Sinckler Missed the Mark, Again

Submitted by Pachamama

Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler

Today Christopher Sinckler, as Minister of Finance (MOF) is in the middle of delivering some bitter medicine to the people of Barbados – read Ministerial Statement On Government’s Fiscal Consolidation Programme 2013-15 presented to the House of Assembly by The Hon. Christopher P. Sinckler, Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs. This after years of hide and seek by a government still wedded to a political-economy model that is in decay, universally. Like a magician Sinckler continues to believe that our current problems could be solved by continuously tinkering with a chronically unwell economy model when more aggressive and transformative actions were clearly required, even decades ago.

All other things being equal Sinckler will be repeating doses of his snake oil in coming months. This first tranche comes mere months after the last budget.  Of course, there could be an intervention by the people of Barbados in their own defense, but that is unlikely to happen, though it may prove unavoidable. To us it seems that Sinckler and indeed the Government of Barbados is stubbornly unwilling to address the fundamental issues at work. As the proverbial neo-Keynesian, it remains impossible for Sinckler to see that another economic world is possible. We are lock step in a death march off a cliff. The words of Dr. Kennedy are indeed proven true by Sinckler’s admission today that his recent budget was a national mis-direction.

Government’s Concessions to SANDALS Barbados

Read about the concessions government has given to CPH Property Holdings (Barbados) Limited and Grande Cass Management (Barbados) Limited together known as SANDALS – Click image

Notes From a Native Son: The Time has Come for all True Barbadians to Put Country Before Party

Hal Austin

Introduction:
After a few days in Barbados, mostly resting, but spending time with friends and acquaintances alike, I have returned with a feeling of deep sadness for a nation for which I have a very deep affection. But, we have a situation in which the national political discourse has been reduced to a leading minister inviting the leader of the official Opposition to strip naked and run down Broad Street, our main thoroughfare, to grab attention. While, at the same time, the governor of the central bank could announce that the economy is in recession and the minister of finance, the captain of the nation’s economy, did not see fit to respond to, the Opposition did not speak out on, our academic economists kept their opinions to themselves nor did our feeble media see it fit to inform their readers.

As I have said before, the nation is in serious crisis, only this time it is much worse than it previously was. Yet, there is an epidemic of denial: a police force that is imploding and cannot properly guard against organised criminality, medieval religious practices and family abuse. We are a nation that has lost faith in itself, when we could appoint a Canadian – repeat the word, Canadian – as head of our football association and every spare bit of land bought by dubious foreigners because our policymakers are addicted to foreign reserves. The New Barbados has also lost its moral purpose, its sense of decency, as is reflected in the obscenities that desecrate the airwaves as a matter of course; of the total national silence when a toddler can make sexual gestures over an apparently drunken woman at Crop Over, our leading cultural event; when our leading news paper thinks that pornographic pictures of juveniles having sex in a class room is newsworthy. Even more, not a single senior executive or director of the publishing firm has made a public statement about the obscenity. If ever there was a case for ordinary Barbadians to show their power as consumers and ban that publication, it is now. This is a long way from the nation I know as a young man, when, in the 1960s it was exporting people to work on London buses, trains and in the national health service, routinely gave them a printed booklet on how to behave in Britain. Those were days when the nation was concerned about its global reputation as reflected in the behaviour of its citizens.

For Love of Country… a Coalition Government

Submitted by Napolean Bonaparte

Prime Minister Fruendel Stuart

Owen Arthur, former Prime Minister

Mia Mottley, leader of the opposition

Minister of Finance Chris Sincklerr

Heads of Government :  Stuart, Arthur, Mottley, Sinckler
Minister of Finance : C. Mascoll
Attorney General : K. Symmonds
Minister of Tourism :  D. Inniss
Minister International Business: D. Marshall
Minister of Transport: M. Lashley
Minister of Culture: T. Prescod
Minister of Education: G. Payne
Minister of Labour :David Estwick
Minister of Health : R. Jones
Minister Housing Land: R. Sealy
Minister Agriculture: R. Toppin

Ministries to reduced eleven. Salaries of Ministers reduced by 25 %. Permanent Secretaries salaries reduced by 15%.

