SORRY, BARBADOS TODAY, you can’t sit on the fence on this one. Your editorial on Friday, July 1, 2015, titled When We Are The Butt Of The Mirth conveniently ignored a huge political point, which is that the Barbados Labour Party did pay a price for its perceived handling of the “3S” flyover/road widening arrangements, along with other controversial issues linked to the Arthur administration.
David Thompson made it the centrepiece of his strategy to win the government, and in a memorable “exposé” at Haggatt Hall, established himself as the man to lead the sweeping of the corridors of the halls of power with a new broom. And he did.
Brilliant? Without a doubt. Opportunistic? Perhaps.
My comments about your editorial are not about your obvious political bias against one party, which was clearly discernible from the fact that you could not find one of several similar controversial issues to cite which were linked to the other party. That’s your right.
No, what concerned me about your editorial was its inability to offer any leadership whatsoever on the issues facing the country in light of Ms Mottley’s allegations, which you simply write off as “opportunistic politicking”.
Here is all you could say about the plasma gasification plant: “Opposition Leader Mia Mottley…has been making a major song and dance about the proposed multimillion-dollar project. She has questioned the transparency of the deal; the significant state outlay; environmental issues; and the ability of Barbados to fund the project; among other concerns.…But what really is new beyond this opportunistic politicking?”
You have resiled from your duty to explain and discuss policy options, which I thought was the role of a newspaper’s editorial.
For example, what is your position on the “transparency” issue? Does it bother you, or does it not bother you, that an agreement has been signed allegedly providing all of Barbados’ waste-to-energy management rights to Cahill Energy for the next 30 years? You ought to say which.
That, to me, is a pretty important point, and I would like to hear you on it. It is not enough to say, well, Mottley is doing this song-and-dance about the Cahill MOU when her own party did all these other things in days gone by.
Now, if you say, how do we know there is an agreement in the first place? Then I would suggest that you check the latest quarterly report from Alter NRG, a public company in Canada, which I am sure you know is the company slated to provide the gasification plant, called the Westinghouse Plasma Solution, to Barbados. Just type the name in Google and it comes right up.
In that report (Q1 2015), the company says that it “Supported business development efforts for a project in Barbados which is expected to take approximately 600 tonnes per day of the island’s waste and convert it to electricity. Cahill Energy signed an agreement with the Government of Barbados on March 15, 2014 to build and operate a leading edge clean energy plant on the Caribbean island.” It has been in the Alter NRG quarterly reports since last August.
The other important points I need you to weigh in on have to do with the suitability of a gasification plant for converting waste to energy. First, are you worried, or are you not worried, about any potential negative impact such a plant could have on the population and the environment in its vicinity? You ought to say which.
And finally, the second point on gasification: Are you concerned, or are you not concerned, about the use of municipal solid waste (MSW) in plasma gasification plants? You ought to say which.
You should let us know what you think about these “burning” issues, lest Barbados Today’s editorials on gasification, God forbid, be henceforth regarded as simply hot air.