Will Leroy Parris Get The Opportunity To Wear Stripes?

Leroy Parris

Has any serious discussion been given to the news that the office of the Supervisor of Insurance has had to manage a backlog of cases going back to the year 2000? Given the role of that office juxtaposed with the financial stability Barbadians love to boast about it is God’s mercy Barbados has not suffered any major insurance catastrophe -that is until now. We cannot ignore the fact the inefficiency of the office spans a time when both political parties held the reins of government. BU is aware the Office of Supervisor of Insurance has never been held in high regard by principals in the insurance industry, bear in mind this is the office charged under the Laws of Barbados to regulate the insurance industry in Barbados.

Against the foregoing it is not surprising the former Chairman of Clico Holdings Leroy Parris would not have felt pressure to comply with a mandate from the supervisor of insurance which ordered Clico Life Insurance to stop selling the controversial Executive Flexible Premium Annuities. The matter was the subject of a police investigation and the file has been handed over to the Director of Public Prosecutors (DPP) for his consideration whether to press charges in the matter. Barbadians and others will await the DPP’s decision with interest. On the face of it it seems an open and shut case, Clico life under the direction of Leroy Parris deliberately violated an order from the insurance regulator. He afterwards demonstrated unfathomable ignorance by admitting it publicly.

BU has been sympathetic to how the government attempted to manage Clico at the start of the crisis. Many turned it into a political matter and the visible relationship between late Prime Minister David Thompson and Leroy Parry did not make the issue any easier to manage. A couple years later the final piece of the puzzle remains to be fixed, the disposal of Clico life insurance as a going concern.

Where Is Ben?

The REDjet Revolution

BU has been following the progress of new entrant REDjet to the regional air transport market with interest. Not since Carib Express have we seen a new airline generate so much debate. The airline was approved to fly by the Barbados government albeit after a mountain of bureaucratic hurdles had to be leaped. The airline had to confront a suspicious minister of transport in Jack Warner  in its quest to fly to Trinidad. A recent report suggests permission for REDjet to touchdown at Piarco International Airport should be known when the cabinet meets on Thursday.  It was left to the Guyana government to welcome the airline free of controversy.

If we are to judge by the comments emanating from REDjet management the response to the airline has been overwhelming. Why should this be a surprise to anyone when in recent months it has been cheaper often times to fly to Miami or New York than to Antigua or Jamaica.

It is ironic and exposes the hypocrisy in the region that external players are the ones to attempt to make regional travel affordable. We are not ignoring the contribution of local investor in the airline Bizzy Williams. For decades our political leaders and intellectuals, or should we say pseudo-intellectuals, have pontificated about the importance of freedom of movement to the success of the regional integration movement. However they have all failed to deliver a solution which would make regional travel affordable. Barbados, St. Vincent and Antigua are the major shareholders in LIAT which currently has the monopoly on regional transport between the islands of the Eastern Caribbean. Whether because of mismanagement or a flawed business model LIAT has been a generator of debt for its shareholders and venerable Chairman Doctor Jean Holder through the years. The less written about Caribbean Airlines and Air Jamaica the better.

Free Healthcare For BARBADIANS

Minister of Health Donville Inniss

What is all the hullabaloo about regarding who should get free healthcare in Barbados? Is it not a simple matter? You show proof of Barbadian citizenship and voila, the transaction is done. If it were so simple. It seems we live in times when to be educated does not mean an ability to be solution oriented.

BU has delivered some deserved licks to Minister Donville Inniss in the past on how he handled the Ishmael Sparman matter and a few other matters. There is that name Sparman again! The Minister is always the first to remind Barbadians he is the son of a fisherman and therefore his back has the texture of a turtle. On the matter of enforcing the rules which direct who should get free healthcare, BU is 100% behind the minister. It seems every matter under the sun has to be politicised nowadays in Barbados to satisfy political expediency.

The Barbados Labour Party (BLP) opposition led by Mia Mottley has started to rail about the health of Barbados coming under threat because of the improved vigilance demanded by Minister Donville Inniss on who gets free healthcare. A policy of enforcing existing regulation appears to be separating the legal from the illegal. The minister is on record promising favourable consideration to Barbadians who have been lazy in processing their ‘papers’ to the Immigration Department and therefore have been exposed by the process.

