Borrowed from the official site for Harrison’s Cave
Reported in the Advocate
THE Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) has approved a package of financial assistance for a project which will enhance Barbados’ national tourism product.
The Bank’s Board of Directors approved a loan equivalent to Bds$33.9 million (US$16.9 million) to assist in financing the expansion and upgrading of Harrison’s Cave one of Barbados most popular land-based tourist attractions.
Approval for the financing was given at a meeting of CDB’s Board of Directors held at the Bank’s Headquarters in Barbados, on July 13, 2006. This follows the approval of a technical assistance loan of Bds$7 million in May of this year to the Government of Barbados for the modernisation of the regulatory environment in the country’s financial sector.
This investment in improving the cave will add tremendous value to our tourism product as we continue to diversify the industry and attract a wider range of visitors to our shores and surely we all will be able to benefit and enjoy the natural beauty that Harrison’s Cave has to offer.
We anxiously look forward to the re opening of the upgraded and improved cave.
5 responses so far ↓
Adrian // July 23, 2006 at 12:31 am |
The Cave has been adding value to the tourism sector for a very long time. This upgrade is timely and neccesary, you shouldn’t be expecting praise for carrying out routine maintainance and upgrades to the product, such is expected, or is it now the norm to sing praise when you actually do your job. Lets hope that it will be finished
…..Just make sure that this gem is not held to the same low standard as other “GEMS” and please please don’t let Mia have anything to do with it, unless you want it to be unfinished, and burnt-out
Hants // July 23, 2006 at 2:09 pm |
Get used to it Adrian, you will be seeing and hearing the good works by the BLP from now until the next Election.
hindssight // July 23, 2006 at 3:59 pm |
And so it should be, when the good works indeed were conceptualized, implimented, and COMPLETED by this BLP, i will join them in so doing, as i will be countering any cuckoo attempts to extract praise when none is deserved.
Albert Brandford is also suggesting that maybe Mia Mottley was flying a kite with crap talk about call in program, blogs, parliament, and it’s current makeup.
http://www.nationnews.com/286626158475899.php
So, there was Mottley, the number two in the Cabinet, complaining about the “marginalisation” of Parliament and making out a solid case for its restoration to the position of supremacy over a body for which it is now a mere rubber stamp.
My mind went back to a pledge by her boss, Prime Minister Owen Arthur,
nearly three years ago, after he too, had lamented the “marginalisation” of Parliament, and committed the ruling Barbados Labour Party to its restoration as the place to look for leadership, direction and role models. Albert Brandford
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PM: don’t tear down the political institutions
Oct 27th, 2003, 4:58pm
Prime Minister Owen Arthur says that political institutions being taken for granted and reviled despite their great contributions to our democracy and material development.
Addressing the 65th annual conference of the ruling Barbados Labour Party, Mr. Arthur said that the parties are undermanned, poorly funded, and very often unable to secure to their membership some of the most talented in the society. And he says that for many the spirit of volunteerism, which has made politics such a worthy cause, is now a diminishing attribute.
Above all, says Mr. Arthur, the character of political organization and activity at the level of the branches have hardly changed for almost half a century.
The BLP leader is also lamenting that he has come to see our House of Assembly drastically diminished in the interest that it should hold.
He charges that very formidable reputations are now built on the capacity on the part of some, who would love to but can never get elected to Parliament, to tear down its reputation and those who serve in it.
He says we must not get accustomed to the marginalisation of the Parliament of Barbados, the easy ridicule of politicians as pariahs, and the feeling that there can be a sustainable non-Parliamentary solution to how we carry on governance in our nation.
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There is absolutely no chance of the House, as currently constituted, refusing a Cabinet request, which makes the legislature not only subservient but beholden to the executive.
The bottom line, of course, is that it makes a mockery of our boast of having a “parliamentary democracy”.
Rather, what we have, as Sir Lloyd Erskine Sandiford rightly pointed out, is “prime ministerial government” in which the holder of that office wields such power that Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves, of St Vincent and the Grenadines, was moved to describe it as a “continuing constitutional and political lunacy
Albert Brandford
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ISSUES & IDEAS: Political similarity – Friday 11, June-2004
by Ezra Alleyne
Earlier this week, a new book on Margaret Thatcher, focusing more on her private life than her time as prime minister, fell into my hands just as the public was being reminded that it was ten years ago that the “no confidence” vote against the then Prime Minister Erskine Sandiford had been passed in Parliament.
