And summons up the blood. Disguise fair nature with controlled rage of suppressed disappointment. Can you believe the recent recantation of steadfastly pursued policies? Can it augur goodwill for the next four years? Next four years? We cannot go forward with an engine with a broken cylinder block.
Can you expect that coachies who have been driving a Mercedes Benz limousine, like Barbados was, in the manner of a rickshaw would be surprised when it ends up like a donkey cart pulled by stubborn mules? Has Barbados become a banana republic where contracts are dished out to the favoured candidates whose riches originate from the overtaxed poor and disappearing middle class?
After all, most of us have been telling the Government that borrowing over $40 million per month to pay a salaries agenda cannot be a sound policy. Moreover, it will create a cash flow problem with the National Insurance Fund when lay-offs come to pass.
At long last we seem to have admitted the lack of wisdom in our folly. Where this admission will lead politically is anybody’s business. What about the unions’ take? Are we seeing the monkey’s tail? The old time people used to say: “The higher the monkey climbs the more he shows his black side”. Wild Coot, what wrong with you?
We need to set the teeth and stretch the nostrils wide. With 3 000 (and climbing) of our people to be laid off from Government alone, it is imperative that we proceed with speed to get the “expected” projects started. While we are looking for noble lustre in the eyes of some of the decision-makers, we must be cognizant of the fact that most of us are supposed to be highly rated in terms of honesty and integrity. Although we have slipped notches recently owing to perverse deviant decisions, or lack thereof, we must swear that we are worth our breeding.
Those in charge must realize that commentators will not sheath their swords for lack of argument. The loyal opposition must be prepared to signal to the people that February 2013 was an aberration where people yielded to temptation in as much as they preferred Sir Grantleys instead of Errol Barrow’s mirror image. If the opposition cannot, we would be, as the Jamaicans say, “swapping black dog for monkey”. So far this opposition is rattling like a caged pit-bull, full of sound and fury signifying what we do not yet know.
The Central Bank has not played its part. While it cannot micro-manage the banks, it has to cease issuing Treasury Bills and permitting Government accommodation. It must operate according to the law. After all, if the banking community perceives the effeminate handling of the Central Bank’s oversight, small wonder the banks are now “own way”. Instead of helping for growth, the banks are greedily pursuing the bottom line, and still losing. Will the former Barbados National Bank be the Trinidadians’ Almond? Will they down tools and run?
Investors are reluctant to put gas in our Mercedes Benz Barbados, because there is no confidence in the drivers. “But Wild Coot there is a saying, Aunque la mona se vista de seda, mona se queda (although the monkey wears silk, he’s still a monkey). Are you implying that we have no hope?”
The answer to the question is tricky. Maybe we do have no hope, and perhaps after the “monas” have acquired the expected “seda” in 2015, we the people will be free of this dark period of the life of the Mercedes Benz. The Romans used to say, Mens sana in corpore sano – Latin poet Juvenal (only a healthy body can produce a healthy mind and vice versa). Do we have a substitute healthy mind, or just a hungry pit-bull? I fondly ask – according to Milton.
Men are judged by the company they keep, and by past deeds; so those who are banking on a new strategy must be careful of the repercussions. We the people must wake from our modest stillness as the blast of downgrades, usury and devaluation blow in our ears from without.
The New Year does not look so good, and some of us will be looking for holes in which to shelter or even resort to nefarious activities that will bring manna or bread. You know the saying, “any port in a storm”.
The song for the New Year goes, I wish you health, but more than wealth, I wish you love.
• Harry Russell is a banker.
