O Lord, de Budget got a hole, in de centre; an’ if you think I telling lie, ask Chris Sinckler . . . .Mr Speaker, Sir, I prithee forgive the little ditty.
I rise today as representer for Morgan Lewis Bottom Close to address the Budget presentation and the Opposition reply. And I shall focus more on the bigger picture for Barbados than on the nifty titties of the actual Budget itself. However, a brief comment is in order. Cuddear,
Mr Sinckler! Seventeen and a half per cent VAT? That, sir, borders on racial recrimination. For which of our intellectually backward white businessmen can calculate 17 1/2? Put the damn VAT at 20 per cent and done with that. Mr Owen Arthur, my good friend, for 14 years put untold spending power in the hands of Bajans without telling them how to spend it wisely. As a result, they are living, in his words, from “pay cheque to pay cheque” and can’t withstand a modest increase in water rates.
His policies have spawned a generation of mall rats, mortgage slaves, reckless consumer addicts, champing tastes . . . . I know of struggling single parents who feel obliged to give their children $10 a day each for lunch money lest the children feel disgraced at having to carry to school sandwiches. Pelt the VAT in their stomach, Mr C, and let them learn to manage money.
But let me deal with Mr Arthur because I have every hope he will someday again be my Prime Minister. Mr Arthur must come to grips with the reality that his Government was rejected at the polls because most Bajans weren’t satisfied to pay the price he demanded for economic “progress”.
Not long before the last election, a serious black businessman, a friend who has done work for me for over 30 years, confided: “Mr Hoad, if the elections don’t change the way things are going in this country, white people goin’ have to hold some lashes. And I don’t see how you can avoid getting a share too!”
Why would Owen Arthur’s prosperous, employed subjects even contemplate civil unrest? Because they felt they were losing their country. Mr Arthur likes to say that “everybody wants to go to heaven but no one wants to die”. I contend there is another version of Bajan heaven which one can reach without having to die. And I believe I have found it.
As a small poor-rakey farmer, I do not live from pay cheque to pay cheque. With an income far less than most, I have just paid $25 000 cash for an upgrade to my milking system. When Tomas wrecked my farm and house roofs, I bought $11 000 in roof sheets cash. And if the whole house blows away, I could put another there without asking anybody for a loan.
It is not in my nature to brag, Mr Arthur. I am simply trying to show what is possible. And, by the way, I live good, eat the best food on earth, enjoy a view of unparalled beauty.Mr Speaker, I’m running out of time. I ask honourable members to check for themselves where membership in the European Union has taken Spain, Greece and Ireland. How building “booms” have resulted in thousands of disillusioned young people now trying to leave countries they love. Should we make the same mistake with CARICOM?Do we want to see our beautiful agricultural fields converted into built-up downtown Miami and housing for the rich and foreign? Or do we want to see our people feeding ourselves in meaningful, healthy outdoor agriculture, beholden to no one but our Maker?
Last Monday, Anthony Hunte asked if he could put one of his friends on to me. And he told this story: a regular visitor to our shores requested that Woah, I’m Going To Barbados be played at his funeral service; Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot at his cremation. His ashes were brought to Barbados. And as they were thrown into our sea, his wife was parading around in her bikini.
Are we with our mad focus on “development” in danger of destroying the unique Barbadian paradise visitors like the above loved, lived, and died for?Ponder on these things, Mr Speaker.
• Richard Hoad is a farmer and social commentator.