Maybe a bee! “But I did not know that the Wild Coot was a ‘B’. I always did think so, even when he was running for the NDP.”
This I overheard from two women as I was leaving the town hall meeting to which I was invited as an independent, neutral speaker; one of these women was a known “moutabrown”. To be honest, I wasn’t really neutral, though I was independent.
I pointed to citizens whose credentials, banking and professorial, far outweighed those in Government. I told the meeting that I was there because Government was ignoring me since 2008, and I do not take kindly to being ignored. I was not the only one being ignored. People say that I have “B” qualities because I sting. Some of my best friends are Bees, even my relatives. But some of my good friends are Dees.
In Barbados, unlike in Egypt, there is no fundamental philosophical difference between the political parties. We break bread and drink wine with everybody. Therefore when asked to say my ‘piece’, I do so.
One thing concerns me, and I was not further enlightened even after the meeting. Given that we lay off three to five thousand souls, it means that the wages bill would be reduced by the accumulated amount. The deficit of 12 per cent of (gross domestic product) still remains. While the meeting emphasized that we want honesty and truth, it did not shed light on how we are going to reduce the deficit to a manageable 1.5 per cent. Perhaps that was not the purpose of the meeting.
The Merchant of Venice Credit Suisse loan will be added to our reserves of $800 to $900 million or so to tide us over the next three months; this could not be intended to deal with the deficit that has already been accumulated. That could only be tackled by growth and a consequent increase in taxes inflow.
Thus the words of the Central Bank keeper that presumably were meant to calm us, have a hollow ring as the loan will be quickly dissipated on interest, dissipation through overseas purchases and the printing of money due to the diminished tax intake.
We have the word of the minister that there will be no more taxes – for the time being. How long is the “time being”, we do not know (check the promise with VAT).
Meanwhile, the factors that can provide taxation so as to maintain and improve the status quo (those remaining after the flood of layoffs) have not had their predicament studied, reasoned and solved. Those have to take time. We are in for the long haul.
Confidence has to be returned to the country. We need investment capital like yesterday, but we cannot get it if the outside investors do not trust the Government as it continues to behave like a banana republic. The difficulties that the opposition party is experiencing in leadership is regretted as we need the “savoire faire” of Owen Arthur at this time (whatever his perceived shortcomings) and the measure of overseas confidence and pull that his intimate relation with solving the crisis could engender.
For too long the Government has traipsed along refusing to heed advice, seemingly believing that it had the necessary brainpower to deal with the worsening situation, only to deepen the hole that we are in. It will continue to be ‘powful foolish’. That is the measure of the boys.
Do you know that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has not told them to fire 3, 4, 5 000 souls? It has told them to reduce the public sector. How to reduce the public sector without firing needs St John Chapter 2. But we are “working with” the IMF without IMF money!
We wait. For what? To see if any of the 16 elected would vote or not vote according to conscience and not to pension. Then we would all cheer and say “there’s a real man; there’s a true citizen who has put country before politics”. We would be able to lift him high and say that he has saved us from wearing a crown of thorns and from sipping wormwood and gall. Then maybe the Wild Coot would become a true bee.
Parliamentarians, put country before self or else we would all end up in Maxwell pond.
Harry Russell is a banker.
