Despite the upbeat smiles, Froon and the Fewer must worry about handling a fairly well hung parliament. How can ministers miss out on overseas trips with fat per diems to stay home and vote?
We who study animal behaviour have the answer. It’s called mimicry. Like how some juicy insects mimic the markings of disgusting species so birds won’t eat them.
Readers may recall me telling how a shy Bajan fellow fell for a long-legged Bajan damsel. Only problem, she was committed to a well-hung Trini star boy.
But the Baje, like Solomon, got his wisdom from animals. And he had one advantage – propinquity. When she came home on holiday, he was there, the Trini wasn’t. So he would get her all mushy talking about the boyfriend and act as stand-in for the more practical scenes. Before long, he was in the driving seat.
(Alas, this story has an unhappy end. He married her. And nearly 38 years later heard her telling friends at a party, just last weekend, how she “pours cuffs in his back with all her might” whenever he snores. And him thinking all these years he had a loving wife!)
Anyway, Froon should try mimicry. As did Owen in previous elections, portraying himself as more of a reincarnated Errol Barrow than David Thompson.
So Froon needs to be more Bee than the Bees: embrace the BLP manifesto, changing a few terms here and there. “Privatization” would become “depublication”, while “putting money in people’s pockets” could be “pocketal liquidity” and so on.
The Bees would have no choice but to support their own programme. And he would thereby have hoisted Mia by her own petards. (A figurative expression, please note. It would be totally inappropriate for me to speculate on which intimate undergarments the Leader of the Opposition favours.)
If Barbados is to get out of these economic doldrums and move full speed ahead into more profitable waters, there has to be shake-up in the public sector. Privatize where possible so that workers who produce will reap just rewards while those who don’t will fall by the wayside.
But the remaining public sector must be brought to the understanding that they are part of the production process. For instance, Customs, the Post Office, the Ministry of Agriculture are directly involved in goat’s milk production.
Let me demonstrate. In the old days, firms stocked parts for equipment. This was okay but tied up a lot of money. So we moved to a new era where you can order, pay for and get delivered an item from anywhere in the world in a hurry. But this system demands that there must be no delays.
On February 13, I ordered some dairy equipment from Missouri in the United States. This was shipped next day from Kansas City, reaching Chicago on the 15th and Miami on the 19th. By February 21, it was in Barbados.
Now we look at two government entities. On February 14, the Ministry of Agriculture processed the duty-free clearance. On the 15th, an officer was on my farm to check my claim for a rebate. Totally efficient.
In contrast, the Post Office acknowledged receipt of the parcel on Thursday 21. But the parcel notice didn’t reach until the following Wednesday. And without that parcel notice, believe it or not, the customs broker couldn’t process the documents. And then the Customs needs to be paid in cash. And so on and so forth. At time of writing, we are still waiting.
In other words, an item can be shipped to Barbados in a week but take two weeks to get out of the Parcel Post. And this is their “Express” service. It can’t work.
My good friend and eternal optimist, Mr Michael Archer, Director of the Office of Public Sector Reform, keeps sending me wonderful guidelines for public sector officials. Alas, Mr A, you have a hard road to travel and a long long way to go.
But there is hope. Anyone who tasted Anna Went’s corn soup at the Sambrano’s “Parang in March” party last Sunday knows there is hope for mankind. Young David Straughn deemed it “probably the best soup ever made”.
Anna, see the cornfield, lots of ears to make your soup so fine. Anna, thank you, darling, but next time keep Straughn way back in the line.
• Richard Hoad is a farmer and social commentator.
