WORDS COUNT, BUT ACTIONS MATTER

It is simple – words count and actions matter.

That is a lesson for life and a clear tribute to how all people should live and want to interact with others in this complicated world in which we live.

This island has been in the midst of an unprecedented spike in COVID-19 cases, despite for months being extremely lucky in the amount of positive cases which we had recorded.

This coincided with the influx of travellers into the country, whether they were returning nationals or visitors to this fair land and spikes had to be expected. With the variant of the disease exploding in one of our most trusted markets for visitor arrivals, then we should have anticipated that we could have faced an increase in cases, but did we do enough to mitigate this eventuality?

What we are hearing is that activities surrounding the Christmas holidays, may have contributed to the explosion of cases. Major attention was paid to the bus crawl – low hanging fruit; however other clusters, particularly, the West Coast have been glossed over by some who have been communicating with the country, which was not comparable to the attention which was being paid to the bus crawl nor the activities on Paradise Beach on Boxing Day.

Why is that?

The country was lectured to by the Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley about the concept of ‘fake news’ in what I will gracefully term as a ‘wide ranging address’ last week, which stood out mainly because of the tough words on what has been said or posted recently by some on various platforms.

There is no excuse for the presentation of ‘fake news’ or the concept of misleading information, but some caution has to be exercised and a degree of contrite self-reflection.   

It can be argued that the period of 2013-2018, saw a massive rise in information related to targeting government Ministers, which was arguably designed to undermine their credibility and effectiveness in office and there was no rush to declare that ‘fake news’ was unwarranted, unnecessary and that the time to come together as a country was far more important than scoring cheap political points.

In fact, the abandonment of the principles of allowing a Government the chance to execute policies was deemed as necessary to protect the country’s economy from collapse. While the country dealt with the prospects of low economic growth and high debt, citizens were told that the realities were due to poor governance, lack of accountability and no transparency.   

Some believed that only through protest could the country be saved. A march against a Municipal Solid Waste Tax was led on a day when Cabinet was meeting, yet it was all part of the civic responsibility to speak out when you are upset.

We saw in the United States what happens, when what was a branch of Government is meeting and an agitated group which was told that they were being unfairly taxed, marched mere feet away from where Cabinet was meeting, all for the photo opportunity of presenting a petition to the Prime Minister. So where is the petition on behalf of the public for a significant increase in water bills, where in some cases, the price of the consumed water is exceeded by the tax per day. Is this fair governance?

The Prime Minister referred to dissenting views – or at least in general, as some ‘desperate’ persons. So opposing views in a democracy are deemed desperate when in the period of 2013-2018, some engaged in what was termed as a series of questions, for which answers were demanded.

On and on, the agitation went, and it was determined to be good governance and civic rights, yet now in the midst of a pandemic, unchecked and unchallenged restrictions declared by an Executive, which still has not admitted that its COVID-19 policies failed at the end of 2020, the country is being lectured to and told that ‘fake news’ should not be tolerated.   

For those, regardless of party allegiance, who value the rights of citizens to question their leaders, we should be alarmed at these developments, especially in terms of ‘free speech’.

I will concede that some people post nonsense which one can clearly see is not true, but what about the posts which were proven to be correct? What about those who found out information and are bringing it to the public domain and forcing officials to respond? Words matter!

While the country has been focused on the pandemic and the bungled response in the last few weeks, other concerns have to be raised and Government’s feet must be held to the fire.

I want to know for a Government that prides itself on PR, why were the images of these vaccine shots not made public? Where did these vaccines come from?

What is the status of the water prohibition? What is the status of our aquifers? Has Barbados emerged from the drought of 2020? What is the outlook by officials for 2021?

Does the BWA have any financial challenges with businesses closing and losing revenue from the commercial sector on the island?

No word on these projects designed to boost the Barbadian economy. We noticed strategically placed stories from one Government economic adviser talking mere days before the Central Bank Governor’s report about declines in revenues, all while taxation levels remain very high.

When I heard about ‘operation seek and save’, I paused over the potential legality of it. Why was it necessary to send persons into communities after stressing that people should be careful even with family members? Why not engage personal doctors who would know medical histories? Those doctors could recommend that persons receive tests out of caution. We value medical information and electoral information above all else in this country and we are compromising both in this instance.

What is the status of Hyatt Ziva?  Have issues of compensation to the displaced owners occurred yet? What is the status of the site of the former NIS Building?

What is the status of the Transport Board, especially given increased bus fares? What about income since bus loads were impacted by COVID-19?

Nuff words, but little action seems to be par for the course, but wasn’t the country promised a departure from the Implementation Deficit which apparently plagued the last Administration?