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By Ralph Jemmott
On the weekend of October 22-23, the ruling Barbados Labour Party held its Annual General Conference in Queen’s Park in Bridgetown, Barbados. Understandably, the occasion was used to reward those who had served the organisation over the years. The other feature was a quite far-reaching reshuffling of the Cabinet, a thing not usually reserved for Party General Conferences on either side of the great political divide. The Cabinet changes were ostensibly made in pursuance of what the Prime Minister herself called a “fresh guard” intended to assist Barbados in coping with the challenges facing the country. The Mottley administration has set itself certain social and economic targets hopefully to be fulfilled by year 2030.
Opposition parties invariably liken government reshuffles to a rearranging the deck-chairs on the ill-fated Titanic. Only recently the British Labour Party made that criticism in relation to Prime Minister Sunak’ s nominations to his Conservative Party’s government’s Cabinet.
Dr. George Belle commenting in Barbados TODAY’s publication, described Mottley’s Cabinet reshuffle as “unorthodox”, but said, “she has her own way of doing things.” Belle is quoted in Barbados TODAY as saying: “I don’t see anything of real substance in that Cabinet reshuffle, but she went ahead and did a Cabinet reshuffle. She knows what is going on in the Cabinet and what is going on in the BLP in a way that we would never know, but it is also in terms of her mind and how her mind works politically and she has been a very successful politician.” Read into that what you will, but success in politics depends on the positive legacy one leaves, not merely in winning elections and retaining power.
Personally, one would have thought that given present difficulties, in the circumstances, the Ministers were not performing that badly, certainly not to the extent that the thoroughgoing reshuffle might warrant. However, as Dr. Belle indicated, The Prime Minister might have her particular perceptions on issues, on which she, as P.M., is certainly entitled to act.
Objectively speaking, it is not fair to conclude that the Barbadian ship of state is akin to the Titanic, though clearly it is not out of troubled waters. In these waters it cannot be said that as the calypso warned its Captain, “the ship is sinking.” The BLP administration inherited an economy in what seemed like a perfect storm. In 2019 there was a decline of 1.3 percent. In 2020 there was a fall of 13.7 percent with anaemic growth of less than 1 percent in 2021. For the first time a Barbados government defaulted on its debt, which was not without its attendant consequences
as some were forced to take a proverbial haircut.
In the circumstances of COVID, the St. Vincent Volcano eruption, the Ash-Fall and the freak storm, the Mottley administration has managed the economy relatively well. Evidence would suggest that through the Barbados Economic and Recovery and Transformation plan (BERT), the economy has stabilised. There have been no more downgrades. On October 20, 2022 the rating agency Fitch gave Barbados a B rating with a stable outlook to its foreign debt, citing enhanced growth prospects. Standard and Poors’ own rating for Barbados stood at B-. On October 4, 2022, the World Bank confirmed that Barbados is on course for double-digit growth this year, with forecast that the local economy will return to pre-COVID level of performance in two years. Barbados Central Bank’s own projection is for a growth rate of 10.5. We can only hope that these optimistic forecasts will in fact be realised.
Miss Mottley’s management of the actual COVID-19 crisis has been praiseworthy. Not many countries have done it better. Now that the worst of the pandemic seems to be over, it is easy to forget how understandably fearful we all were facing a disease that most were extremely uncertain about.
The economic fall-out from Covid-19 has been more than challenging for a small, open economy with structurally systemic fault-lines and perennially vulnerable to exogenous shocks. Perhaps to overdo the naval metaphor, the ship will continue to have to tack against very adverse head-winds and troublesome currents. This is a problem faced by many western capitalist economies that face the after effects of COVID and consequences derived from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict and its attendant geo-political implications. How and when, that war in Europe will end is any person’s guess. Given the persona of the principal actor, a nuclear Armageddon cannot be ruled out.
In 2023, the world economy could face a downturn. The Chinese economy which consistently showed growth rates of nine percent, is expected to slow to just above 3 percent. This as a result of Covid-related lockdowns and concerns over fragile property markets in China. Britain in the words of new Prime Minister Sunak is facing recession if not a deep economic crisis, even as it
seeks to promote the seemingly elusive goal of growth.
In its economic management, the Mottley administration is faced with the choice of raising taxes, making spending cuts and persistent borrowing. Any option is problematic. Increase taxation on an already burdened populace at a time of rising prices could impose further hardship and be politically painful for the government. Spending cuts would not go down well in a society highly dependent on welfare and subsidies, and where people look to government for ‘salvation’. The third option is to borrow and this the Mottley administration has decided to do. Borrowing is understandable as we cannot allow our social and material infrastructure to deteriorate. It has to be maintained. Slippage would be intolerable, even though Barbados debt currently stands at an overwhelming BDS$13.8 billion.
Most of our borrowings have been at ostensibly concessionary rates, but loans no matter how concessionary the rate, have to be repaid. That is unless one is callously prepared to enjoy the fruits of the borrowed money while passing on the debts to future generations.
Added to the economic crisis, the BLP government is being presented with an increasing array of social issues, most notably gun crime. Barbadians are now expressing not only sentiments of economic insecurity, but increasing feelings of personal insecurity in ways not experienced before. The headline in a daily newspaper of October 22 screamed “3 more murders in one day”. A few days later there were reports of attempts at car-jacking, a new and worrying phenomenon in the Barbadian crime landscape.
Perhaps one of the surprising Cabinet changes initiated by Prime Minister Mottley was the appointment of M.P. for the City Corey Lane to serve as Minister of State in the Office of the Attorney General with responsibility for Crime Prevention. Peter Wickham commenting on the Lane selection states: “What that says to me is that Corey Lane seems to know a bit about the aspects of crime prevention that is not well known which is essentially gainfully employing persons that are at risk. If he is able to engage at-risk youth in a situation once they are comfortably engaged, then it is unlikely they will commit crime and this is an angle I support entirely.” There is a lot of supposition in this statement, but we all hope Mr. Lane can assist us in this perilous time.
The appointment of someone as young and seemingly unqualified as Corey Lane would suggest that the Mottley administration lacks both an understanding of the complex causalities of crime and the even more complex difficulties in solving social deviance. Perhaps the decision reflects the often asserted mantra that more hands make light work, but solving a growing crime problem is a far distance from running a Fun Ranch. But the question has to be asked: If the Office of the Attorney General, the Judiciary and the Police Service were effective, why is the Corey Lane appointment necessary? What in reality is he expected to do?
At her swearing in ceremony In January, Prime Minister Mottley committed her government to three things. These were, fairness, transparency and accountability. Fairness is a moral category and is relative; transparency and accountability are political values that are reflected or nor reflected in acts of the political will. Today in Barbados too many things related to transparency and accountability which concern ‘the people business’ are still hidden in the shadows because they do not or may not reflect well on party politics. But that is politics for you. It is not a peculiarly Barbadian failing.
Ralph Jemmott is a respected retired educator and commentator on social issues.
