ONE OF THE OFTEN quoted statements of famed British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill, from 1940 to 1945 and 1951 to 1955, is, “Never let a good crisis go to waste”. In more recent times when almost every facet of a state’s success – or failure – is being measured by its economic profile, economic thinkers have adjusted that statement to read, “Never let a good economic crisis go to waste”.
The essence of this latter-day adaptation is really a simple warning to those who lead countries: the facets of a nation’s business that may seem sacred during “good” times, but which sensible thought dictates had been long in need of overhaul, are often more successfully tackled when times are “bad”.
We may not have been as creative of late in each individual case of reform; in fact in too many cases we have absolutely failed to get it right, but our economic profile has been dictating for quite some time that how we manage issues such as education, health care, public transport, the physical infrastructure, as well as the way we treat our primary foreign exchange generating economic pillars all require radical shifts.
But there is a converse side to such challenges that can be equally debilitating, and this can be driven by an absence of imagination in leadership that is characterised by inertia predicated on an approach that suggests since we are in recession we can’t afford to do anything.
Unfortunately, there are few things in life that are successfully achieved by doing nothing.
Recently, Government announced that it was about to spend scores of millions on the upgrade of the Grantley Adams International Airport, a project that would see the installation of jet bridges. Almost instantly there was strong pushback from some quarters, with a significant number of social media commentators arguing that such spending was unnecessary. Some suggested that while workers were awaiting income tax refunds or the hospital was short of funds, building such structures should not be contemplated.
But Barbados does not exist in a world by itself and how efficiently we are able to execute tasks that are undertaken in every other capital, impacts on how our efficiency is judged. And efficiency can be counted in dollars and cents. In today’s world of modern air travel, for all of our nationalistic emotionalism, when all is said and done we are not much different from any other jurisdiction.
Planes fly here from all over the world, and they operate with tight schedules that are dictated by powers elsewhere. Flight crews are constrained by operating times that once exceeded can leave them grounded. Airlines are subject to heavy fines when they fail to comply with the rules. When a plane lands at the Grantley Adams International Airport in 2016, holding passengers on board for 20 minutes or half an hour because of a heavy shower, that can’t be a reasonable excuse. Not when elsewhere only extreme snow storms, horrendous sub-zero temperatures are allowed to negatively impact airport operations.
Giving 350 arriving passengers, some with children or requiring assistance with wheelchairs, an umbrella each and sending them through driving rain is also not an option. Quite frankly it is an embarrassment, made worse when we consider that jet bridges already exist at competing airports across the region.
We should not let our economic challenges drive the creativity that has been traditionally Barbadian from our thinking. And modernising GAIA does not have to be at the expense of health care or the return of income tax refunds. With creative thinking this current crisis just might turn out to be a blessing in some ways.