I DO NOT THINK that Bajans like when Trini tell them that they are going wrong. They call it “fassing in we business”.
Perhaps Trini does not see it that way. For the last 20 years or so, when the murder rate in Trinidad started escalating, Barbados has been seen by Trini as a safe haven to which to escape the slings and the gunshots, to park their families, to educate their children and generally to relax – oh, and to do business. You see Barbados was seen as solid as a rock, as a Vinci once remarked, “the idea of Barbados”.
Now for the last ten years or so, the economy has started to disintegrate, to the dismay of Trinidad. The thing is that Bajan politicians will take your money, your oil and your commodities, but as the Mighty Gabby said, ‘gi me back me cou cou and flying fish’.
To be serious, you could be right about the debt being 160 per cent of GDP if you consider all the relevant factors, off-balance sheet items and unpaid debts of Government obligations. I disagree with the concept of making the US dollar the currency of Barbados. The hoarding may not be found with the man in the street, but with the big-ups. That our budget gap has been widening consistently for the past ten years is true; that we need to suck salt for a while to come is also true – you call it “pick your poison”; that we must renegotiate our local debt and foreign debt and bond holdings is also true, so that our payments can come closer to our receipts. It is going to be a long uphill battle.
The authorities are not laying out the true picture to Barbadians, and the Prime Minister, with elephantine grace, is loquaciously dangling a US billion dollar investments inflow like pie in the sky, knowing full well that it is impractical – actually, I do not think that he knows. First US$100 million from Sol may not be going directly into the economy. How much may be used to pay off an exterior loan of BNTCL is not said. Hyatt will not put US$250 million or so into the builder’s hands without a block on the site; and the net positive investment at Sam Lord’s Castle is questionable. In any case, the terms of their proposal to fund the reconstruction is insulting (see what is also happening in Jamaica).
The Wild Coot has already made known his views on the iniquitous arrangements with Sandals. Views that continue to show that the foreign exchange expectations are not forthcoming to Barbados. That tax arrangement has had a significant effect on other hotels as they react to an uneven playing field. Now I believe that businesses are happy to put their foreign exchange outside of Barbados and wait and see. (Shades of Jamaica in the 1970s and 1980s.)
People are complaining that foreign exchange remittances sent to the Trinidad banks in Barbados are not being kept here for supporting our imports, but are sent to Trinidad that is repatriating Barbados dollars in exchange. This could mean that Trinidad has a surplus of Barbados dollars, probably as payment for oil, food, loans or even dividends. It also signals that our Central Bank has lost control of the foreign exchange destined for Barbados and above all, the overseeing of the foreign banks, their exorbitant commissions and miserly interest rates. If that is happening, crapaud smoke we pipe.
Our minister of finance has promised to resign if we have to devalue, but having put us in excrement, what help would that be?
There should be no more talk of devaluation. What we need is to find a way to get our cash flow on an even keel even if it involves further sacrifices.
Recently in the media, the spokesman for the Bankers Association has advocated retooling for public workers, probably in anticipation of cuts. Does this association not realise that it is part of the problem? Is it not incongruous to be sporting super profits in our downturn?
And so Ms Dukharan, perhaps our boys will listen to you since you come from over and away and perhaps have no axe to grind. Look how we stuck by you when the other islands deserted you and accepted the trade deal of oil from Venezuela. When you say “pick your poison”, do we have to choose hemlock, or can we choose one for which there is an antidote? Say, have an early election and take our chances with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) if it does not insist on devaluation. As you know, an IMF programme gives market investors confidence.
• Harry Russell is a banker. Email quijote70@gmail.com