The last general election was held three and a half years ago, and the next one will be held within the next 18 months, if not sooner. This may be a good moment to attempt some general comment on one or two issues of importance.
There is no question that the international recession is a fact of life, and that it was a clear and present danger during the last quarter of 2007, as the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) has now finally admitted.
It ought to have foreseen the recession during and before the campaign, but the recession was definitely biting hard in July 2008. The Thompson Budget told us that growth in the first half of that year had slowed to 1.8 per cent as opposed to four per cent, which was the average rate of expansion for the previous four years.
Even so, in the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) 2008 manifesto, Owen Arthur, who had been reading the economic ball as if it was as big as a breadfruit, drew specific attention to the “turbulent weather” ahead, and in this regard he was ably supported in his assessment by Minister of Economic Affairs Mia Mottley and Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance Clyde Mascoll.
This was not a time for glittering manifesto promises, but the propaganda of goodies promised by the DLP, together with damning allegations of cost overruns and trenchant criticism of “arrogance” of the BLP, won the day.
That is how a democracy works, and I have no problem with it. It is the nature of politics, and the DLP executed an emotional campaign based on this quilted patchwork. And in politics, the perception is the reality, and the shadow becomes the substance . . . until the dream is over.
During the 2008 campaign, the cost of living was said to be high because of what the DLP speakers said night after night was “an unholy alliance” between the BLP and corporate Bridgetown.
Now that the dream is over, we are being told, even during the past week, that the international recession is mainly to blame for high prices; and inefficiency at the Port is branded as an accessory before, during and after the fact of importation of goods.
No admission is made of the “wrong-headed” policy decision by the DLP to increase the cost of diesel in the 2008 Budget, thereby immediately increasing the cost of inland transportation of foodstuff and other goods from the Port to the warehouses of the importers, and on to the supermarkets. These increased costs soon clambered onto the shelves of retailers, big and small, and could easily be seen with the naked eye.
In 2009 people were being encouraged by DLP ministers to plant a little kitchen garden in the backyard, as in days gone by, as a way of helping to ease the household budget, but this official suggestion raised many a cynical eyebrow.
When Owen Arthur made a similar suggestion in 2007 before the election, the DLP scorned the idea and called it going backwards. Wiser heads called it foresight, but Arthur was reading the ball.
Now to the offshore sector. That sector is vital to our country, but we seemed to have been “caught napping” by the latest Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development challenge, even though a significant effort by Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler has since been made on remediating our position on the matter of tax information exchange.
But what happened to the offer by the London Court of Arbitration of a centre located in Barbados, which had been negotiated by Miss Mottley? Such a development would have added further gravitas to our country as an international financial centre, because major companies in dispute could have chosen to have their disputes arbitrated and settled here.
Accompanied by their lawyers, witnesses and the arbitrator of their choice, our tourism and foreign exchange sectors would have benefited, at little cost to us. These things matter because the offshore sector fuels our foreign exchange and provides about 60 per cent of our corporate taxes – and in foreign exchange too!
Alas, we may have missed the boat! And India appears to have picked up the ball which we dropped.
Without being unduly partisan, the average Barbadian may think on these things and wonder.