CARIBBEAN STOCK REPORT 02 May to 06 May 2011

Compiled by the Department of Management Studies, UWI Cave Hill - Click image to read in PDF

A Pressing Need To Transform The Barbados Economy

Submitted by People’s Democratic Congress (PDC)

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Barbados is presently undergoing its worst period of material production distribution decay since the 1930s. And having recorded its third successive year of material production financial decline in 2010, the country is set to maintain this very ignoble trend for the fourth successive year in 2011 – a very unprecedented happening in this nation’s relatively short history.

From a structuralist ( production exchange ) perspective, this decay is far worse than the crisis period of 1990-1992, which was a most tumultuous time in the country’s de/development. This was a very sordid chapter in the national experience, a time, when there were huge unsustainable deficits both in the government’s fiscal accounts and in the country’s current account of the Balance of Payments, and when there was severe foreign exchange haemorrhagingg taking place in the international reserves of the country ( money issues).

Yes, these events were precipitated by gross and reckless DLP mismanagement of the government’s and the country’s financial affairs in the said late 80s and early 90s, and, too, were accelerated through persistent over-use by BLP/DLP Governments/and by some private sector institutions of many old, tired, failed politico-material production models of national development.

A Mother’s Role, Priceless!

There is the saying teach a man and you teach an individual, teach a women and you teach a generation. Whether religious minded, atheist or agnostic there is the appreciation by most men that a woman as the procreator and nurturer among us, she must be treasured and honoured.

Although it is redundant to state that a mother’s role cannot be replaced in the upbringing of a family, it bears stating anyway; her role is priceless. In today’s world of equal rights where women now compete with men for all jobs, BU believes a woman’s role within the household is being undermined.

Confrontation At Reggae On The Hill And What It Portends

This matter was submitted to BU by a concerned Barbadian. BU viewed the video on facebook earlier and cautioned then as we do now that there is not sufficient of a storyline to bash the police  – BU

I don’t usually write columns, blogs or call in to programs but this video and some of the commentary really concerns me. I believe that we now have two Barbados’ or maybe I am now mature enough to see it.  Without elitist bias, it is hard to call it but there are the ordinary folk (not necessarily privileged) and the ghetto generation (These persons are not necessarily poor nor do they live in ghettos).

Where is the fear/respect of the police? I didn’t see the beginning of the confrontation but I laud the officers for exercising restraint which speaks to good training.  It was easy for one of them to have fired a “warning” shot which could have triggered a real riot!

Dead Man And The Sea

Reproduced from Dawn.com blog

We asked world famous occult medium, Mr. Abdul Qadir Awami Badami, to connect and communicate with Osama bin Laden’s soul, to ask him what really happened on the night he was shot dead in Abbottabad …

Mr. Osama, can you hear me? Mr. Osama?
Bubble … bubble … bubble

I think I have made contact with the departed soul. Mr. Osama, can you hear me?
Yes, where am I? Is this heaven?

No, sir, you are at the bottom of the sea.
Sea? Hmmm … yes, it does seem that way. Am I dead?

Well, yes. Kind of.
Hmm … how did I die?

I was hoping you could tell me that.
All I remember is that it was night and I was waiting for the Kakul guys to get my dinner, and then I heard these ’copters and thought maybe the Kakul guys were throwing me a surprise party or something and I got very excited, and …

The Kakul guys used to give you dinner?
Well, yes. Biryani on Mondays and Tuesdays, chicken chowmein on Wednesdays, steak on Thursdays, mixed veggies on Saturdays and Sundays …

And on Fridays?
On Fridays I used to call them over for dinner. One of my wives makes a darn good Yemeni stew.

An Analysis Of The Next General Election In Barbados

Submitted by Yardbroom

Leader of the Opposition (l) Former Leader of the Opposition Mia Mottley (r)

On January 20, 1999, The Barbados Labour Party (BLP) won 26 Parliamentary Seats to the Democratic Labour Party’s (DLP) 2.  It must have seemed as if the foundations of the DLP had been shaken to its core, and there would be a period of irreversible decline.  However, on the 21, May 2003, the DLP made a comeback of sorts, capturing 7 seats to the BLP’s 23; after much DLP effort this meagre return in the BLP’s victory underlined the enormity of the task facing the DLP, as the BLP rode on the crest of a wave.   The DLP was not a place to reside for faint hearts….as the populace “went with Owen”.

Some say complacency by the BLP, others give different reasons but however you call it, there was a mood swing in Barbados and on 15 January 2008 the Democratic Labour Party of Barbados led by David Thompson won by 20 seats to the BLP’s 10 and secured the majority to form a Government.

Against this background, we now look forward to the next general election, the important players and the factors which will influence voters to choose either DLP or BLP.