A GUY'S VIEW: The blame game and strange analysis
Sometime last week I heard a news item on radio which was reported to be the voice of Toni Moore, in which she sought to justify demanding a 15 per cent salary increase of the Democratic Labour Party administration, and then immediately accepted a five per cent increase from the succeeding Barbados Labour Party Government, after agreeing to four and a half per cent. I found her explanation most instructive.
What I heard was Ms. Moore saying that there was downgrade after downgrade under the DLP administration, and yet her union stuck out for a 15 per cent increase. Interestingly, she said that the demand for 15 per cent in an economy that was experiencing successive economic downgrades, was the position of the executive of her union. In stating that position, the General Secretary was placing the blame for this iniquitous decision squarely on the shoulders of the Executive of the Barbados Workers’ Union. In cricketing parlance, “off of me.”
While wearing another hat, I became aware of a labour comrade by the name of Julian Hunte. The wisdom then was that he would succeed Sir Roy Trotman as General Secretary of the BWU. I did not see him for about two weeks and when we next met and I enquired about the union, he informed me that he had moved on. He saw my shock, but chose to leave it alone. Given the quiet, mature disposition of this gentleman, I pried no further, knowing that it would not be long before the story would be told. Although others spoke, I never heard a sentence from his lips about that affair.
One doubts that it resided within his nature to bait and switch the workers of Barbados. I may be wrong, but it is difficult for me to conceive of him convincing his executive to demand a 15 per cent increase in wages and salaries from a Government that was printing money to pay his members and keep them in their jobs, while battling regular downgrades from international institutions. And even more difficult to see him trying to justify moving his demand from 15 per cent to four and a half per cent within weeks, on the election of a new Government, with the economy in the same state.
Some would say that this approach of a ridiculous demand followed by the acceptance of a comparatively minuscule increase, calls the judgement of the Executive of the BWU, not Ms. Moore, according to her, into sharp question. Others may not be so charitable and may see it as salesmanship for which the people of Barbados are now paying.
As has been forecasted, the practice of the distribution of largess and the use of the state’s resources to garner partisan support is in full vogue. Now we are hearing that roads in St. George North are to be fixed, not in the name of Ms. Moore, but of Gline Clarke.
Gline Clarke was the representative of that constituency for 26 years, and now, after his departure, there is the discovery that the roads need to be fixed. What a wonderful discovery. It is an interesting thing that Floyd Reifer can have no big works done. Were it not for him, the roads in St. George North would remain akin to a roller coaster ride.
During his long tenure, Clarke was once the Minister of Housing and on another occasion the Minister of Transport and Works. These are ministries that allow the persons who manage them to look after their constituencies well. Apparently Gline was not so minded.
One may recall when the distinguished representative of his neighbouring constituency, Sir Louis Tull, rose to his feet in Parliament and said that he was treated like an outside child, because all his pleas for assistance in his constituency fell on deaf ears. Gline Clarke was one of the Ministers who did nothing in St. George South for Mr. Tull.
And now the Prime Minister has laid it all bare. After 26 years of representation, the roads in St. George North now have to be fixed. It seems that St. George North has suffered the same fate as other constituencies that remain loyal to the BLP. They are the most neglected constituencies in Barbados. Just look at St. Joseph, St. Thomas, St. Michael North East, to name a few. Maybe the people in those constituencies should call for by-elections too.
This is all happening at a time when the country’s economy is in sharp reverse, notwithstanding what the International Monetary Fund is forecasting. Persons who wish for honesty in international organisations may take comfort from the fact that a former Governor of our Central Bank was able to have the then leader of the IMF admit that the policies and programmes of that organisation do not fit the needs of small island states like Barbados. When these misfits make pronouncements on your country, one needs to understand where they are coming from and their lack of relevance to our situation.
Barbados is a one-foot pony. We have taken all of our eggs out of the sugar basket and placed them in the tourism basket: a basket that is full of holes. When tourism was operating at its maximum, the local economy could not grow more than one per cent. Now, with most of our hotels either closed or barely open, the IMF is predicting growth of 7 per cent next year. This is while admitting that tourism is expected to slowly pick back up, in the midst of increased COVID-19 cases in our source markets. What the hell are they talking about? Could professional economists really have written that garbage?
And seven per cent from where? From where we were before the BLP took over, or from where we have fallen? If the economy declined by 15 per cent and then grew by seven per cent, we would still be eight per cent worse off than previously. If it declined by 7.8 per cent and then grew by 7.1 per cent, where have we gone? I do not know what brief they have for this Government, but the IMF should not insult our intelligence.
Think people.