Weekly Column

Thousands of Barbadians are asking themselves how and why after years of making their contributions, they now find themselves at the bottom of the National Insurance pension pool since the Prime Minister’s Black Monday Budget. They also want to know what justice there is in contributing to an earnings-based fund only to see others who made smaller contributions receiving the same pensions that they do, less a dollar here or there.

When you add the increased cost of a driver’s license, higher road taxes, more expensive petrol, rising professional and trade fees and of course higher prices for food and medicine there is a lot of grumbling among working class and lower middle class senior citizens these days. For the Government to be reminding them that they voted for change is like a stinging hot slap across the face.

Once again the Government is using its position to hand pick people for its own advantage without any regard for equity in the system. We support an increase in pensions for those at the bottom, whether they are contributory or non-contributory. However, we recognize that any manipulation of the National Insurance Scheme has far reaching consequences, not only on the viability of the fund but on its validity. There are tried and tested methods for changes to the Scheme which this Government has studiously ignored in furtherance of its own selfish ends.

If this was the only example of a Government failing to seek qualified advice we might be more charitable in our criticism, but the agenda is patently clear and does not favour fairness for the majority.

In fact, there is now an all out assault on the culture of responsibility that once made Barbados the envy of our Caribbean neighbours, large and small. Ask yourself where is the fairness in a Government that seeks to disadvantage industrious, working–class Barbadians who paid down on their National Housing terrace units, by refusing to refund their deposits while promising other tenants who made no such effort their units free of cost. What could be more unfair than this? The fact that if you reach the twenty year tenancy qualification after April, 2008 there is no free house for you.

Or take the much-touted Constituency Councils that are supposed to give the people a say in running their own affairs. How can the average constituent feel that he or she has a voice if from the outset they cannot choose the people who will represent their interests on the Council. What fairness will exist in a system where the people with the say are appointed by the Minister? If the Government is truly interested in empowering people in their own communities they would remove the politics from the Constituency Councils, establish Community Councils and let people choose their representatives from among themselves. We intend to fight for this basic democratic right for all Barbadians regardless of which political party they support. In fact, our Leader has made it quite clear that political parties should not be involved in the selection of Council members at all.

Bajans are beginning to see through the game being played by the changelings and they don’t like the rules. What they like even less is the bloopers, bleeps and blunders that accompany the Government’s feeble attempts at introducing ill-conceived policies, or the total absence of solutions to everyday problems. Just listen to conversations in the supermarket aisles, at the doctor’s office, in the rum shops or the bus stand. More and more the phrase one-term government is creeping into the discussions.

Put that in yuh song Hartley.