions Barbados Independence Message

Happy Independence Barbados.  The sacrifices of past generations have brought us to the place where we should be able to succeed in Barbados.  One year from now you should be able to look back at this 53rd year of our independence and honestly say that it was your best year ever – despite the severe austerity.

For you to make such a declaration, you must decide now to be and do your best.  You must determine that you will be the best son or daughter, sibling, parent, spouse, employer, employee, and friend that you can be.

There will always be challenges in each of these spheres of your existence.  That is part of being human and living in a community.  You will always make mistakes and so will others, even when everyone is doing their best.

There are things that you can change for the better and things that you cannot, and must simply accept.  Therefore, your first step in making this your best year ever is to determine that you will do your best regardless of what mistakes others may make.

In Barbados, our Government has mistakenly led us on an unnecessary path of severe austerity, to our harm.  Solutions Barbados published elegant solutions that were independently assessed to achieve over $1B surplus during our first year, without laying off any public workers, reducing their salaries or seeking external funding.  We then spent 3 years sharing it with whomever would listen.

Regrettably, both established political parties chose not to listen.  So we must all accept their severe austerity of: mass layoffs, increases in the cost of living, and inefficient delivery of poor quality public services.  This is inevitable because of the mistaken belief in the heresy that our elected politicians are gods, who can simply speak things into being.

God speaks things into being.  We humans cannot do that by ourselves.  When we speak a command, we must have a management system for implementing what we have announced, otherwise we look foolish.

Without a proper management system, we will simply declare that garbage collection will improve, but it will not.  We will declare that the bus service will improve, but it will not.  We will declare that health and educational services will improve, but they will not.  We will declare that laid-off persons will be sent home with money, but they will not.

People may try to implement the announced edicts as best as they can, but without a proper management method to guide them, the public must endure the foreseen and inevitable harmful consequences.

All external assessors who analyse Barbados’ economy have concluded that our main problems is the poor management of public services.  We have known this for over 20 years, yet both political administrations made the grave error of rejecting the international quality management standard, which has significantly improved the public services of other countries.  Instead, both administrations adopted, and we must all tolerate, a very low standard.

For this to be our best year ever, we must accept their gross errors, and do our best in response.  The sooner we accept that our success does not depend on the benefits or mistakes of anyone, the faster we will get on the path to success.

For those who have been, or are soon to be laid off, here is my best advice.  Place your uncertain hand in the trustworthy hand of our Creator, and perform every responsibility you are given with excellence, whether it is recognised by others or not.

Grenville Phillips II is the President of Solutions Barbados.  He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

The Grenville Phillips Column – Not Long for This World

All national economies are affected, either for good or bad, by politicians.  Our parliamentarians get to decide whether the national economy will be fair or corrupted.

The Government collects taxes, and then spends a significant amount of our taxes to purchase products for our benefit.  These products include cars, hospital equipment, cleaning services, spare parts, and consultants’ services, and are purchased with Government contracts.

A fair national economy is one where all citizens can have an equal opportunity to participate.  This means that Government contracts for these products are open to all Barbadian companies, and the winner is selected by a fair competitive tender.  The national economy becomes corrupted when Government Ministers arrange for contracts to be given to persons who fund their political campaigns.

Since our independence, there has always been a component of Barbados’ economy called the ‘political economy’, which is reserved exclusively for persons who fund political campaigns, and expect Government contracts in return.  Both political administrations have maintained this corrupt political economy for their joint benefit.

Once this corrupt political economy remains relatively small, then its impact on the national economy is negligible.  Those who choose not to participate in the corrupt political economy believe that they can do nothing to stop it.  It is generally understood that anyone who speaks about it will not be long for this world.

Countries do not tend to get into unsustainable debts by meeting the basic needs of their citizens.  Instead, they tend to get into such debts due to the greed of their elected politicians, who grow the corrupt political economy to the point where it structurally damages the national economy.

Barbados passed that tipping point decades ago.  The likely time was identified in Moody’s 13 Oct 2009 downgrade report as 20 years ago.  A section from that first downgrade report under the then new DLP administration follows [emphasis mine].

“Barbados’ KEY DEBT INDICATORS have been on a deteriorating path OVER THE PAST DECADE [1999-2009], and are now at levels that compare poorly with other countries in the same rating category,” said Moody’s Vice President – Senior Analyst Alessandra Alecci. “While the global crisis has clearly exacerbated this trend, the worsening of debt indicators OVER A LONG PERIOD OF TIME suggests that STRUCTURAL ISSUES are at play. … These include a steady increase in expenditures, INCLUDING OFF-BUDGET, as revenues have remained at roughly the same level in terms of GDP.”