This year also marks another important constitutional anniversary – the beginnings of Ministerial Government here. On February 1, 1954, the ministerial system of government was introduced in our country with Grantley Adams taking the title premier.
My passion for constitutional politics brought Mrs Thatcher and Sir Lloyd into the “cross hairs” of my focus and it seems to me that the departure from office of these two holders of the highest offices within the Westminster system – (excluding the Monarch and her representative) merit some comment, even if considerations of space may constrain expansive discussion.
Both of them could be described as exponents of what is called prime ministerial government. From all accounts, those of Mrs Thatcher’s ministers whose views did not coincide with hers were removed from her cabinets. The description of them as “wets” suggested a certain disregard for their views.
By and large, her views prevailed and during her term as Prime Minister, 1979-1990, commentators, former ministers and academics were openly discussing the question whether Britain was being governed by the Cabinet System or by the Prime Ministerial Government of Margaret Thatcher.
Comments by two former ministers are revealing. Mr Nicholas Ridley: “She didn’t believe her policies should be subject to being voted down by a group she had selected to advise and assist her.”
Now hear Norman St John Stevas: “There is no doubt that as regards the Cabinet, the most commanding Prime Minister of modern time has been Mrs Thatcher. Convinced of both her own rectitude and ability, she has tended to reduce the Cabinet to subservience.”
Coming from two of her former ministers, these speak volumes about her exercise of power qua Prime Minister. The Prime Minister, as far as she was concerned was “it”.
However inelegant it may sound, and it is not intended to be, Sir Lloyd Sandiford was cut from the same cloth.
In 1983, speaking in the House of Assembly on the very question of Prime Ministerial Government versus Cabinet Government he said, “. . . What we have in this country, I am positive about it, is not Cabinet Government. We have Prime Ministerial Government and we had better understand it.”
Now we know that our Parliament voted in favour of a motion which alleged that the Prime Minister’s words and actions undermined the principle and practice of Cabinet responsibility; so that to that extent, one could fairly draw the inference that, given his earlier statement, his thought was father of his actions.
Eventually, both Mrs Thatcher and Mr Sandiford fell on the swords of their colleagues; and demitted office, not entirely as they might have wished. The “no confidence” vote began the process in Mr Sandiford’s case.
Mrs Thatcher did not suffer such a vote in Parliament. Rather, in a party contest for Leader, she won the first ballot but not by the required margin of 15 per cent, considered her position and did not contest the second ballot, which she could have done, and gave way to a successor leader and Prime Minister. She did not call an election.
Mr Sandiford on the other hand, made it clear even before the debate that he would regard a vote against him as a vote against his Government: a classically logical consequence of the doctrine of Prime Ministerial Government; since the no confidence resolution skilfully targeted Mr Sandiford only and not his Government. By agreeing to step down, Mrs Thatcher’s party continued in power for another seven years.
On the other hand, Mr Sandiford’s party lost power in the election called after the vote and the course of Barbadian political history was changed for the better.
For just as colonial dictatorship was vanquished in 1954, so too was prime ministerial government defeated in 1994.
• Ezra Alleyne is an attorney-at-law and a former Deputy Speaker ofthe House of Assembly.
hindssight // July 23, 2006 at 4:13 pm |
So who is right Ezra Alleyne or Albert Brandford. I submit that both men are right. Ezra was right in 1994 and Albert is right in 2006.
Why all this confusion? because it is a system built on confusion, on needless complexity, to hide the concentration of power that it enjoys. This concentration of power if fully understood will lay bare that we never had a democracy, that elections, particularly elections in a two party system is a wasted exercise, and that the so called seperations of powers in Mixed government are only on paper and a rarity in practice, and when exercise, it has been done for personal reasons and not of national interest.
Thomas Paine explains our system of government :
When there is a part in a government which can do no wrong, it implies that it does nothing; and is only the machine of another power, by whose advice and direction it acts. What is supposed to be the King in mixed governments, is the Cabinet; as as the Cabinet is always a part of the Parliament, and the members justifying in one character what they advise and act in another, a mixed Government becomes a continual enigma; entailing upon a country, by the quantity of corruption necessary to solder the parts, the expense of supporting all forms of Government at once, and finally resolving itself into a Government by committee; in which the advisers, the actors, the approvers, the justifiers, the persons responsible, and the persons not responsible, are the same persons.
p. 141
Trueblue // July 23, 2006 at 4:54 pm |
Let’s face it. Check the record for yourself. The Prime Minister does not even sit in Parliament too often. He goes and gets his name recorded and then leaves the rest to Mia et al.
What parliament?