Is The Central Bank Of Barbados …?

Central Bank of Barbados

The popular online newspaper Barbados Today reported (20.07.2010) the surprising loss incurred by the Central Bank of Barbados (CBB) in the amount of 9.4 million dollars. It is unusual for a Central Bank to report a financial loss in Barbados. Barbados Today quoted President of the Barbados Economic Society Dr. Winston Moore, “The Central Bank of Barbados reporting a loss is a rare occurrence in Barbados. The Central Bank is commonly referred to as the government’s banker, that is, it manages the assets of the central government. The loss reported by the bank implies that the institution was not able to earn enough interest revenue, fees and commissions etc to cover its operating expenses. There are a number of implications…” In response Governor Delisle Worrell referred to 2009 as an “especially challenging” year.

The Central Bank of Barbados has always enjoyed a good reputation at home and abroad. All governments and all politicians have unhesitatingly quoted Central Bank statistics to support arguments. At the start of the global recession the Barbados banking system received a high ranking from the global financial community. As the regulatory body for banks in Barbados the Central Bank would have shared in the praise. The continuing financial stability of Barbados will depend on the good work of our Central Bankers.

The PSV Sector, The Transport Board And The Fiscal Deficit

Submitted by Inkwell

Professor Avinash D. Persaud referred to privately owned buses as 'crappy little buses' while participating on a Talk Show on the Weekend

Professor Avinash Persaud said on Brass Tacks Sunday, with more than a little pique in his voice that Government had to subsidize the Transport Board while privately owned “crappy little buses” were making a profit. Prof Persaud is misinformed, at least with regard to the extent of their profitability. Is the crazy way the majority of PSV operators behave on the roads of Barbados indicative of an industry that is making money? To the initiated or the discerning observer, if looks more like a struggle to survive. They:

• Overload their vehicles to maximize income
• Pick up and put down passengers any and everywhere.
• Break the speed limit
• Run red lights
• Go off route to avoid traffic buildups
• Play loud music to attract customers
• Do not complete their route if it is not to their financial advantage
• Disregard common driver courtesy on the road
• Drive in a way sometimes dangerous to other road users.
• They are not psychopaths, they are fighting for survival.

In the last three years to 2009, Government subsidized the Transport Board some $240million, or $80million per year. And that was before the introduction of free travel for school children. No figures have been released, but this accommodation would most surely have increased that subsidy substantially. An additional amount of $5m to $10m annually would be reasonable to assume.

Access Barbados “Caribbean Pride” Festival 2010

Press Release

Due to circumstances that are beyond our control, the Thirteenth Annual Access Barbados “Caribbean Pride” Festival scheduled for August 14 2010 at the Mackenzie King Park in the Cote des Neiges district has been cancelled.

Access Barbados regrets any inconveniences this may have caused. However, we are looking forward to your continued support in the future.

Access Barbados is a not for profit organization, with a strong focus on the inclusion of Quebecers of all cultures no matter race, class, color or creed.

Our Motto is: ‘Up With People’

For more information, you may contact us by email: accessbarbados@hotmail.com

Glenroy Valantine Rice

Vice President/Coordinator

Access Barbados

Look Where The 1.5 Billion Gone

Submitted to BU as a comment

Credit Photo:Bajanfuhlife Blog

There is no great mystery to the 1.5 billion.  The borrowing is the price for keeping the employees in government and statutory corporations employed during a recession, providing the same level of access to social services (like free university education, bus fares at 1.50), providing support to the hospitality industry and a modest fiscal stimulus.

Wages and salaries were 783.7 ml in 2008 and and 881 ml in 2009.  Transfers and subsidies (payments to the university, community college, QEH, BTA, Transport etc, to subsidize their salaries and other costs), were 1,075 billion in 2008 and 1.135 billion in 2009. Capital expenditures (which Ince does not seem to understand) were 286ml in 2008 and 283 ml in 2009.

To put some context the salaries and wages bill was 797.6 ml in 2007, transfers and subsidies were 901.7 ml in 2007 and capital expenditures were 241.4. Our fiscal problems did not start with the new administration.  The recession and hence slow down in revenues shows how vulnerable the economy is on the fiscal side.  The fact that the previous off budget spending is now clearly highlighted also means that we can observe the issue more clearly (no more Greece style accounting).

