There is a great deal more revealed by the recent Budget debate than first meets the experienced eye.
The Budget has been delivered, and the several proposals have been debated, and another of the annual exercises in political rhetoric superimposed on, and corrupting, a bed of economic principles, has come and gone.
Or has it? Whatever the debate may or may not have achieved, the man in the street and the woman in the supermarket queue will still be concerned that the cost of living has risen by an average of eight per cent each year for the past three years and that within recent times, electricity bills have risen by some 40 per cent.
These are the fundamental issues that will catch the attention of both political parties and will resonate with the electorate.
And yet in the final analysis, the winner in this high-stakes political contest – for that is what it really is – will not be the person or party whose arguments are clinically or economically correct, but will be the person or party who has better sold their arguments to the voters who have the power to decide because a Budget is as much a political exercise as it is an economic issue.
That is why the mantra of the Democratic Labour Party that Barbados is more than an economy was developed, because the economic expertise of the Arthur administrations had to be politically blunted in order to divert attention away from the Barbados Labour Party’s better economic management.
But a major point of real interest to me was the revelation that the Budget was not the brainchild, so to speak, of the minister of finance and his prime minister, but that the entire Cabinet had discussed the proposals over a period of two days.
Mr Chris Sinckler described this as an improvement in governance, but it is the kind of issue which appeals to the enquiring mind, because we now know that there has been a sea change in the approach to the construction of the Budget.
Does the entire Cabinet now have a say, whereas in previous times they did not? One wonders what was the approach of the late David Thompson.
Whether this change of practice signals a diminution of the lustre of the office of the minister of finance is an important question [in our developing democracy], for these are matters that affect the substance and the form of our governance, as well as our economic well-being.
In 1987, Dr Richie Haynes resigned as minister of finance because of what he considered to be a slight to his office. That led to the assumption of the portfolio by Prime Minister Erskine Sandiford, and the change of minister had implications for the fiscal policy of the country, the International Monetary Fund programme and the eight per cent pay cut legislation and the 1994 election!
My eyes led me to another observation. Prime Minister Freundel Stuart declared in his speech: “We have Cabinet government and the doctrine of collective responsibility continues to guide consultation between the minister of finance and myself, almost daily consultations, and we make sure there is a meeting of the minds . . . .”
There is nothing the least bit wrong with this statement. Cabinet government matters and protects us all from the overwhelming power of a prime minister in the Westminster system. The 1994 no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Sandiford reinforced that point.
But during the exchanges about Veco and the prison at Dodds, Mr Sinckler is reported to have said that if as prime minister Mr Arthur was uncomfortable with any matter that came before Cabinet, he had the authority as Cabinet chairman to say “not approved”.
I find this intriguing, because the capacity of a chairman of the Cabinet to say “not approved” needs some public ventilation. Are we being told that our prime ministers have a veto over their colleagues? Then, what about collective responsibility?
Anyways, different eyes will view the Budget in different ways, but the harsh reality is that the fiscal deficit is unsustainable, and that the cost of living is a thorn in the side of the administration and in the pockets of the people.
And it is equally true that as desirable as it is to create a just society, such a society cannot be built on a sandy economy.
