Businessman Andrew Bynoe is not known to be a man afraid to step out on a limb and address difficult conversations. His is a style that is sometimes viewed as quirky, but Bynoe is certainly a shrewd operator.
The successful entrepreneur has survived the global financial crisis that stalked this country for almost 10 years starting in 2007/2008. He has mastered the art of manoeuvring at the right junctures, reconfiguring, investing, pulling back, and expanding at the optimum times.
Bynoe also knows how to gain friends and maintain important alliances. He is a man known to cherish loyalty and from all reports, he rewards that loyalty in very tangible ways.
The owner of A-One Supermarkets at Black Rock, St Michael, and Emerald City in St Philip and former Barbados Labour Party Government Senator, appears to be a man who goes bold or not at all.
His establishments stand out for quality, if not necessarily for price, but his customers seem happy with what he offers.
We are not here to stroke Mr Bynoe’s ego, but as a leading black businessman, we acknowledge his accomplishments. And after 40 years in business, his achievements are certainly noteworthy.
As with most establishments in Barbados, his retail businesses have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, now into its second year of untold damage. We suspect that earlier this year, we passed the quiet that came with the eye of this COVID-19 storm, and we are now being battered by the vicious winds coming from the opposite direction in the form of the Delta variant.
The average Barbadian household does not have that much to spend. There are few who can indulge in excesses at this time. And so, many businesses are feeling it in their bottom lines, as operating expenses directly related to COVID-19 have increased dramatically.
The predictability that our business community requires to make solid plans is missing, due to uncertainty about where we are heading with coronavirus infections.
Mr Bynoe’s call, therefore, for Government to introduce mandatory vaccinations and to bring the necessary legislative changes to facilitate such a move is not surprising.
Just recently, executive director of the Barbados Employers’ Confederation (BEC) Mrs Sheena Mayers-Granville expressed the view that employers in the island wanted national guidance on the matter of vaccinations for workers.
To date, Government has been offered a legal opinion, but the administration has chosen to use moral suasion, education, and lobbying by social and popular influencers to get those who are hesitant to come over to the other side.
Mr Bynoe is a practical man. And we assume that his calculations, which align in some ways to that of the Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners, are that moral suasion is good, but time is not on our side to pursue this as the principal response to the pandemic.
The Delta variant is ripping through the population affecting young, old, men, women, preachers, businessmen, the rich and the paupers, but mostly the unvaccinated.
If we observe international and regional trends, many people will not heed the call to be vaccinated against COVID-19 unless they are pushed and forced to do so.
And the greatest incentive seems to be retention of employment. In New York City, for example, state employees, even those on the frontline fighting the pandemic, are facing dismissal if they refuse to be vaccinated.
Airlines, including Delta, Air Canada, and United Airlines introduced vaccination mandates after Qantas announced it will require all front-line staff to be fully vaccinated by November 15.
A story in The Hill publication, said this month that Delta Airline’s chief health officer disclosed that 4,000 unvaccinated employees moved quickly to be vaccinated after the company announced it was adding a US$200 monthly surcharge on its health care plan for employees who were not vaccinated by August 25.
Furthermore, the company said it has not seen any turnover or resignations in response to the new policy. Such is the new normal since the advent of COVID-19. Nothing has remained the same. Not a single person or entity has been left unscathed by the pandemic.
Corey Layne, one of the administration’s special advisors on poverty said in this publication that Barbados’ middle-class is holding on “by the fingernails”.
They have the trappings of the middle-class, but their refrigerators and cupboards are empty. Debt collectors and store owners are calling about unpaid loans and mortgages.
Another shutdown of this country will be devastating to people who are already on the brink, and no one wants that. The problem is that we may well be delaying the inevitable unless we are prepared to have the difficult conversations of which Mr Bynoe speaks.
