Moontown

DENIS KELLMAN’S COLUMN- THE DEBATE

AUGUST 15, 2006

Our country Barbados is once again being seen as a country that is on the auction block. The indigenous people who have lived and worked to see this country to its stage of development is now seen as misfits. This fact has been borne out this week when we were able to produce evidence to show that trolleys were being introduced to compete with the Red Caps in the initial stage.

This issue has been debated all week. Some persons who felt that they have been slighted by the Red Caps at rush time have reacted by calling for trolleys, while others who understand service to tourism and the major social problem affecting our people have defended our  Red Caps.

We as a country seem not to appreciate pluses, and we argue to eliminate things not based on how they affect the country, but by how they have affected us. This occurs because we want people to understand and appreciate us as workers, but we never stop to see others as equals. We as a people look down on certain people and see them as statistics because in our eyes we do not knock glasses with them at cocktail parties, nor can they be found on special invitation lists.

Red Caps in Barbados add to our tourism products. The same way those critics see our Red Caps, they see Vendors, Public Service Workers, Maids, Gardeners, Messengers and Labourers. These people look up, they do not look down, which led them to ignore that their livelihoods are protected by those persons that they do not want to see exist. The feeling is that these workers should only be seen when they are turning the economy. I sometimes have to ask if these people did not exist, what would Barbados be like? Then suddenly, I see myself in their position, not as having someone to call upon, but being called upon.

We have now invited people to our country who do not understand the usefulness of Red Caps in an Airport. Such persons see everybody as a terrorist and we foolhardily give up our culture to accept another that has no basis in our country. We seem not to understand what is goodwill for us. We believe that what is a security risk in another country will be one in ours, because some outsider sees it through his eyes and not ours.

What has been the complaint being laid against our own? Some say that they do not like to take locals baggage when the Airport is busy, and that some rush to get the most money. Let us be serious and look at the double standards. It is not true that we have always been told to look after the tourists first, or is it not true that we sometimes forget that the Red Caps have to pay to operate? We are so anti our own, that GAIA Inc. has just admitted that the revenue from the  Red Caps is not important to the functioning of the airport, therefore, they can provide carts at a cost and not seek to get a return.

One would have thought that social thinkers at the Board level would have removed the fees from the Red Caps and bring in additional workers to deal with the locals so that everybody could be serviced properly.  Do we as locals tip the Red Caps for the load that we ask them to carry? Why are we blaming the Red Caps when it is the Airlines that are charging us more for less luggage?  It has always been suggested that we look after the tourists first. I am told that they ignore locals for tourists, but the truth is that in all my travels, I have never been slighted by them. I was once told by someone close to me never to pay a Red Cap unless I am a passenger. The Red Caps would appreciate payment from their clients and not third parties and I have never committed the error since, as the transaction was between the Red Cap and his client. I was told that I did not know the measure of work involved, so that should have been left up to the judgment of the passenger. Some people are now associating the new ruling to the allocation of the duty free shops and want to know how come when they were owned by locals the Red Caps were not seen as threats?

Those persons who look down on these workers and believe that they are safe, should remember that Barclays and Intel workers thought so too. It was the Sugar Industry workers who were important workers before. Where are they now?

Mechanisation and technological changes have now been used against men. As a consequence, it is always interesting to debate this Government. A couple weeks ago, I accused this Government of attempting to introduce E-Government to deal with the costs of labour as recommended by a former Top Civil Servant. Today, the evidence is clear, and that this Government’s policy can be seen at the WEH Inc. and GAIA Inc., and it is being introduced by the Board to cut out red tape.

This country, Barbados could not pay the hospital’s staff more money to suit their change of status, but can now incur more expenses for less nurses and agree to nurses discriminating against persons because of their sex. All these things are happening at a time when we have a strong Social Partnership.

I have said some hard things about the Unions so much that some persons who do understand and appreciate who I am have treated me as anti-worker without appreciating that my genes do not allow me to do such. We have never pretended to like workers, we have always demonstrated our commitment to them at great costs!

Unions in Barbados have to appreciate that while they understand and practice Social Partnership, other players are behaving like others in the CSME. I sometimes find it difficult to understand the role of the players in the Social Partnership. Then again, I am only a shopkeeper!

Let us understand that everyone matters and what we like for ourselves, we should offer to others. Every job is important! Please let us do it fairly and without prejudice.

Please let us see everyone arriving as Tourists, and not tourists and locals. We have the advantage by having the Red Caps at our airport. It speaks something for us as a people. Remove them and what are you saying, that Barbados is not safe and unique? Goodwill like this cannot be bought, but it can be sold.

Who will take the luggage for the disabled?

Peace, love, unity, wisdom and understanding.

SPLIT PEAS AND RICE; MACARONI PIE

YAM & SALT FISH PIE; VEGETABLE CHOWMEIN

BAKED CHICKEN; BAKED PORK

FRIED SNAPPER; FRIED KING FISH

TURKEY STEW; FISH GRAVY

STEAMED VEGETABLES

TOSSED SALAD; COLE SALAD

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has indicated that it is close to finalising a deal with the Jamaican Government for an almost US$1.3-billion standby arrangement (SBA).However, the IMF has noted that the deal will not be inked before next year.

