BLP legacy: home allowance increased in 2004 from $6 000 to $10 000 and to $15 000 in 2007; to encourage more saving an annual $10 000 allowance was introduced in 2007 for saving with a cooperative society or investment in new shares and mutual funds, or a combination of all.
During its near four and A half years as Government, the DLP has inflicted much damage on the people of Barbados, the full extent of which is still to be felt and seen.
This carnage has been most harshly experienced economically and socially through unstoppable rising cost of living, increased unemployment, severely reduced disposable income, escalating poverty and the undermining of the middle class.
But perhaps the most rampant destruction of all by the DLP has been to the psyche and spirit of the nation in the party’s single-minded determination to make Barbadians accept its toxic propaganda that we are merely helpless victims of the ravages of the prolonged international economic downturn, about which the DLP Government could and can do nothing to lessen its negative impact on our people.
Of course, from the very outset under the late David Thompson, BLP Leader Owen Arthur and his team rejected outright such dangerous nonsense. The BLP’s stance has been based on 14 years of prosperity under Arthur and the previous success of the Tom Adams and other BLP administrations. For, from the 2008 Budget, Arthur with his 14 years as Prime Minister and Finance Minister, warned of the national destruction from the DLP’s austerity and increased taxation policy.
But Chris “Unclear” Sinckler pigheadedly ignored the wisdom of the many years of Arthur’s training in and practical application of economics. Instead, the Dems preferred to rely on their own non-existent economics expertise and the unsuitable policies of the IMF, World Bank and international rating agencies, with these bodies from their failures in Europe being forced to admit to the rightness of Arthur in his advocacy of stimulus and growth as the way out of the recession.
That is why the BLP refused to accept the “victim mentality” of the DLP, insisting that Barbadians had within them capacity to ensure that “Better Can Be Done” rather than waiting on the rest of the world to do it for us. Now, recent statistics have confirmed the correctness of the BLP’s position by showing several other countries in the Caribbean and further afield with circumstances similar to Barbados and which have also been impacted by the same global economic fall-off to which the DLP has shamelessly and meekly surrendered, have been outperforming us.
Before 2008, Barbados’ growth compared favourably with these other countries. In 2008, except for Jamaica and the Bahamas, Barbados grew the least. In 2009, only the Bahamas did worse than Barbados, while in 2010 only Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica were worse off.
But in 2011, we, with 0.4 per cent, were the poorest performer, with the others being T&T at 1.1; St Lucia 2.0; Guyana 5.3; Jamaica 1.5; Bahamas 2.0; Chile 6.5; Argentina 8.0; Brazil 3.8; Seychelles 5.0; Mauritius 4.2; Malta 2.5; and Singapore 5.3.
Will the DLP apologize?
• Beresford Leon Padmore is a pseudonym for the Barbados Labour Party.
