#BTColumn – Constitutional reform needed

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author(s) do not represent the official position of Barbados TODAY.

by Peter Webster

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” – Anne Frank

“All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.” – Walt Disney

“There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in the World: Those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid to succeed.” – Motivational Proverb

“You don’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been.” – Old English Proverb

“If you do not know where you are going, any road will get you there.” – Old English Proverb

Former Barbados Ambassador John Beale published an excellent article on Wednesday 6th April, 2022 titled “Constitutional Reform for Greater Democracy”. Unfortunately, the term “greater democracy” is not specific enough to guide the drafters of the reforms, far less the average citizen of this country, in determining the real goal(s) of the proposed reforms which should be fixing the causes rather than the symptoms of the need.

Many of the reasons or needs that Mr. Beale identifies such as poor public sector performance, poor governance and lack of accountability are little more than effects or symptoms of the underlying causes which include a lack of performance incentives for the public servants. Targeting these symptoms would be like taking an aspirin for a headache.

It is crucial that the proposed reforms tackle those underlying causes rather than the symptoms, not just for Barbados, but also for the rest of CARICOM who are all watching as Barbados sets an important example for all of them.  If our reforms fail to tackle these causes, we will not just be “spinning top in mud” but the reforms would be a “scam”.

There is far too big a gulf between the average citizen in Barbados and the public sector, including those elected, who “Lord” over us with no accountability as the average citizen lacks the means of any input or control other than a vote, too frequently, for the lesser of two evils every five years.

Governance and accountability are needed on an ongoing, daily basis. To have current input, the average citizen must get involved in politics and/or become “yard fowls” – all of which are distasteful and unattractive to the majority.

Yet, as Mr. Beale points out, there are thousands of Barbadians from all walks of life who are involved in the more than 400 Community-Based Organisations (CBOs) across our beloved country which are making significant contributions to our governance and development.

In most cases, these CBOs achieve far more with far less than our unproductive and unaccountable public sector, despite the red tape and negativity imposed by that public sector which treats the CBOs as threats to the public sector’s legitimacy.

A simple example is our Salvation Army whose charities cost less than 12 cents in administration for each dollar it receives compared to our public sector organisations which are, in most cases, costing well above 50 cents out of every dollar of taxpayers’ money they receive.

The over-arching goal of our constitutional reform must therefore be to enable/empower our citizenry in not only achieving public sector accountability and demanding better governance, but to encourage and enable our citizenry to: be involved; contribute; and help in our governance and development. Such empowerment must not be seen as limiting Government and governance, but actually helping to promote and improve it.

The power of “recall” will be one such enabling mechanism, but one which must be limited from being used “willy nilly” to frustrate the Government.

Note, the goal of enabling an average citizen is not the same as enabling the political Opposition which does not need enabling.

Barbados has already led the world in establishing a social partnership, but this establishment has not been truly formalised. This partnership needs a more formal structure to function which could be achieved by restructuring the current useless, political duplicating Senate.

A restructured Senate would have some political representation from the governing party and the official political Opposition.

It could be chaired by the President and its constituents would represent the wider social partnership, including the Community-Based Organisations that effectively represent all the interests of each and every one of us from Labour to Commerce, to Professional, Religion and Charity.

All of which would elect their own representatives to that restructured Senate. As such the new Senators would represent different constituencies of “interests”.

We need also to recognise the negatives of proportional representation which create an even sharper divide than is currently the case.

Proportional representation tends to package the “Good, the Bad and the Ugly” unless the electors get to vote on each individual.

It also promotes national recognition over local and in doing so limits the participation of “grassroots” politicians in favour of the more nationally visible ones.

A possible alternative could be to introduce not more than five nationally elected representatives along with the local constituency representatives. The total number of parliamentarians need not be increased. Finally, the proposed reforms must ultimately be approved by a national referendum or they would be seen as a scam.

Such a referendum must require approval of every constitutional change proposed and not just a package of “the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”.

Any packaging of the proposed changes for the referendum will also indicate a scam.

Peter Webster is a retired portfolio manager of the Caribbean Development Bank and a former Senior Agricultural Officer in the Ministry of Agriculture.