“The current timetable envisages that the IMF’s executive board would consider Jamaica’s SBA early in the new year,” said Trevor Alleyne, chief of an IMF mission to Jamaica, in a statement issued yesterday.

“The Jamaican authorities and an IMF staff mission have reached agreement on the key elements of a programme that the IMF would support with a loan under an SBA,” Alleyne said.

“We will remain in close contact with the authorities over the coming days as they finalise their economic programme in a letter of intent, which would then be reviewed by IMF management,” added Alleyne.

He said the main goal of the programme is to address Jamaica’s economic imbalances and put the country on a path of sustainable growth.

Global economic crisis

According to Alleyne, the programme with the IMF is also expected to catalyse significant additional financing from other international institutions.

“Jamaica has been hard hit by the global economic crisis, in particular through a sharp decline in bauxite and alumina output, a fall in remittances and a slowdown in tourism revenues. The economy is expected to shrink by around 3.3 per cent for 2009.

“The programme seeks to resolve the problem of an unsustainable debt position currently at more than 130 per cent of GDP and other weaknesses in the economy,” said Alleyne. “Key to its success will be implementing a credible medium-term fiscal framework and a proactive debt-management strategy to put the debt-to-GDP ratio on a clear downward path.”

He pointed to the commitment of the Bruce Golding administration to introduce a coordinated set of fiscal reforms to strengthen public finances, including new fiscal responsibility legislation, a reform of public enterprises and public-sector employment; and provisions to make the tax structure more efficient.

“Measures could include a mixture of controls on public-sector salaries, some tax increases, as well as cuts in other spending,” Alleyne said.

The IMF team left the island yesterday after extensive talks with the Government. (Jamaica Gleaner)

PUBLIC-SECTOR workers will have to wait until 2012 before they can receive any salary increase.Prime Minister Bruce Golding told Parliament yesterday that the decision to extend the freeze on public-sector wages was a result of the Government’s fiscal pro-gramme with the International Monetary Fund.

“There is going to be no space in the fiscal programme in the next two years for any wage increases,” Golding said.

No more at this time

Noting that the public-sector wage bill now stands at $136 billion when travelling and subsistence are added to salaries, Golding said the country cannot afford to pay more at this time.

“We increasd the public-sector wage bill from the time that we have been here from $84 billion to $125 billion. That is a 50 per cent increase but our fiscal situation will not allow any increases over the next two years,” Golding added. (Jamaica Gleaner)

Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter
Shackled by taxes? A man (above) stands on Sutton Street, a few blocks away from Gordon House where Finance Minister Audley Shaw (standing right) was announcing the Government’s third tax package since the beginning of the fiscal year in April, while Information Minister Daryl Vaz and Agriculture Minister Dr Christopher Tufton (right) look on. The protester wore chains and warned of the social implications of the new tax measures. - photos by Norman Grindley/Chief Photographer

FINANCE MINISTER Audley Shaw yesterday announced the largest tax package of the calendar year as the Government moved to plug a $17.9-billion hole in the Budget.

The package, the third announced by Shaw this fiscal year, is intended to raise $21.8 billion annualised through the medium term.

It brings to $47.6 billion the total tax bundle announced by Shaw since April.

Speaking in Parliament yester-day, Prime Minister Bruce Golding said the move to pull more taxes from Jamaicans was necessary to heal the nation’s ailing economy.

No alternative

“There is simply no alternative to raising new taxes,” Golding said.

“Not unless we are going to start identifying which school we should shut down, which hospital and clinics we are going to close, which government department that might be providing vital services to people we are going to take out … we are faced with a situation where there is no alternative,” the prime minister added.

Shaw said the $21.8-billion package was “intended to enhance the Government’s revenue and curtail the fiscal deficit”.

Effective New Year’s Day, the standard rate for general consumption tax (GCT) will be increased from 16.5 per cent to 17.5 per cent, a move which Government says will yield $3.6 billion.

But not only will the rate of GCT be increased as the Government has brought all basic food items - with the exception of rice and counter flour - into the GCT base.

Food items such as salt, syrup, cooking oil, noodle soups, meat, ground provisions, sardines, bread, buns, bullas, eggs and sugar are now subject to GCT.

Persons paying for undertaking services will also have to pay GCT on burial, cremation and items such as coffins.

In April, Shaw was forced to remove several items, including salt and syrup, from the GCT list after the Opposition People’s National Party protested, calling the move ill-advised.

However, in justifying his actions to broaden the GCT base, the finance minister said yesterday that it was “designed to bring efficiency and remove some of the distortions that are plaguing the system”.

He told Parliament that the expansion of the base was a recommendation from the Matalon Tax review committee, which was commissioned by the previous government.

Meanwhile, residential consumers of electricity who consume more than 200 kilowatt-hours of electricity from the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) will have to pay GCT on their light bills.

