Where Are We ?

Where is Barbados heading on the turbulent economic ocean that swirls around us? Is our compass set for recovery or greater disaster? Is our captain on the bridge, hands on the wheel, with a safe harbour in view? Or are we in danger of being swept overboard into the deep, dark, swirling vortex of record unemployment, higher taxation, reduced government services and a decline in the standard of living?

It would be hard to come to a solid conclusion from the Prime Minister’s recent Press Conference. He provided little of substance on which to base any hope that he has set the right course and that further pain is not a looming reality. Our best estimate of what lies in wait is the Review of the Economy for the first six months of the year issued by the Central Bank.

Since past performance is as good an indicator of future performance in economics as in any other endeavour and in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, we have to conclude that our immediate future is not bright. Most troubling is the unemployment rate, which rose to a first quarter six-year high of 10.1% in the space of 12 months. At the time of year when employment is traditionally at its highest in tourism and the sugar harvest, the fact that we have lost jobs is the gravest indicator of a floundering economy.

This if nothing else should be a red alert for David Thompson. The fact that he has offered no solutions to reverse this trend should be a red alert to the people of Barbados. Just as distressing is the gaping fiscal deficit, which the Prime Minister seems powerless to control. An additional $70 million in the space of a year with nothing in the face of declining revenue is like looking through the wrong end of a telescope. The light at the end of the tunnel is a very long way off. To say that our leader, Mia Amor Mottley warned him of the position in which he was placing the country during every major economic debate in the House of Assembly is small recompense for the suffering about to be visited on countless households throughout the country.

For all of his grandstanding about appointing an Advisory Economic Council, which seldom meets, and inviting an Eminent Group of former Ministers of Finance to breakfast, which seems to have gone by the by, the Prime Minister needs to roll up his shirt sleeves and get down to the work of fixing the economy. No number of free bus rides and free summer camps will replace the right and expectations of people to a decent job. They will not pay the mortgage or the rent. You cannot trade them in for a full shopping basket at the supermarket. The Barbados Water Authority will not credit them against the 60% increase in water rates and neither will the Commissioner of Land Tax.

Indeed, we are tempted to ask “What will it profit a man if he gains a free bus ride, but loses his job, his house and his car?” Facetious as it may seem, we fear it is a question that may very soon be on the lips of thousands of our fellow citizens. We are on the brink of a financial and economic disaster equaled only by the present Minister of Finance’s last stint at the wheel and all the weeping and wailing about the international recession will bring no comfort to hungry bellies and stressed out breadwinners. Where are you taking us Mr. Thompson? The people are asking and awaiting a response.