To my knowledge, back in 1999, DLP Leader Clyde Mascoll was the only person in Barbados warning us of the potentially corrupting “off-budget” no-bid contracts being awarded by the BLP administration, and the resulting unsustainable debt.  After he defected to the BLP, magically those became “good debts” and the corrupt political economy became mythical.

When it was the DLP’s inevitable turn to form the Government (since there were only two players in the game), they continued this practise to such an extreme level, that it seemed that the corrupt political economy was all that remained.  It is now the BLP’s turn and it is left to be seen whether they will maintain the political economy at the DLP’s extreme level, or eliminate it.

When a Government decides who wins in Barbados’ economy, it automatically decides who loses.  By repeatedly choosing the worst companies as winners, and the best as losers, that Government can irreparably damage the national economy.

Businesses that decide to participate in the corrupt political economy do not need to provide good-quality products, because they are shielded from competition.  Therefore, the public must pay additional taxes for the increasingly poor-quality public services that use these products.  Frustrated public workers at the lower end, who are forced to use these sub-standard products, can be wrongfully accused of being inefficient and wasteful.

Since public workers seem to be forbidden from defending themselves publicly, they gain little public sympathy.  Therefore, it becomes easier to justify replacing them with new political supporters at the start of each new political administration.

For three years, Solutions Barbados offered to improve the economy by lowering taxes and abolishing the corrupt political economy.  The details were published for critical public review.  In response, the BLP claimed that Solutions Barbados was not the only political party that planned to effectively address corruption, and promised to meaningfully address it also.

With the support of an inexcusably irresponsible news media, who actively suppressed Solutions Barbados’ consistent message and all of its 28 candidates, the voters rejected the DLP and elected the BLP to fix the mess.  It still needs fixing, and the BLP has been allowed an unprecedented unhindered opportunity to do what they promised, namely, to punish corrupt politicians and end the corrupting practise of no-bid contracts.  The people can judge their progress for themselves.

If the corrupt political economy is not abolished, then expect Solutions Barbados to once more offer over 20 candidates to the people as a competent alternative.  The voters can then finally decide what type of Barbados they want for themselves and their children.

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados.  He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

The Grenville Phillips Column – Cowards of the Highest Order

Some soldiers are so terrified of the horrors of war, that they intentionally harm themselves so that they can be transported away from the battlefield and receive priority medical treatment.  I am very sympathetic to soldiers who have been prematurely deployed to the battlefield.  A properly trained soldier has accepted the responsibility of defending citizens, which may require the ultimate sacrifice of death.

The Government encouraged us to prepare for our old-age by making National Insurance Scheme (NIS) contributions and investing in pension plans.  We were told that we could confidently invest in our future this way because the NIS Board consisted of eminently qualified persons.

The NIS Board has one main responsibility, which is to protect the money that should be paid to us in our old-age.  The NIS Board decided to lend our money to the Government.  The Government had difficulty in repaying what was owed to us.  As lender acting on our behalf, the NIS Board could easily have allowed the Government to repay our money over a longer repayment period, given the state of the national economy.  That would be acting in both our interests and the Government’s.

Shockingly, our eminent NIS Board members voted to allow the Government never to repay approximately $800M of our money.  What could have possessed them to harm us like this?

If they were intimidated by having their families threatened, then I could understand why they appeared to betray us.  However, once they were forced to vote against our best interests, they should have resigned.  If they are already compromised, then why are they loitering on the NIS Board pretending to represent our interests?

The Banks managing our pension plans knew that voting against our interests would harm us financially, but they did it anyway.  However, unlike the NIS Board members who may be subject to intimidation, all of our banks are foreign owned.  What possible reason could they offer for acting so cowardly?

Their decision to vote against our best interests means that they also voted against theirs.  Why would they do something so lunatic?  How can that level of cowardice inspire any confidence in their banks?  Why would anyone want to deposit money in cowardly banks who chose not to fight for depositors or themselves?

The banks are now recouping their losses by greedily charging us higher banking fees, but none of that money goes to our pension funds.  Based on their politically partisan behaviour during the last general election, the only rational reason for their decision to harm us financially, appears to be that they are still politically compromised.

The NIS Board and Barbados based banks would not have had to make the decision to financially harm us if the BLP administration had the courage to fight for us, rather than critically wounding us by defaulting on foreign loans.

Once the BLP administration had economically ruined us, they rushed us to the IMF, who made a quick decision to operate.  Now they have the gall to boast about how fast they got the doctor to see us – after they figuratively shot us in the gut.  Are they serious?

