Atherley, Gov’t tussle over ‘time-wasting’ laws

Opposition Leader Bishop Joseph Atherley drew the ire of several ministers in Parliament on Tuesday when he admonished Government for wasting time on legislation that does not address the daily hardships that Barbadians are facing.

He characterized the Corporate (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill that was tabled by Acting Attorney General Wilfred Abrahams as one of a number of amendments lacking substance and which sought only to comply with international financial institutions and Government’s political agenda.

Lawmakers eventually passed a suite of amendments: the Companies Act, the Companies Regulations 1984; Societies with Restricted Liabilities Act; the Trademarks Act; the Industrial Designs Act and the Corporate Affairs and Intellectual Property Office Act.

Abrahams explained that this was done to bring Barbados in line with its obligations with respect to money laundering treaties and its anti-money laundering responsibilities globally.

But the Leader of the Opposition accused his colleagues of “marking time”. According to him, Barbadians are experiencing unprecedented levels of hardships. This, he contended, has resulted in increasingly high numbers of people turning to hustling, of which “selling themselves” is becoming a major component.

Bishop Atherley declared: “People out there now are selling everything, everywhere because they are reduced to a life of hustle. It used to be only the ZR people with whom we associated that word hustle, now it’s all working class people.

“Life is a hustle, whether we want to acknowledge it or hear it or not. It is a hustle for too many and that is the reality we face. I am fully convinced that there are many more people in Barbados today who are selling themselves and not only women.

“Increasing numbers have to sell themselves in order to face down the reality which their lives have become. They have to do that in order to earn, in order to pay their bills, in order to keep their mortgages going, they have to do that in order to feed their children,” he added.

Speaking directly to Speaker of the House Arthur Holder, Atherley added: “You represent an urban constituency, you deal with working class people every day, even in your professional life, and you know the misery that constitutes their experience now. You know what they are being faced with, with respect to hardship.

“You know what life is like, if you can still call it that. And all I’m here saying is that we must find the opportunity today in Barbados, as a Parliament of Barbados, to not only debate matters which are expedient and obligatory because of our international commitments, but we must be moved to find, bring measures before this Parliament that can transform the lives of working class people and stop marking time.”

The St Michael West MP told the House that if Barbados was really serious about legislation to uplift its citizens, then a sports policy ought to have been high on the list for consideration.

He chastised the Mia Mottley administration for allowing just over three years to pass with still no movement forward in sport which he said has proven to be an area rife with economic potential.

The Opposition Leader said: “We keep talking about it but we can come all the time with matters relative to international business, and matters that would see us become more compliant to the institutional directors of the day. Sports policy, a big industry and we continue to make sport about sports in Barbados.”

Acting Prime Minister Santia Bradshaw added her voice to the debate, suggesting that it was the Opposition Leader’s right to table, by way of a Private Members Bill, any piece of legislation he believes Government may have omitted.

On the issue of the level of hardship which Atherley alluded to, Bradshaw said that it was not unique to Barbados and working class Barbadians.

“When I hear the discourse that people are hustling, I am as empathetic to the people who are hustling and I know that it is not just poor people who are hustling, the rich people hustling, middle class people hustling. All of the people across the world – not just Barbados – are hustling and they are feeling the pinch.

“Not only the rising prices in fuel… even trying to get a container into Barbados to bring in food. But it is not peculiar to this little rock and we have to understand and appreciate that we do not live in a vacuum.

“We have to understand and be responsible enough to explain to people that in one breath, while you are saying you know people hurting and you have to alleviate the problems and the challenges, in the same breath you still have to hold their hand and be responsible enough to educate them as to what is happening globally that is impacting on us. When we hear the issue of feed prices we understand it is not just a Barbados problem.

“We are quick to watch everything that is happening globally, and be able to comment and agree or disagree but we seem to forget sometimes with all of this education… that we are 166 square miles and we can’t rub stones together to make fire,” Bradshaw added.

Minister of Economic Affairs Marsha Caddle also pushed back on Atherley’s criticisms, suggesting that such remarks might be an attempt to “score cheap political points”.

She defended the legislation as not a case of being given marching orders by an international institution but a device that could potentially benefit all Barbadians by making it easier to do business in Barbados.

Caddle told the House: “We have to realize that we don’t exist in this world on our own and there are certain judgments people will choose to make of countries that look like us and sound like us. They want to frame us as banana republics: ‘they don’t know no better’.

“We are regrettably in a time where there are some actors in the international community that will use any reason to be able to say ‘no you do not qualify for this or that’. And who suffers? Your citizens suffer.” (KC)