So you, son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give the warning from me. – Ezekiel 33: 7.
It seems to me that most of our income-generating sectors in Barbados are not performing. These include construction, sugar (agriculture) and manufacturing.
The only ones that are really performing are the funeral businesses and the health professional areas. The reality is that human beings will always get sick and death is something you cannot put off. It is not like rain, because when I was a boy, we would sing, “rain, rain, go away; come again another day.”
The funeral business is surely performing. One only has to read the family death notices section on Sundays in the SUNDAY SUN and you will notice the number of announcements and so many young people, or listen to the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation’s 100.7 Q-FM on any given morning around 6:15 a.m. when the announcements are being read and which can run sometime for nearly an hour.
These days, family members do spend real money on funerals because they want the “full works” and do not talk about the after-party, which is something to behold.
Yes, the funeral business is really performing and for every funeral, the Government gets its share through VAT which helps the economy to perform.
Another area that is really performing is Q In The Community because income is generated right from the vendors. It is clear that the others are not performing, especially construction which is having a great effect on our only cement plant and those companies that are involved in construction. For this industry is almost dead.
We must do something now in order to get these sectors to perform and get them back to where they were.