Chris and Mia Welcome You to Club Barbados!

Submitted by William Skinner

Chris Sinckler, Minister off Finance (l) Mia Mottley, Leader of the Opposition (r)

The apologists, supporters, assorted scribes and defenders of the Barbados Labour Party and the Democratic Labour Party, should now hold their heads in collective shame, after the embarrassing and bizarre spectacle that took place in our parliament, on Tuesday 23^rd, October 2013.

The pathetic spinners are trying to convince the public, that both the Barbados Labour Party and the Democratic Labour Party take for granted, that each side has won. The unvarnished truth is that our parliament was the location, of a shameless, nauseating display of BLP/DLP political grand standing and showmanship that easily surpassed what the horse racing fraternity expects on Gold Cup Day! My sincere apologies to the horses for even mentioning them when speaking of this sorry group of political misfits.

For where else in the world could a no – confidence motion, so lacking in confidence, be foisted on the public? Where else could a government, strategize that to ignore the motion was the best way to treat an electorate that recently returned it to office? This administration has made a deliberate attempt to be arrogant while it bungles and fumbles.

Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler Reacts to Criticism on the Eve of No Confidence Motion

Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler

Yesterday [21/10/2013] David Ellis of Voice of Barbados shared audio of Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler [MoF] and Leader of the Opposition Mia Mottley. BU finds the audio interesting because of the comments which the MoF directed at David Ellis, Dennis Johnson, Corey Layne and Netafari Caddle in their role as talk show hosts. Listen and be the judge, justified you think?

Although the focus today [22/10/2013] is expected to be on a motion of No Confidence brought by the Opposition against the MoF the broadside by the MoF on the media should be of concern. At a time when the country should be fixated on finding ways to surmount the economic challenges this is where we find ourselves. Is it not interesting both political parties eventually become confrontational with the media?

Listen to the MoF’s comment followed by the Leader of the Opposition

Playing Politics at Every Turn – Are Barbadians Serious?

Submitted by Hamilton Hill

Kerri Symmonds, Deputy Leader of the BLP was reappointed to the Senate by Owen Arthur after a widely publicized marital dispute.

 

I have long held fast to the belief that hypocrisy like the broken trident is symbolic of things Bajan. As I listened to Brasstacks today [Oct 18, 2013] on the Voice Of Barbados, I was reminded why. Caller after caller demanded to hear an apology from the minister of finance Chris Sinckler. Not because every single strategy….short, medium or long term employed by the minister has failed miserably, not because he has been fitted with a cloak of ignominy as the first ‘economist’ to be stumped by a decimal point, but because of a play that if nothing else is certainly par for the course as it relates to what we have accepted as party politics in the country that we all claim to love so much. Are we serious here?

We are burdened with an administration that has clearly lost its way, or better put has not yet found its intended path. A government that through its indecisiveness cannot frequently address the nation, and here we are allowing the real issues to be over shadowed by a proffered opinion, one politician about another. Are we serious here?

To the feminist movement that now demand and rightly so the instant halt to disrespect of our women, I ask you this. Does the name Andrea Symmonds ring a bell?  It was right here in this very forum that this writer read that the source of her distress was pressured to demit office by none other than Mia Motley, only to be reinstated in a nanosecond by Mr. Arthur who had forced Miss Motley from her position. Where were you then? When the steps to Senator Sandiford-Garner’s office were coated in human faeces back in 2008 where were your melodious voices then? Remind me of the stance you took when the police forcefully took the cameras from the female journalists a few years ago.

