“The brutal truth is that the economy can no longer carry the full range of state enterprises and welfare support programmes that have been put in place over the last 50 years.”
THESE WERE the words of former Prime Minister Owen Arthur as he addressed the monthly meeting of the Barbados Chamber of Commerce & Industry earlier this week.
It was not the first time he had spoken on the subject, and he was not the first Barbadian of note to have done so. In fact, it is a most uncomfortable discussion Barbadians generally have been avoiding in recent years, too often using distractions laced with an unhealthy dose of emotionalism and lacking in objectivity.
Like it or not, uncomfortable or not, it is a discussion the country will have to engage in in a far more structured way going forward. The system has served us well for half a century. Those whom we classify as the most vulnerable and many who have long moved up and out of that category have benefited from what Arthur described as the Scandinavian state-assisted welfare model.
As Arthur concluded and the evidence has been suggesting for some time, Barbados can no longer support such a wide suite of services provided by the state where there is no payment at the point of delivery. Our position is that the country has to determine what it can afford, and balance that against the needs of the country, particularly those among us who can’t afford to pay directly for these services.
Carefully considering how we will balance needs against ability to pay is critical because whatever decisions we make will impact the future development of the country. Maintaining the health of citizens at an agreed standard may be costly, but if too many among us find themselves at risk because they can’t afford vital care, eventually everyone will be at even greater risk – and the cost to the country will turn out to be significantly higher.
The same would obtain for education. Providing free or subsidised tertiary schooling as we once did may be unaffordable today, but if too many in our population are unable to fully exploit their academic potential our overall development will be stymied.
But even if we are able to create the right balance in all these critical areas, the matter of wastage still has to be addressed. Because there can be no doubt that even in our current strained circumstances, were we more efficient with what little we have we would be able to achieve significantly more.
We believe this is of vital importance because Barbadians have always rationalised, and accepted, the high percentage of their income that is deducted in taxes, as being directly related to the range and quality of public services traditionally provided. Paying taxes that are in some instances significantly higher than our neighbours will hardly seem justified if the services offered are on par with, or below, what those same neighbours enjoy.
All these must therefore factor into a national debate, where the offering of the highest level of protection possible to the most vulnerable must remain at the forefront, along with sensible approaches that guarantee that changing focus does not necessarily mean a reduced quality of service.
For example, it may no longer be possible for the state to provide the hundreds of millions needed by the Queen Elizabeth Hospital to maintain the level of services to which Barbadians have become accustomed, but it does not mean that there can’t be an alternative national approach to funding, even if it is achieved through some form of national health insurance.