#BTColumn – ‘Give me de vote and watch muh’

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados Today Inc.

 by Guy Hewitt

I concur with former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower that, “The supreme quality for leadership is integrity.” Even politics should be informed by rules and principles; it should not be just to win at any cost.

The perspective of the Barbados Labour Party on integrity was laid bare for all to see when it allowed the Integrity In Public Life Bill to fail last year.

Andy Armstrong as chairperson of the Integrity Group Barbados Inc (IGB) has this to say: “We are disappointed and in disbelief that that could have happened…We’re not the experts in parliamentary procedure but it would seem like it was guaranteed to fail…

One would have thought since this is one of, if not the most important piece of legislation they [the Government] had committed to pass in this first five years, I wouldn’t like to think that they really didn’t want it to pass.”

As Barbados being one of the few countries with no integrity legislation, this was for me this Administration’s statement of intent that they had no plan to pass anti-corruption legislation. Lest we forget, the implementation of laws to eliminate corruption in public life was one of the pillars of the Barbados Labour Party’s 2018 election campaign.

But why make it fail? What would motivate a Government to not to want transparency and accountability in its operations? A good starting point is the Auditor General’s Report that points to serious irregularities and breaches in good governance. Let the other actions speak for themselves:

We have learned that some of the artistes involved in the abhorrent Trojan Riddim video are on the Government’s payroll. As to why their contracts had no morality clause, that to me is simple, we can only do what we know and I have concluded this Government is far from comprehending morality.

We all know of the proliferation of persons known to the court at Government functions and of known drug lords who have ministers of government on speed dial. But we were forewarned “Give me de vote and watch muh.”   

Five days after Mia Mottley was sworn in as prime minister and two days before she announced the government would default on its debt, the firm White Oak Advisory was engaged for just over $27m to assist with restructuring roughly $7bn of debts.

The Financial Times (FT) the worldʼs leading global business publication, described the contracting of the ‘two partner, small firm’ as ‘absurd.’ The FT, one of the world’s leading news organisations, recognised internationally for its authority, integrity and accuracy stated, “A little-known UK advisory firm stands to make about $27m from the restructuring of Barbados’ $7bn of debts, close to what Lazard earned seven years ago when it advised Greece on defaulted debt nearly 40 times bigger.”   

The article noted, “Barbados is not Greece, which had a massive debt stock, multiple debt instruments and huge political tensions…Double-digit fees are for very large transactions that are super complicated with a large number of instruments and a large number of different creditors.”

We further learned from the article that Citigroup earned roughly $3m from restructuring Jamaica’s $9bn of defaulted debts in 2013. Jamaica paid $3m in fees for $9bn of debt restructuring; Barbados paid $27m for $7bn. But we were forewarned “Give me de vote and watch muh.”   

Bus fare was increased, VAT was increased, land tax was increased, National Insurance rates were increased, and personal income tax was increased.

A Garbage and Sewage Contribution (GSC) levy was introduced, VAT on online transactions was imposed, airline travel and tourism development fee imposed and a surcharge on credit card use was imposed. The one tax that the Administration was able to reduce was corporate tax for the rich and famous.

We have seen how the Office of the Governor General has been compromised, not just in making Her Excellency read her own notice of redundancy, but also in assigning a governmental role to one supposedly independent senator while another was allowed to go canvassing to become a BLP parliamentary representative.

At a time when unemployment is at its highest and the economy at its weakest, we have the largest Cabinet (aka wardrobe) in the history of Barbados and, as I have highlighted in my articles, many are nonperforming.

It is noteworthy that India, the world’s most populous country and sixth-largest economy, has only 21 Cabinet Ministers, 29 Junior Ministers, and 9 Ministers of State.

Cronyism in rife. We are learning that Government appointments seem to be predicated solely on political considerations. We see a Department of Public Affair created to duplicate the work of BGIS but staffed by political operatives.

We saw how a post of executive chairperson at the QEH was created and the wife of a government minister installed despite her having no prior experience running a tertiary level hospital. We read of persons appointed to posts in agriculture, housing and elsewhere with the sole qualification of being loyal to the BLP. But we were forewarned “Give me de vote and watch muh.”   

We recall just a few years ago while in Opposition, Ms Mottley in her 2017 Budget Reply castigated the previous Administration for ‘questionable deals’ and what was deemed to be ‘special favours’ for Mark Maloney and Preconco due to the numerous
contracts awarded.

We recall the BLP-led public outcry over Mr Maloney’s plans to build the Hyatt Hotel.  Now we learn that Mr Maloney was awarded a contract to build 265 houses on government-owned lands at Chancery Lane. We are also hearing rumblings of non-competitive awards in the SSA, BWA and MTW.

We can’t blame Mr Maloney for doing what businesspersons are meant to do, making money doing business. However, Ms Mottley should take heed that the New Testament makes clear who God’s most severe judgments are reserved for.

This follows closely on behind the Government reneging on the sale of land at Lancaster, St James to low- and middle-income earners to switch the project to homes for the high-income Sandy Lane and Royal Westmoreland expatriate crowd. The common-law husband of a government minister is spearheading this project.  But we were forewarned “Give me de vote and watch muh.”   

I spoke previous to how, despite being aware that China values seniority highly and after deploying Sir Lloyd Erkine Sandiford, The Hon. Dr. Chelston Brathwaithe, and a diplomatic star, Francois Jackman, we are sending Hallam Henry the youthful son of Mottley’s political “hired-gun” Hartley Henry as our ambassador there.

This absurdity is in addition to our struggle to discern what Ambassadors Liz Thompson and Clyde Mascoll do on a daily basis. But we were forewarned “Give me de vote and watch muh.” Bob Marley said, “The greatness of a [person] is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.”

Let us hope this Government wakes up to this reality and puts integrity back into public life.  However, given their track record it would be wise for good citizens to make contingency plans as they probably won’t.

May the Lord continue to be the people’s guide.

Guy Hewitt announced his candidature for the leadership of the DLP. He currently lives and works between Barbados and Florida and can be contacted at guyhewitt @gmail.com