Barbados Labour Party (BLP) legacy: extended the fiscal incentives period from ten to 15 years; financed the Buy 100% Bajan campaign; changed Government’s procurement policy to give larger market share to local manufacturers; and gave a multimillion-dollar injection to the Industrial Credit Fund to finance manufacturing, especially for export.
Barbadians are feverishly trying to figure out what there is about the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) that causes members to seemingly indulge in escapism, defined as “the habit of trying to distract oneself from unpleasant realities by engaging in fantasy or forms of entertainment”.
In their eternal quest to escape their responsibilities, food and fete are the order of the day, and instead of addressing the challenges which our young people face, they respond as Minister of Education Ronald Jones did, claiming that unsatisfactory behaviour among schoolchildren was caused by “demons”.
Now Prime Minister Freundel Stuart has jumped on this astounding bandwagon by declaring that despite the number of churches in existence and the frequency of attendance, too many people still shouted, “Give me Barabbas”, who was “in control” of bus terminals, schools and churches, and hoped that the new CITA (Christ Is The Answer) radio station “sees it as its daily duty to deal with the Barabbases of Barbados”.
And “hope” was very much on Stuart’s mind when declaring the gospel station open, pointing out that “hope” was something the country needed “now more than ever”.
However, in keeping with the DLP’s amazing and frustrating habit of seeking to escape its governmental responsibilities, Stuart saw the station’s “immediate” challenge as having to “deal with the lack of hope” he had noticed in the country.
For despite an admission that there was disquiet in Barbados where some things undoubtedly called for “correction”, there was no mention in the report of Stuart’s speech of any acknowledgement whatsoever by his administration that it, too, had a role to play in returning badly needed hope to the people of the country, with the newspaper account noting that he “opted not to give any interviews afterwards regarding a number of national issues”.
Surely nobody would believe that Stuart, a former pastor (Church of Christ, Marchfield), who never fails to show his familiarity with theology, could be unaware of the biblical injunction to “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s”, clear acknowledgement that citizens have both temporal and spiritual responsibilities.
In the same way that Stuart perceives that the church has a spiritual responsibility to stimulate hope among people, he must know that his government has an equally important temporal responsibility as well.
The DLP has for more than four years repeatedly established that it is unable and incapable of implementing policies to rescue the people of Barbados from the hopelessness of endlessly rising prices, dwindling disposable income, increasing unemployment and levels of poverty caused in the first place by its unwise actions and broken promises. Not to mention its pig-headed attitude to CLICO, Four Seasons and other major issues.
Join Owen Arthur and the Barbados Labour Party at 11 a.m. on Sunday, April 15, at Christ the King Anglican Church, Cave Hill, for the Founders Day Service of the 74-year-old party.