Dead-Men Walking: Postmodern Slavery And The Psycho-Social Symbology Of Black Self-Hatred – The Mis-education Of The Black Man, And Jewish Control Black Wealth And Resources

Submitted by Terence Blackett

It does not take a majority to prevail… but rather an irate tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men. – Samuel Adams

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – murdered Civil Rights leader and social justice modernist prophet in one of his memoirs, “STRENGTH TO LOVE” under the subheading – “The Answer To a Perplexing Question”, p.128 states:

“The first calls upon man to remove evil through his own power and ingenuity in the strange conviction that by thinking, inventing, and governing, he will at last conquer the nagging forces of evil. Give people a fair chance and a decent education, and they will save themselves. This idea, sweeping across the modern world like a plaque, has ushered out God and escorted in man and has substituted human ingenuity for divine guidance…”

Dr. King’s argument, though cited 46 years ago emerge in a prophetic window, painting an ominous picture of the cult of inevitable regression hanging around the necks of Black folks like the Albatross in the Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

The history of ‘The ‘Middle Passage’ of the 1600’s bear a malevolent inconvenient similarity to a ship manned by dead-men, inimical to a version of “Pirates of the Caribbean”, while bearing a stark resemblance to that frightening poem by Coleridge where the souls of the dead sail perpetually through the mist of primordiality to some unknown destination.

How About Export Barbados?

Submitted by Rosemary Parkinson -  (as a comment)

Credit: my rustic Bajan garden blog

When one questions what will be done in this area to generate money re foreign reserves…how about export? As I said before, if we do things right, if we plan our agriculture correctly and show farmers, for instance, how to make their farms into productive eco-sustainable tourism facilities like say Goodfellow Farm in The Bahamas (just spent a week there and have done a study for IICA Barbados on this), we can earn those much needed US/Canadian/European euro etc. etc.

We could also export. There are niche markets to capture. My Tobagonian/Swedish friend Duane Dove owns a chocolate shop in Stockholm – and saw such a niche for instance. He bought an old cocoa farm in Tobago, revived it, and now it is a totally eco-sustainable tourism product where people visit and experience the cocoa story. He has also just produced in conjunction with a French chocolatier the first ever single bean (from his estate) from this part of the world – and it is amazing (he gave me a bar so I know). His chocolate is selling for a hefty price in Europe because it is made from organic chocolate and is a luxury item of perfection. But he did not just buy a farm, called himself a farmer whilst driving an escalade and covering himself in gold and designer clothes…he was out there with his staff learning, working, digging and planting. Now that is real different isn’t it? And he had to go to Europe to discover that farming in the Caribbean can be lucrative?? Man! Why are we so ignorant!!!

If we can perfect certain agricultural products in this same way, we too can make a huge name for ourselves. I say sugar cane for starters because this is what we do best here. Tours from cane to sugar to rum…and amazing products from all these sections that are so beautifully made and exotic they will fit right in to any niche market abroad. A pound of muscovado golden-brown sugar is like gold in health food and luxury stores around the world! Now take Golden Apples…we grow them here in abundance…does any one have any idea as to what we could do with these? Well…I do!

Reflections Of A COLLAPSING ECONOMY That Would Not Collapse

Hartley Henry - Principal Political Advisor to the Hon. Prime Minister

In their next life, I would suggest that the current leadership of the Barbados Labour Party become missionaries. No other group of persons I know has come close to carrying a message of imminent rapture as has those who have for the past 30 months predicted the total destruction of Barbados and its economy.

Growing up in Barbados for the past two score and more years, I have been told that “we are living in the last days” and “Christ is about to come”.

Two things we know, for sure, are that the second coming is closer today than it was 40 years ago, and that no man knoweth the day or the hour when Christ the King shall appear. Our mandate therefore is to be prepared!

Ever since the change of government in this country 30 months ago, we have had a tri monthly avalanche of soothsayer’s advice, telling us the collapse of the Barbados economy is imminent. Indeed, two estimates debates ago, we were told the country could not have gotten through the financial year and that all systems would have grounded to a halt.

Those in the Barbados Labour Party who still have not come to terms with the election result of January 15^th 2008, have made a favorite past time of coming to the country every three months with the most outlandish of forecasts; warning that the meal we eat could be our last and that the job we have and the home we possess will all be taken.