Barbados Urgently Needs a Return to Economic Growth

George C. Brathwaite, founder and interim president of BAJE

Chris Sinckler began his ‘2013 Budget’ [BU] presentation by relying upon what he called a ‘biblical injunction’ which was rummaged from the book of Ecclesiastes at chapter 3. To be quite honest, the entirety of Sinckler’s snatching away verses from the good book was unnecessary although coming from him, the brazen act was sufficiently provocative. I refuse to be prosecutor, judge and jury all at the same time. In this submission, the attempt is to lay bare the facts, substantiate claims made, and leave the verdict to those who have been whelmed by blows delivered by Sinckler, Sealy, Stuart, Boyce, Jones, and company.

Realistically, the pronouncements and policy measures that were articulated in and followed the 2013 budget gave the general public the ensuing sense and feelings of grave uncertainty. There has been a continuous and unrelenting slew of widespread confusion thrown to many different publics. Constantly is the cry that the Cabinet is inconsistent in its policy positions; and that it may largely be due to several Ministers being more in tune with spin and disguise that with forthrightness and Barrow’s traditions.

Read full article

The Slide of the Barbados Economy Part II: Astonishing Revelation in Central Bank Report

Submitted by Inkwell

In my recent submission The Slide of the Barbados Economy: Pictures Are Worth a Thousand Numbers  highlighting the excessive spending of the government over the last five years, one of the questions I asked was “Where was the money spent and was it spent wisely? Further research produced the following chart which can be found at page 12 of the Central Bank June 2012 Press Release.

CLICK IMAGE

 

Notes From a Native Son: The Battle for the Soul of the Nation Continues

Hal Austin

Introduction:
There is an SOS flag flying over Barbados, people are struggling to survive in rough seas and the rescue boat, in the form of the government, has lost its direction and cannot locate the helpless victims. We have witnessed a fog of macro-economic lying and deceit by technocrats and politicians using the national loyalty of Barbadians to deceptively feed them bogus economic policies as palliatives for curing the nation’s economic ills.

Despite this, there has not been as much as a whisper from our leading public intellectuals, academics or opposition politicians. The better informed know that what passes as official policy will never rescue the economy in a month of Sundays; they know that minister Sinckler is out of his depth as a manager of the national economy; they know that either the governor of the central bank is being ignored, or that he is putting politics before sound financial economics, yet they remain silent. The crisis has also exposed the lack of ideological and philosophical differences between the two main parties, thus their emphasis on personalities. Not only is this sameness reinforced by the almost total silence of the official Opposition – over and above the occasional call for government action, while at the same time remaining silent about its own alternative policies – it now runs deeper in society. The lack of ideological differences is also demonstrated by the ease with which individuals can cross the floor of parliament from party to party and, sometimes, back again.

Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler’s General Election Declaration

Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler’s Form 5 General Election Declaration one,two,three,four and five.

Prime Minister Fruendel’s Stuart’s General Election Declaration

It is not the norm for the general public to get sight of how our political candidates allocate financial resources to support an election campaign. Caswell Franklyn has already asked some probing questions regarding Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler’s election declaration – Sinckler’s Honest Election Return. Here is the Prime Minister’s declaration with the compliments of Plantation Deeds.

 

Sinckler’s Honest Election Return

The following is authored by CASWELL FRANKLYN and was submitted as his bi-weekly commitment to the Nation newspaper. BU understands it was NOT published.

Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler

During his speech to wrap up the debate on the 2013 Financial Statement and Budgetary Proposals in the House of Assembly, Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs, Chris Sinckler, was quoted in another section of the media as saying:

“I don’t steal, I don’t rob anyone, I don’t do anything illegal or underhanded so they could listen as they like, it don’t bother me; so wunna could do what ever wunna like but the truth is going to come out in this country, oh yes it’s going to come out.”

He was speaking about his belief, paranoid or otherwise, that his phone had been tapped and his emails accessed. I must confess that he lost me when he claimed that he explained to the other party on the line that the click they heard would have been someone changing the tape. That suggests to me that he is far less technologically savvy as would be expected of someone in his position. Nobody uses tapes anymore: one little device the size of two fingers can record twenty-five hours of conversations if the battery does not run out of juice.