The politically compromised radio and newspapers have lost all journalistic integrity as they defend every irresponsible action of the BLP administration as brave and caring.  Are they mad?  What is so brave about defaulting on a loan?  Any idiot can do that.  It takes courage, creativity and perseverance to make those payments, especially after losing your job.

What is so brave and caring about laying-off people.  Any simpleton can do that.  It takes intelligence to properly manage people to be productive, and there seems to be none of that in BERT.  What is so brave and caring about raising taxes.  The most incompetent among us can easily do the same.  It takes bravery to lower taxes, and intelligence to provide an enabling economic environment where low-taxed persons can thrive.

Unfortunately, BERT’s demonstrated incompetence appears to be just the start of things to come.  Despite being fully aware that there are non-austerity alternatives to their severe austerity plan, BERT refuses to consider any of them.  That would normally be front-page news of a media outlet committed to truthfully informing the public.  But not our news media who appear to shamelessly play the role of propaganda-arm of the BLP administration.

Our sycophant news media refuse to report on any non-austerity plan, including Solutions Barbados’.  Instead, they continue to mislead the public that the mass suffering of Barbadians is the necessary and only solution. They are dead wrong and cowards of the highest order.

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados.  He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

The Grenville Phillips Column – Prospering During Sufferation

We are the victims of an intense propaganda campaign, designed to mislead us into thinking that mass-suffering is the only economic solution for Barbados. It is not. It is like an overweight person being advised by surgeons, that the only method of losing weight is to traumatise the body by surgically removing excess fat. There is a proven non-traumatic solution of diet and exercise.

The proven non-austerity methods of lowering taxes, eliminating corruption and properly managing public services, can conservatively achieve a surplus of over $1B in the first year. However, despite the Prime Minister’s promise that all ideas would be allowed to contend, only the most severe austerity methods proposed by the BERT economic surgeons were allowed to contend. So, families need to prepare to survive.

The advice that I am sharing in this week’s column was to be shared with the approximately 3,000 Bees sent home under the DLP administration. However, the all-aboard unions would not allow me anyway near their laid-off members. Now that it is the BLP’s turn to send home Dees, let me bypass the unions and make the offer public.

Whether you have left school with many or no academic certificates, or whether you have been laid-off, fired, or never worked, this advice is for you. We are offering a 4-month employment-preparation workshop, where you will be practically finished to be a productive employee or self-employed person.

Our training assumes that you dropped out of school in first form. Therefore, regardless of how poorly you performed at school, you can achieve a practical standard of competence and confidence in: reading, writing, speaking, drawing, calculating, reasoning, planning, managing, innovating and creating. You will also be trained to conduct business in Barbados, and to take advantage of favourable tax treaties with the US.

It will be an intense 4 months of training, where results are guaranteed to those who do the work. Therefore, only participate if you are serious. If you are participating, but there is no improvement, then the fault is not yours, but ours. The aim of the training is that every graduate will find employment, or become self-employed and earn foreign currency.

You may register anytime during October 2018 for a start date of Monday 5th November 2018. Register by sending an e-mail to NextParty246@gmail.com giving your name. There is no cost for those who register.

Parents whose children are not working, should encourage them to register. Persons who recently got out of prison and cannot find a job, should register. Persons in entry-level positions who think that they will rise no higher definitely need to register. Employers who have unproductive but honest employees that they wish to retain should encourage them to register. Anyone who plans to pursue illegal acts because they think that that is the only way to make money better register.

Those Bees that were sent home under the DLP, and the Dees preparing to go home under this administration are encouraged to register. Every unemployed person on a block should register. It is time to prosper during this manufactured and unnecessary sufferation.

I will be responsible for your training. My approximately 30-year diverse engineering career, together with my 8 years of formal teaching as President of Walbrent College, including as a volunteer teacher to inmates at HMP Dodds, has prepared me to take highly complex information and explain it in a simple manner, so that everyone can understand. As the 2014 winner of the National Innovation Competition and a successful business owner, I do not just talk the talk.

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer, President of Walbrent College and founder of Solutions Barbados. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

Solutions Barbados Presentation on Integrity in Public Life Bill to Select Committee

Dear Sir:

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the joint committee on Friday 7th September 2018. It is a mark of political maturity to allow the public to comment on bills that may affect them, before they are passed into law.

It is important that legislation does what is intended, and prevents what is not intended, but which may be inadvertently allowed. To this end, the Integrity in Public Life bill was scrutinised to determine how vulnerable it was to having:

Read FULL PRESENTATION made to the joint select committee in the Senate by Grenville Phillips and Kenneth Lewis.