ADDRESSING THE PROBLEMS in the Barbados economy calls for a lot of finesse. It requires surgical incisions that quite frankly the Freundel Stuart administration lacks. Not surprisingly, the diagnoses of the local and foreign physicians are the same. Bloomberg recently joined the choir.
The news continues to be bitter for the Government to swallow and so it prefers to live in denial. It denies that its organs are failing. It denies the obvious weight loss; in the economy, that is.
So much in denial is the Government that its blood type has changed from Type A to Type C and it is now seeking to put the blame on the vulnerable Barbadians.
I am aware in the medical arena that there is no Type C blood. But you can credit my rating for the use of the metaphor.
The real problem is that the Stuart administration does not genuinely know its true blood type. When it interacts with the business community, it assumes Type A with all the hope and expectations of a brighter tomorrow. When it speaks to the unions, it adopts Type B with the need for sacrifice. When it engages the masses, it presents Type C, hoping to play on their conscience.
It is important to recognise that economics is a serious profession, in which the economy is to the economist what the body is to a physician. The notion therefore that solutions to the problems confronting Barbados can be produced on a call-in programme, or are available on a supermarket shelf, is outrageous.
But all that is happening in this country connects with the saying that “nature abhors a vacuum”.
In the absence of effective leadership, the door is open for all to walk in and rightly so. But the motivation for walking in must not be rooted in hate or dislike for those already on the inside. It must be a genuine desire to make a difference.
Rest assured that there is no one man who can deliver the solutions. However, the process has to be led. The leadership must put country first and accept the reality.
Political spin
The fiscal trap that Barbados is in has nothing to do with protecting the vulnerable in the society. That is political spin. There may be a place for spin but the Barbados wicket is not taking spin. In any case, Barbadians seem prepared to use their feet this time around.
The last-minute strategy, of tossing the ball in the air, might have worked in the past when Barbadians were looking for quick runs. It is now fully recognised that after spending so much time in the field, this is a Test match in which we are playing for our legacy.
We are conscious of not only what is going in the middle but beyond the boundary. The institutions supporting the legacy need some reassurance of their role. The players need to consider their wealth, not just today’s earnings. The administrators need to put the players and the institutions first, not themselves.
The only thing that is required for you to be persuaded of the truth is to be Barbadian first and foremost and anything else thereafter. Our country is facing its greatest trial not just because the compelling evidence returns a guilty verdict, but more so because the desire of the convicted is to insist on a suspended sentence.
In the case, suspended is the act of postponing action that is not in the interest of the country, but in the interest of a failed Government. A Government that refuses to accept it is driving on the wrong side of the road, in the wrong direction and speed.
From its first encounter with a recession in 2008, the Government refused to appeal to convention. It rushed to place blame. Then it imposed pain rather absorb responsibility.
The politics of a fiscal stimulus is rooted in the Government taking short-term responsibility for a downturn in the economy. Having failed to do so, excessive pressure was placed on Barbadian households and businesses.
The trial started way back in 2009/10 with the presentation of evidence to the Bajan jury, to justify the implementation of the Government’s Medium-Term Fiscal Strategy. The notion that Prime Minister Stuart is now, eight years later, ready to have a conversation with the people of Barbados must be “punished with laughter”.
The failure of the prime minister to truly engage Barbadians is amazing. After he got his own mandate in 2013, Mr Stuart declared that he was going to be greater than the previous prime ministers of Barbados.
• Dr Clyde Mascoll is an economist and Opposition Barbados Labour Party advisor on the economy. Email: clyde_mascoll@hotmail.com