Opposition Party Should Stop Blowing Hot Air

Submitted by a Government Supporter (name withheld by request)

Former Senator Kerri Symmonds caught relaxing in the visitor's gallery of the Upper Chamber recently

Have you looked around the other islands and realised that they are suffering badly from growing unemployment figures, declining tourism arrivals and in Barbados we have maintained unemployment around 10%; kept people working, provided a $25 million Tourism Relief Fund that people are singing the praises of – how it kept their bars and restaurants open in the slow season, one BLP hotelier raked in over $400,000.00 from that package, tourism arrivals are up 3.1% over the same period last year. Where among the other islands can any of them say the same compared to what we have achieved? Not one of them!

When I start to listen to that crew that raped Barbados for all that it was worth, that have NOT AN OUNCE OF CREDITABILITY, I too should be sent The Dodds Residence. To have built a prison that started out with locals providing a quote of US $67 million that was refused and to have selected a known group of crooks in VECO with a final cost of US$288 million. Then a road works project by an unsavoury character called Jonathan Danos who was introduced to Barbados by Messrs Steven Hobson and Hallam Nicholls.

With COW Williams and Rayside Construction doing all the work the government has a payment of $47 million paid to Jonathon Danos for what we don’t know. Then we have Tony Hoyos and Colin Brewer who operate nearly every shop at Grantley Adams International Airport (GAIA). Is this the Hoyos who paid an entertainment allowance from taxpayers monies to workers of Hardwood Housing only redeemable at his restaurant the former Aqua?

Same Old Same Old From The Mottley Crew

Mia Mottley, Leader of the Opposition - Credit: Nation newspaper (photo)

Leader of the Opposition Mia Mottley staged a press conference to respond to the Governor of the Central Bank’s 6 month review of the Barbados economy. If the average Barbadian wasn’t already beaten into a state of disillusionment by the contracting economy compounded by a perceived inert government, Mottley’s recent offering made the condition more acute. If there is one thing the current political debate on the economy has demonstrated is the number of intellectuals Barbados has educated who can wax lyrically about what should or should not be done to improve the economy of Barbados. Bear in mind global economies are experiencing an economic condition which has never* been experienced in world history.

BU listened to the 54 minute press conference with rapt attention. Whether you are a B or D there is the reality we are all Barbadian* and want to see Barbados successfully navigate the current social and economic challenges which are confronting us. Mia Mottley represents the ‘government in waiting’ (no disrespect intended to the PDC or PEP) and therefore should be accorded commensurate respect. It therefore saddens BU to opine that her press conference can be easily labelled ‘same old, same old’. She was passionate in her delivery, her analysis of the current state of the economy was good but* where she fell flat was her failure to produce ideas and alternatives. Her delivery was populated with words like deficit, declining revenue, underemployment, stimulus, borrowing, substantial drop, 18-wheeler truck bearing down on us etc – obviously to play on the fears of Barbadians. When asked by a reporter to offer suggestions to the government on what a BLP government would do differently in a sprite of bipartisanship (BU’s paraphrasing), Mottley’s response was to ‘stay tuned!’. She begged the media to provide adequate coverage because her opposition party intended to provide feedback sector by sector. On this note BU agrees that the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation’s blatant blacklisting of the opposition party is reprehensible.

Ms. Mottley the country is waiting for some suggestions with great expectation, do take your time!

What’s Wrong With Our Politicians?

Here is what Kammie Holder is writing elsewhere – Credit to Nation Newspaper 16/07/2010

Kammie Holder

Too many of our leaders seem allergic to eating humble pie and come over as  insular in their thinking. The CARICOM Single Market and Economy is under threat by narrow political ambition.

The Caribbean Court of Justice is still not accepted by Trinidad where it is headquartered. St Lucia does not give LIAT the financial support even though it heavily relies on intra-regional trade and tourism.

Guyana offers land to extra-regional countries cheaper than it offers it to fellow Caricom members. Where is the visionary leadership within the Caribbean? The new prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, recently made what I considered to be the insular statement that “Trinidad will not be an ATM”.

Would you believe that Trinidad’s largest market for its goods has been within the Caricom for years? These Caricom  countries seem obligated to acquire Trinidadian goods, despite that cheaper alternatives can be had within Asia. Thus, it’s imperative the new prime minister of Trinidad tread cautiously and think before making such ready statements. Someone should remind Persad-Bissessar that elections are over and words can be misconstrued.