Things that Matter: A New Year and a renewal of Old Time Responsibility

“With great power comes great responsibility.” (Many versions, quoted by many men – Roosevelt, Churchill and others)

Barbadians have been consumed with one major problem after another affecting both our personal comfort and our reputation – serious water shortages that compromise the lives and health of thousands, floods, sewage, garbage, problems in health care, bad behaviour, poor standards and poor service, litter and decaying buildings, to name the major culprits. But while most people are waxing warm and eloquent on the problems that most concern them personally, and quite understandably, there’s been a quiet reneging on social, professional and political responsibilities that’s been growing for many years, and is being largely ignored, either through lack of understanding, lack of care, or lack of the courage to even acknowledge the problem. Of what do I speak? The extraordinary and quite scandalous lack of public accountability. 

While the problem of failure of the many government authorities, boards, commissions, corporations, departments, funds and other entities like the Caves of Barbados Ltd. to produce financial statements/audits for many years has been drawn to the attention of Parliament and public by the Auditor General year after year, it seems now to have become accepted as the norm, or at best the inevitable. Failure of these departments to act responsibly, and the failure of government to heed the Auditor General is, quite simply, unacceptable in a country that is not a “banana republic”. 

A list of some 19 government entities that have failed in their legal duty and responsibility has come to my attention. They are given in no particular order, but they apparently include: the Sanitation Service Authority (whose heroic hard-working staff receive my bouquet this week), the Severance Payment Fund, the Sugar Factory Smoke Control Board, the Transport Authority, the Unemployment Fund, the Barbados Agricultural Credit Trust, the Barbados Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation, the Barbados Tourism Authority, the Barbados Vocational Training Board, the Barbados Water Authority, Caves of Barbados Limited, the National Conservation Commission, the National Council on Substance Abuse, the National Housing Corporation, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, the Rural Development Commission, the Transport Board, the Urban Development Commission, and the National Insurance Fund.

While the average period without audits is an astonishing six years, some are much longer. The culprits with the worst records are reported to be: the Smoke Control Board (none since 2001), the Barbados Vocational Board, the Rural Development Commission and the Urban Development Commission (none since 2007 – 8) and the Unemployment Fund (none since 2009). Huge entities like the QEH and the Transport Board have been delinquent since 2011. How do we know how well our taxes are really being spent?

To add insult to Barbadians to the injury to our pockets, the Public Accounts Committee appears to be helpless to address the problems it is set up to address. The few public comments made recently make it clear that the Auditor General has no teeth, and the law does not allow dental implants to provide teeth. But the Public Accounts Committee should have teeth; but (mixing metaphors) it seems to have recently become impotent. A wag said to me a few days ago that it should be given a double dose of Viagra. 

This is clearly a sickness in our administration, which both our Parliament and our People (with a capital P) are prepared to accept and hold no one to account. It’s not the fault of any one person or small group of persons – it’s the fault of our entire Parliament, our cabinet, our civil service and our entire People, because we are putting up with sloppiness, inefficiency and quite conceivably, what we now euphemistically call infelicities, in our government institutions. In spite of Mr. Barrow’s famous description of the civil service as “an army of occupation”, I’m sure he’d be shocked by the enormity of this problem. Many, many people in positions of authority are NOT acting responsibly, and everyone is looking the other way. Is it in fear? 

Or is it because our history and our culture have produced a nation of Stoics? Stoicism flourished in ancient Greece as a result of the eloquent philosophy of Seneca and the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. According to the Stoics, when terrible things are happening, people tell us “Don’t worry, everything will be OK”. Instead, we should systematically crush every vestige of hope, come to terms with the worst possibilities and make ourselves at home with them. We should let nothing disturb our peace of mind. We should be mindful of the Roman goddess Fortuna, the Goddess of destiny, and we should be aware that in the context of the universe we are of no consequence. The ancient Stoics reminded us that the darker the night, the more distant stars you might see, such as Andromeda and Aries (This is rather like saying driving slowly to avoid the potholes will reduce the accidents from speeding.) We appear to be modern Stoics.

But as my distinguished colleague and diplomat Orlando Marville said in his beautiful column last week “I am aware that this harsh criticism will draw a backlash.” And as he also said with such sincerity and such cogency, these things are being said with love and passion and patriotism, “in the hope that we will all show some real love for our country and wake up to the new day as well as the new year that is upon us.” Let us all speak out and let us all act responsibly; let us pray and let us work together; let us be good, old fashioned patriotic Barbadians, and to borrow a hackneyed phrase: “Let us make our beloved Barbados great again!”

Bouquet: To the wonderful ladies and gentlemen of the Sanitation Authority … doing a magnificent job against all odds, against apparent inefficiencies, unrepaired trucks and limited finances. I am constantly inspired by the hard work, the friendliness, charm and courtesy of these our unsung heroes. 

Brickbat: To the defeated President of Gambia, who refuses to concede defeat at the polls. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely (Lord Acton, 1887). I have a very soft spot for Gambia, that bizarre country created along the banks of the River Gambia for the specific purpose of expediting the transport by African slave traders of their victims to the port at Banjul, because I spent time there with the Medical Research Council of the UK in 1976. I was carrying out a major part of the research for my PhD, comparing the drug metabolising capacity in the population of the up-river country people of the village of Keneba with that of Asian, Caucasian and Black populations in London. The remarkable thing about the people of Gambia was the striking resemblance to Bajans. Gambia is on the same 13 degrees latitude as Barbados, and they must be among our closest cousins, both geographically and genetically. It is one of our mother countries. I felt I was at home!

(Professor Fraser is Past Dean of Medical Sciences, UWI and Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Clinical Pharmacology. Website: profhenryfraser.com)