Why leave out the shops?

A former Attorney General of this country is asking the Government to explain its rationale not to allow community shops to open during the upcoming lockdown period.

Attorney-at-law and former Member of Parliament, Adriel Brathwaite, said while he understood that the Government was perhaps concerned about people congregating at those village and community shops and possibly helping to spread the virus, they needed to strike the right balance as the negative impact of closing those establishments would be far-reaching.

He said while the suggestion may be that the village shop is where persons hang out, drink, play dominoes and lime, that’s not true of all. He said many of those shops provide food for the community and a service to small farmers.

“What is the definition of a village shop? For example, there is a shop here in St. John I go by quite often, a large part of her business is the selling of feed to small farmers in St. John. The small farmers are already asking, ‘So where are we going to go?’ Because these are not fellas that can go to Roberts and buy six and seven and eight bags at a time, not to mention the fact that she employs people. I am sure that there are other so-called village shops around Barbados or community shops around Barbados that are in a similar position, and you cannot describe them as a place that people congregate and are thereby exposing themselves and the community unnecessarily to COVID,” he told The Barbados Advocate.

Brathwaite said during the initial lockdown in 2020, the community shops remained operational and he is therefore curious now why that position has changed.

“I want to know why is Government taking a position to bring further unemployment to small businesses, who are already struggling, and who when they send home their people come February 3rd for two weeks, do not have the resources to pay them to be home. Is Government going to help the shopkeepers, are they going to say to the workers that the shops employ, come let me give you some money? Why the supermarkets and not these small shops?” he queried.

Brathwaite said a legitimate question to be posed to the Government is whether big business is more important than the small operators.

“A reasonable inference that one can draw is, were you afraid of the big businesses who actually said that they don’t support the shutdown, but they would support Government because Government has taken a position? So it appears you have taken a halfway measure to try to appease them by allowing them to open from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., but to the voiceless, which is the small businesses, you say you must close for two weeks and that’s it,” he lamented.

He expressed concern too that vendors were disadvantaged, and maintained that supermarkets were not any safer than a vendor selling fruits and vegetables to the public.

Brathwaite’s comments came as he charged that Government’s failure to close the borders was a massive error in judgement. He maintained that when the United States took the decision to close the borders to the United Kingdom, Barbados should have followed suit.

“If Europe as a whole said we are closing our borders to arrivals from the UK and they had a better capacity to manage COVID-19 than small Barbados, who are we to say you are welcome? So don’t take a decision like that and then you end up with the same strain out of Britain and say there is shared responsibility, because it wasn’t shared responsibility when you took the decision. Because if you asked most Barbadians, they would have said shut the borders because it is quite obvious that it would come at a cost,” the former Attorney General said.

He made the point while stating that the country was doing relatively well in the management of COVID until the tourists started to come in larger numbers. Brathwaite said that sadly, the Government’s economic decision has put the health of the country at risk.