THE HEADLINE of a report from Parliament on the Sanitation Service Authority Act debate, which read Govt Standing By Cahill Project, confirmed what many have felt for some time: Barbados has become a no-choice democracy. It’s well known there’s a large body of Barbadians who are opposed to the waste-to-energy proposal, yet Minister Lowe was described as “defiant” as he “came out swinging against critics”.
It was said of the 2010 British election (Cunningham- Global Research 2010): “There is now patently no political choice on offer to voters” and “politics is “morphing into a mainstream mulch of nothingness for ordinary people”. Similarly, when we Barbadians go to the polls nowadays, we’re between a rock and a hard place when placing our X. But I doubt we could do worse than what we have now, so perhaps we should still take a chance on the “others”.
Then when it comes to deciding how our society is to be run, we again apparently have no choice. As Cunningham notes, “This no-choice democracy is being foisted on ordinary people everywhere, from North America to Europe . . . The ‘choice’ it seems is: you can hold your nose while swallowing this or you may not hold your nose . . .” or in our situation “you can like it or lump it” – the Sandi legacy.
Minister Lowe gloats that “not a toffee paper has been dumped in Greenland”. We know Greenland was a costly blunder by the former Government, but are thankful it was halted before it was too late. We now have a partially prepared site which could easily become a major recreation area for locals and visitors. But
because of the “I’m-not-touching-anything-you-started” attitude of party politics, it’s being left to deteriorate.
The Cahill plant, on the other hand, will be a permanent blot on our landscape and a danger to us all. And the argument about us not having to pay for it is ludicrous. MP Santia Bradshaw did a good job of detailing the costs so I won’t repeat.
I agree with the Prime Minister and Minister Inniss that garbage is the business of all of us – from creating it to disposing of it. First, we must encourage reduced packaging. I assume the environmental levy originally charged was based on the amount of packaging. If it wasn’t it should’ve been. But of course we signed its death warrant.
I‘ve seen two tablets packaged in separate blister packs, each with one compartment empty, and then placed in a box ? Isn’t that ridiculous? Then there’s the hard plastic packaging of every small tool which can actually cause you bodily harm while trying to remove it. We should be lobbying with other international groups to reduce this packaging.
The next move should be household garbage separation and proper support for recyclers – not a water-guzzling waste-to energy-plant to pollute the air for all of us.
Talking about garbage, it seems Minister Lowe puts on his “rose-tinted” glasses when driving around. He was recently reported as saying he didn’t share the view that Barbados is a dirty country and that Bridgetown specifically is generally a clean area. Minister Lowe, photographs suggest otherwise. Like the large pile of garbage on Prince William Henry Street (Saturday Sun) and the floating garbage at the Bridgetown Fisheries Complex (Weekend Nation).
Apart from a “no-choice government” we also have little or no choice with telecommunications. We thought that had changed when Flow arrived on the scene, but that enthusiasm was short lived. Since fibre optics, the problems seem to have mushroomed and we’re in mass confusion daily. Nothing works properly now. Apparently, one Flow employee advised “not to wish for it”. Seems they were right. True, Digicel is now offering an increased range of services, but the proof of that pudding is in the eating.
Loyal Barbadians who feel disappointed at the destruction of what has been built in Barbados over the years are often criticised for voicing that opinion, but now the criticism is coming from the St Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister, quoted as stating: “For a very long time Barbados has been seen as a model of good government, good governance, good macro-economic policies model for small island states and certainly after the last decade Barbados has lost that . . .”