To see what is right, and not to do it, is want of courage. – Confucius
I APPOINTED YOU and I could disappoint you. Perhaps that is what the minister felt.
You are not unique in being made a scapegoat. The Wild Coot passed that way twice in this fair island. The first time he spotted the scheming and took evasive action; the second time he really did not care. When you buck the system, you pay.
The Wild Coot is a resourceful fellow and has the credentials (like you) to operate worldwide. The advice of Professor Avinash Persaud is good advice. Walk away! But I suspect that the governor is stubbornly fighting for a nobler cause. Perhaps he was confronted with an urgent plea. The Wild Coot figured the pow-wow went like this, but this is only a guess.
This is the middle of the month and at the end of the month I have to pay Government servants, make transfers to the statutory corporations and pay a whole heap of bills and local and foreign loans. I will not have sufficient money from taxes collected. You need to get the printing press running.
Look, this is damn foolishness. You making me look like a poppit with this printing business. From now on printing is trefah. I dun printing.
All right, I will get somebody else. You’re fired!
I believe that is what the governor is fighting. But it is too late now. As Niccolò Machiavelli said more than five centuries ago, “the irresolute prince will most often follow the path of neutrality in order to avoid immediate danger, and will most often come to ruin”. Ruin it is!
While the governor might now quote Signori Machiavelli (“There are three kinds of intelligence. One kind is understanding on its own, the second can understand through others, and the third can understand neither on its own nor through others.”) he will try as long as he can to influence the affairs of state. Even this is tragic.
Had he used the path created by Sections 48 and 49 of the Central Bank Act long ago, he would now be in a position to garner sympathy.
Do you mean to say that the board of the bank has seen the treatment meted out to the governor and not realise that their silence too participated in the perilous position of the bank? Can they now be comfortable in running to the minister? I say fire the lot!
For a long time the Wild Coot has been heavy in his criticism of the Central Bank, especially in allowing such latitude to the commercial banks, but such latitude had the same genesis as the printing of money – supporting the deficit. The whole mix-up cannot be over a staff matter.
Of course, the minister is not the final boss. Remember Nero and his ukulele! Barbadians should wake up from their slumber and make their feelings felt by whatever legal means. Perhaps Nero is unable to find the right key on his ukulele and has abandoned trying to read the music sheet.
While this state of limbo persists, the country’s affairs are in no man’s land, assuming that the governor does not resume printing; assuming that the iniquitous new tax measures have not had time to bite on the way to a unique tax identification number that seems to be the goal of the minister.
But what part are the unions playing in all of this? They are the ones that can bring the politicians to their knees. While they acknowledge the limited finances of the Government over the last years, the present crisis has brought us to the precipice, as the inadequacy of Government management is evident.
What is tragic is that as yet there is no response from the unions and that it is the voice of the Barbados Private Sector Association that is trying to whip up support through the Social Partnership to bring the parties to the reasoning table. Too late!
In the Good Book the prophet Jeremiah asks: “Can the Ethiopian change its skin or the leopard its spots?” (Chapter 13:23). Not every politician has put politics above all considerations, and that is our problem.
Touch the wire and the wire wouldn’t bend, that’s the way my story ends. (Periculum in mora – there is danger in delay.) The Wild Coot experienced it in Jamaica.
• Harry Russell is a banker. Email quijote70@gmail.com