Eleven days into the New Year, the big issues confronting Barbados in 2021 are still with us and the pending general election in eight days does not alter the reality of the challenges that lie ahead.
Barbados is approaching the end of a second year of the COVID-19 pandemic and, like the rest of the world, is bracing and mobilising resources to deal with even more highly infectious variants and what all this could mean for an already overburdened health care system, a COVID-weary population, the recovering tourism and travel sector and, by extension, the battered economy.
These are the issues, though by no means all, that the parties and candidates bidding for the seats in the House of Assembly and, more so, the offices at Bay Street and ministries elsewhere should engage the electorate.
Less of the entertainment, rhetoric, and hyperbole on the platforms would suffice.
While politics has been described as a game, elections are serious business, or ought to be. The process enables voters to select their leaders and hold them accountable for their performance.
And in a competitive environment, as now obtains, the electorate regardless of preferred political stripe, is duty-bound to actively participate and pressure candidates and parties to expose their records and future intentions to public scrutiny.
In Barbados today, there are a plethora of issues that should concern us as we continue the tussle to keep our heads above water as a result of a prolonged economic recession tied to the prevailing global pandemic that has upended life and livelihoods in unprecedented ways.
In today’s edition of VOB’s Down to Brass Tacks, Director of the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES), Professor Don Marshall rightly suggested that economic issues should be on the front burner with the multi-million-dollar four-year International Monetary Fund-funded programme due to come to an end in about eight months’ time.
He said: “Besides discussing pledges and manifesto measures, there is a need to engage and connect with what it is that the IMF is going to be expecting of a new Government, whether it is a renewed BLP [Barbados Labour Party] government or a new government.
“And there is a need for serious discussion about this because it speaks directly to a continuation of austerity, where after 10 years of austerity and two years of a pandemic, you are asking the people to accommodate further tough measures.”
He had the support of Canadian-based Barbadian economist Carlos Forte who cautioned that the already strained economy is not yet firing on all cylinders and threats are looming.
“The outlook at present does not look particularly favourable. The last Central Bank report gave an indication of further contraction in the economy over and above the 18 per cent decline we saw in 2020, a contraction of just about two per cent of GDP with the expectation of that with a positive or a good outlook in the last three month of the year [2021], GDP would have grown by two per cent and I don’t think that out turn is likely to be the case given what we have seen with the COVID surge.”
On the campaign trail, these matters are yet to be dissected by the incumbent Barbados Labour Party, the Democratic Labour Party and the Alliance Party for Progress.
The BLP in its bid to retain power has touted its achievements, including raising a dismal $440 million in international reserves left behind by the Freundel Stuart administration back in 2018 to over three million this year, though largely due to borrowing.
It points to its support of the $115 million payout of NIS benefits to 31, 000 workers, the increase in non-contributory pension by 40 per cent, amid other things duly noted in its glossy manifesto.
Now Barbadians await the next step. Will the BLP, with its economic consultants, tell us whether it intends to continue the IMF Programme or craft our own homegrown initiative?
Economists have warned of coming austerity amid IMF advice of the need to tackle the issue of pensions and state-owned enterprises. How will this affect the ambitious programmes outlined in the BLP manifesto to improve housing, build out a digital economy and support the vulnerable as COVID continues to bite? What’s on the horizon for this new republic? Let us know without the dressing of rhetoric.
The Democratic Labour Party has picked up on the IMF report and, in his political style, Richard Sealy raised concern that thousands of pensioners in Barbados could be at risk of having their pensions reduced if the BLP administration is re-elected.
He also knocked Government’s borrowing, promising that the DLP could turn things around.
At the same time, party president Verla De Peiza announced plans to introduce fiscal responsibility laws, remove the foreign exchange fee introduced under the Freundel Stuart government and enable credit unions to expand their range of services if the party is elected to office.
What we haven’t heard from the DLP is whether it will engage the IMF and if not, just how does it intend to save the economy it claims is headed for austerity. How does the DLP plan to reverse the ills and put us on a path to growth and diversification, given its less than stellar economic record between 2008 and 2018 which contributed to Barbadians handing the party the worst political defeat in history? What’s different this time around, Mr Sealy and Ms De Peiza?
The Alliance Party for Progress which has been canvassing constituencies as opposed to mounting political platforms has a duty to join the national conversation. The discerning electorate is not interested in opposing for opposing sake. What’s your strategy?
Barbadians are anxiously waiting.
