Being frank with those who rely on you is usually the best way to gain their respect, even if their wrath comes first.
And this succinct lesson is relevant now for the Government of Barbados, especially after the “up and down” unemployment figures issued by the Central Bank last week.
How is it that statistics showing Barbados’ unemployment level jumped from about ten per cent to 12.1 per cent in three months are merely provisional in September and are still being investigated?
It is almost time to issue figures for the July-September quarter!
Anyway, according to a source at the bank, which mistakenly posted the 12.1 per cent figure for the second quarter last Thursday and removed it from the website by the end of the working day, those numbers were provided by no less an entity than the Barbados Statistical Service (BSS) and have so far not been refuted.
The story that broke last Friday may be nothing more than a false alarm, but unlike the WEEKEND NATION headline Up And Down, which is the hook line of Li’l Rick’s Party Monarch 2011 song, most of us are not “crazy people”; for we had heard reference to the BSS’ economic figures before and the variance of those figures, either in fact or interpretation, with those of the Central Bank of Barbados.
Back in 2007, for instance, in the bank’s review of the economy for the first nine months, it was noted that the tourism sector had grown by 3.1 per cent in that period. But the BSS’ actual tourist arrival figures for January to September 2007 showed that in the third quarter – July to September, during the ICC Cricket World Cup – long-stay arrivals had grown by less than one per cent, while long-stay visitors for the entire nine months were up only two per cent.
Therefore, it did not paint a true picture to say that tourism had grown by over three per cent for the first nine months of 2007; and today it is established fact that the CWC tournament did nothing for tourism or the economy that year.
Forward to 2011. In the lead-up to the Financial Statement and Budgetary Proposals, the Opposition kept referring to meetings between the Central Bank, the Statistical Service and the Ministry of Economic Affairs, noting the BSS had information showing that, rather than growth in 2010, the economy had in fact declined.
Some of us took such statements with a pinch of salt, but should we still do so when, even without formal statistics, we have seen most of the traded and non-traded sectors taking a battering?
And as far as unemployment is concerned – while no layoffs have occurred in the public service – can we be absolutely sure that the private sector has been able to maintain employment in a slowed down sector like construction, for instance?
Therefore, if discussions are ongoing between the BSS and the Central Bank over unemployment numbers, I wait with bated breath to hear whether in fact 3 000 people lost their jobs between March and June.
And if those numbers prove correct, then what else aren’t we being told in relation to this economy?
It certainly provides fodder for the Opposition, especially when its leader, a veteran economist and former Prime Minister, warns the country about “real figures”, only to see “up and down” official numbers.
While I wouldn’t join him in urging the Government to “come clean” since this would suggest something invidious in how information is being given to the public, I would call on the Government to level with the people of Barbados, who instinctively know there are difficulties present and ahead but are not being given the whole picture.
Hasn’t this Government learnt from the early 1990s when Barbadians, going into a general election in January, 1991, were not yet fully apprised of the true state of the Barbados economy and the implications of a downturn in the world economy and the Gulf War?
Not only did that lead to negative growth of about -3.9 per cent in the local economy but, in the face of a possible currency devaluation, we were forced to implement an austere programme which included an eight per cent cut in public servants’ salaries and a wages freeze.
The then Government, haunted by the spectre of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), fiercely at odds with the private sector, and facing the ire of trade unions over the eight per cent cut, did not last a full five-year term.
If the economy is getting worse today, level with us.
