Tomorrow, as faithful Christians worship and observe the significance of Good Friday while preparing to celebrate the Resurrection, the people of Barbados in general will be particularly cognisant of a prevailing social and economic mood that reflects varying worrying concerns and negative messages in the media.
The February 21 general elections came and went with the political status quo remaining as “Dems again” and the Bees’ promise of “a better tomorrow” deferred for another season – whether in five years or much earlier.
The new post-election arithmetic of a parliamentary majority for the incumbent DLP of merely two in the 30-member House of Assembly has left a fellow columnist, Tennyson Joseph, piquantly noting in last Tuesday’s DAILY NATION that when called to pick a government between the two parties, the electorate were seemingly “mobilized into indecision”.
THE NATION’s editorial in that same edition, titled Time for creative political moves in Barbados’ interest, made a spirited call for structured consultations not restricted to Government and traditional stakeholders. Rather a new, creative dialogue process between representatives of the governing and opposition parties. That may be thinking “out of the box”. And why not? The dynamics of the time suggest initiatives hitherto unthinkable, but which could be politically path-finding as well for other CARICOM partners – some currently facing even more daunting challenges than Barbados, where data revealed by a just-released Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), and conducted by the UWI Cave Hill campus, is most unflattering.
For a start, this Country Assessment of Living Conditions (CALC) survey – as reported in the WEEKEND NATION – has highlighted that 15 per cent of households and 19.3 per cent of individuals were existing “below the poverty line”; approximately a quarter of the adult population of Barbados surveyed was listed among 21 per cent who have no interest in being employed – for a range of excuses, among them low wages and work they deem to be “unsuitable”. Against this background, and with increasing revelations of climbing crime and violence – the latter development posing new threats to this nation’s vital tourism sector – there has come the disclosure of a disturbing threat to the local poultry industry – one that clearly requires an urgent and sensible response by those concerned.
Speaking last weekend about this “threat”, chief executive officer of the Barbados Agricultural Society, James Paul, disclosed that it involved a new move by major “fast-food” outlets to “import most, if not all, of their meat”. The baking and related industries, he said, were also expected to be hurt as a consequence of “new entrants” in the fast-food business.
Given the serious implications of such a development, it is to be expected that the BAS will move expeditiously with proposals of their own to secure Government’s involvement for a realistic resolution to this looming problem.
• Rickey Singh is a noted Caribbean journalist.
