#BTEditorial – Of togetherness and being created more equal

The now frequent refrain that we are all in the throes of this pandemic together is a correct geographical statement. But recent utterances of three politicians suggest that a more plausible jingle could be that Barbadians are equally in the crisis together, but some are more equally in it than others. Minister of Labour Colin Jordan, Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance Ryan Straughn and Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr Jerome Walcott have given Barbadians much food for thought.

Just over a week ago in what could have been a tutorial on irony, Mr Jordan had this to say. “My position is, you cannot ask your line people to take a pay cut if you in management are not prepared to take a pay cut. So when I talk about equity in sharing the burden, it has to be across-the-board . . . The workers, if they are asked to bear weight, then that weight-bearing has to be across-the-board. In my view, if it is to be equitable, it has to be across-the-board. . . .” Mr Jordan was making these comments against the background of suggestions of possible salary and wages cuts in the private sector. He was also speaking against the background of thousands of Barbadians being placed on the breadline as the COVID-19 pandemic continued its disruptive social and economic global trek. As to be anticipated, Mr Jordan made no reference to the bloated Cabinet of which he is a part, or the salaries, allowances, and other benefits they enjoy while seeking sacrifices from others.

A few days later Dr Walcott and Mr Straughn made statements that once again demonstrated our politicians’ knowledge of the people they serve and the distance to which they feel comfortable travelling in deeply partisan territory. Dr Walcott, speaking on the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation’s The People’s Business on Sunday, defended Government’s unprecedentedly large Cabinet. He also sought to address the high number of consultants on Government’s payroll. Of the Cabinet, he noted: “Persons can have their opinions on the size of the Cabinet… but we have all been working very hard and I believe the Cabinet has been engaged. You would be surprised at the hours we are working sometimes in Cabinet meetings and in various meetings throughout the day. Some of us have been working some very long hours during the day.”

Of the consultants, this was Dr Walcott’s take: “In the COVID-pandemic the economy is being affected locally as it is globally. These consultants that people want us to dispose of are responsible for getting us out of the rut we were in earlier.

“If we are now in a similar state because of COVID, this is the time that we need some of these same consultants to put their hand to the plough and get us out of the situation we are in now.”

Politicians often tend to speak in generic terms and Dr Walcott was not specific as to the hard work of which he spoke or the movement in and out of the rut. This apparent walk through the Land of Oz continued with Minister Straughn. He not only echoed the “hardworking” theme of his Cabinet colleague but in classic hyperbolic terms noted that trimming the Cabinet would be doing Barbados a “disservice”. Satirical writers could not have bettered this. At a time when already struggling public and private sector workers from St Lucy to St Michael are being asked to shoulder greater burden and make added sacrifices, as well as suffering job losses, two politicians sought to justify their numbers and plethora of consultants because they are “working hard” – perhaps harder than the rest of the population.

But our politicians know they can get away with this codswallop. Our leaders speak to many in the public who refuse to separate twaddle from red, or rubbish from yellow. And, there is never a shortage of acquiescence from individuals of letters who sing the tune of the day to secure their present and future supper or to recompense for the full diet they would have enjoyed in the past. It is a cancer in our politics that might go unnoticed in times of plenty but metastasizes in times such as what now prevails. Any notion that 25 000 lower and middle-income unemployed Barbadians are expendable in the midst of the pandemic, but the country is best able to retain its equilibrium with the current cabinet is an insult to people’s intelligence.

Last month New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern and her government ministers agreed to a 20 per cent pay cut to show solidarity with those affected by the coronavirus outbreak. Opposition Leader Simon Bridges did likewise. Ardern said it was important the government’s most highly paid politicians show “leadership and solidarity” with workers on the frontline and those who had lost their livelihoods. There is sacrifice that is being made by politicians in other jurisdictions such as Bermuda to show tangible acknowledgement of the economic crisis in their respective countries.

But in Barbados, our politicians make a case for their bloated numbers, beat their chests about their “hard work”, while their acolytes try to convince the masses that in the face of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, that they are equally in something “together”.