Inside technology

COVID-19 has showcased the need for technology and has exposed the unavoidable interconnectivity which has engulfed the world.

Since the pandemic has taken over the global space, the ability for individuals and businesses to communicate and to conduct normal activities and even business actions has been helped by technology.

We have Internet banking, which has been a life-saver for those who have been turned off by the long lines which still exist around banks. The ability to deposit cheques straight onto accounts has eliminated the need to get into long banking lines as many have started to come to grips with the push towards doing activities online and even using ATM machines to fast track activities which they would normally have been waiting in lines to trans-act those actions.

Businesses, which have been slow to move away from cheques for salaries, have found that the ability of staff to reduce the times away from the office has not been reduced. Even before COVID-19, productive hours were wasted in banking lines and this stress could have had an impact on the performances of these staff, who after those transactions, had to make their way to other businesses to settle monthly bills.   

The ease of doing business has been greatly enhanced by a technology push, but did we ever imagine that it took the impacts of a global pandemic to rush a process which would have taken years to put in place?

Meaningful change takes time. You cannot rush wholesale changes to systems which took years for people to become comfortable with and then get angry when it takes time for these people to accept them.

COVID-19 has also changed the ways in which offices function. Barbados has been fortunate in many ways and while we remain vigilant, we must not slip into bad habits.

Offices have implemented protocols designed to keep people safe. Clearly some activities can be done remotely and thus negating the need to constantly have full staffing complements on site at all times.   

It is a period of adjustment and that means that we have to be flexible as a country, employers and even as families.

We have heard of the development of vaccines which have a 90 per cent effective rate. We have to look at the prospect of securing enough doses of this vaccine to immunise our entire population and Government has to mandate that these treatments are administered, either through individual doctors or some system where medical professionals administer at work places or through polyclinics.

Once the vaccines are available, then our protocols will have to be amended to require those coming here to receive the treatments upon entry – no exceptions. That is the only way that we can return to some normalcy.

That would require a government of information rather than public relations. I have long argued that the knock on the previous administration was that they struggled with communication.

That was used against them by the Opposition, especially some on social media.

Some in the media watched as technology made the criticism easy, despite others demanding more information.

What about the South Coast Sewage Project, for example? What about the status of the outfall off the South Coast? What is the status of the Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary? Has it returned to its previous status?

Those who complained about the smell at Worthing Beach pre-2018 seem happy now. It is normal from time to time, as water builds up, that the sluice gate would have to be opened to allow brackish water to flow into Worthing Beach for the tides to dispose of them, but that became a political issue, raising the ire of surrounding businesses and hotels.

Technology pushed narratives. We heard about the Cahill project and that was spread across the Internet. We heard allegations about a former Finance Minister and others, yet it was harnessed.

Now we have people taking advantage of the access to means to send out information and shocker, it is being abused. The most recent is a WhatsApp post involving a potential COVID-19 positive case and the assertion that it represented community spread.

The Minister of Health strongly condemned the post as untrue, but it was not the first nor will it be the last. Whether it be untrue posts, poorly researched information being presented as true, or just attacks on political parties and individuals, being highlighted and believed, then officials have only scraped the tip of the iceberg of a major problem.    

This Government, in Opposition, cannot deny that they used technology to their advantage. The direct messages to social media followers illustrate a strategy of speaking directly with little means to either fact check or push back on information shared.

In fact, every time an issue was raised, the Opposition was there, blasting the Administration or Minister then, but in 2020, people are being told to be responsible. Laughable.

We are drawn to negative information. Ask anyone to explain what the ‘lost decade’ is. ‘I hear that they spent the money’ is a familiar refrain used. The conversation resorts to catch-phrases, devoid of information, but it is used across technological spaces and we should be ashamed as educated people to believe the information, but it achieved its objective.

With power vested in one political party and no elected Opposition, the role of keeping a Government honest falls even more importantly on the media.

In the face of only public relations materials being consistently presented, at some point, the media have to make a choice.

Will the public accept them refusing to do so, even as technology offers them options to find information, which the media should be able to look into and present information for the public and not to be lectured to by political figures?

This country is crying out for the journalists to rise again.

Happy Independence, Barbados!