Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author(s) do not represent the official position of Barbados TODAY.
by D Goddard
Food prices in Barbados are high because given the option over the years Bajans have preferred to grow buildings instead of food. They have also preferred to buy and eat imported stuff. So why are we complaining and acting distraught at the cost of living, especially food?
People are shooting each other left, right and center in Barbados and we complain, gnash our teeth and seem nonplussed. But what do we expect in a country when drug lords got direct open lines to politicians?
Guns and drugs coming into Barbados but our ports of entry are not being targeted in a robust manner.
The last commissioner of police identified the crack in the security system [as if we didn’t know]. What has been done to plug it? A government premier and the director of the port of the British Virgin Island recently got indicted in the United States of America for involvement in the drug trade, isn’t that a situation worth paying attention to by all Caribbean islands?
We want to earn foreign exchange and employ Bajans but yet we lost an opportunity to open another Sandals property at the old and abandoned Almond Beach Resort in St Peter because of political tomfoolery.
Wouldn’t we have been in a better position to have given Sandals the requested concessions, get the property up and running and Bajans employed and the facility being host to tourists rather than to bush and vermin?
We complained about NSRL and acted as though great injustice had been done to us, with businesses leading the complaints.
Now people with pit toilets paying a sewage tax on their water bills, one of about four other new taxes that nobody is complaining about. And, so it goes?
In a middle of a pandemic with nurses working beyond the call of duty, some got their salaries cut because they dared to stand up for their rights. But their unjust treatment is not on the government.
The fault lies with the other weak-kneed nurses and their representatives who have failed to show solidarity with them. I read where Trinidadians predicted the murder rate in that country will be the highest it has ever been. But what do you expect? Former Commissioner Gary Griffith was doing a great job dealing with criminal elements and with no favours or homage being paid to politicians. So, they got rid of him. The crime rate in T&T now is no surprise.
We often see decisions in regional courts and are astounded by some of the results. We only get sound reasoning when appeal courts dismiss the initial decisions and make it seem incredulous that those original decision were even ever made. Are regional courts compromised? The answer is there for those willing to search.
But these things are perpetuated because Caribbean people are willingly living in a bubble that has nothing to do with COVID-19. It is a regional bubble of ignorance.
At the end of the day, we are reaping what we sow.