Shaw claimed many residential customers would not be affected.

“Of the 523,000 customers of the JPS, this tax will not apply to 381,000 Jamaicans as they consume electricity below 200kWh per month,” Shaw said.

The Government intends to raise $1.2 billion in revenue from putting GCT on residential electricity bills but Shaw said the yield is “the less important point”.

“We are sending a message to the consumers of electricity above 200kWh per month. Get into the conservation mode … treat it as a conservation measure,” Shaw said.

Other taxes

The other new taxes announced by Government are adjustments in the special consumption tax on fuel and cigarettes.

Government’s move to levy more taxes follows its decision to re-enter a borrowing relation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Jamaica is seeking to borrow more than US$1.2 billion for balance-of-trade support from the multilateral lending agency.

“While we had little or no choice but to go to the IMF, an IMF programme cannot, in and of itself, develop Jamaica,” Shaw said.

“Equally, we have no choice but to embark together on a deliberate path of embracing and developing our future,” he added.

According to Shaw, had previous administrations adequately grown the economy and reduced the country’s debt and interest rates, the Golding administration would not have been forced to swing the tax axe in this way.

For his part, Golding said the Government he leads could not deny Jamaica’s retarded state.

“It may very well be that the measures that we have had to adopt have been forced on us by necessity because of the global recession,” he said. “If that is the case, then perhaps it is the one good thing that the global recession might have done for us and therefore putting our house in order is top priority.”

He added: “We may have lacked the political will before. We may have thought at times that political expediency was more important than the future of this country. The measures that we have announced are tough. They are not likely to be popular. But leadership that strives for popularity is not what the country needs at this time.”

“I will take that building and all their lands!” Al Barrack pointing to the Government office complex in Warrens, St Michael yesterday. (Picture by Cherie Pitt.)

by CAROL-ANN TUDOR

CONTRACTOR AL BARRACK has declared himself owner of the National Housing Corporation (NHC).

“I own the NHC,” he said angrily yesterday at a Press conference a stone’s throw away from the Government office complex in Warrens, St Michael, the source of a bitter dispute over payment.

Barrack, who won a $34.4 million plus interest judgement against the NHC in 2006, pledged
to take over the NHC’s assets to recover the debt which has now accrued
to $62 321 268.

“I am going to take their things. That building over there [pointing to the nearby Warrens office complex which sparked the dispute between him and the NHC], and everything NHC has.

“I intend to take every damn thing. I can take their lands, the buildings in Country Road [NHC headquarters], their vehicles, their furniture! I own the NHC right now! I am up to my throat with them. They must understand that the law is for everybody,” the contractor stressed.

The sum owed, the largest settlement in local history, was determined by the lone arbitrator in the matter, former Chief Justice Sir Denys Williams, who awarded Barrack at the time $34 409 518, plus interest, and a further eight per cent per annum interest added every month until the award is paid.

The case began in July 2002 and included about 140 sitting days over four years. About three months after the arbitration hearings were closed, he was awarded the sum in a written judgement.

He said, his family, those whom he had borrowed money from and those who had worked
for him, had suffered tremendous hardship since the ordeal began a decade ago when he had to leave the unfinished Warrens office building project.

Giving an example,
he said: “A friend of mine lent me $2 million at five per cent interest - his life savings. He is now at a point where his wife has left him because his wife was always against him lending me the money.

“I owe him . . . his life savings, just like they owe me my life savings and I am screaming at the top
of my voice and no one wants to hear me; they are not interested to hear me.

“I called the Minister (of State in the Ministry) of Finance [Darcy Boyce] and he said he knew nothing about it and that he had to hear from the Prime Minister.

“What do they think it is? It’s not a murder case
. . . . We all agreed to go
to an arbitrator; he ruled, then they wanted to go
to court and we did.

NHC proposal

“The trial judge [Justice Jacqueline Cornelius] ruled. Now we go to this again and the judge told them to pay me. Oh gosh man! What now? What more do they want now?” he lamented.

The head of Barrack Construction said though he did not have to, he reluctantly offered the NHC a proposal to either pay all his money in full
or at least
60 per cent by December 15; another
20 per cent 90 days later and the last 20 per cent
in the following 90 days.

Yesterday, two days had gone since the deadline and he said he had heard nothing.

Barrack said it was not a matter of if he would take action, but when:
“I am waiting on my lawyers to say when.”

The veteran engineer who worked on the Central Bank building, Arawak Cement Plant,
the sea and airports
and other structures across the island, said he felt “bitter” over the manner he has been treated throughout the entire process.

Barrack told the media there would never have been overruns on the project if his advice had been heeded from the very beginning. He said engineers brought in to analyse it when the case was in arbitration, demonstrated this.

When contacted yesterday afternoon, NHC chairman Marilyn Rice-Bowen, who was out of the island, said she could offer no comment since she
did not know what had transpired at the
Press conference.

Acting general manager Garvey Alleyne offered
a “No comment”; while Minister of Housing Michael Lashley said
he would return a call,
but up to Press time
had not done so. (Nation News)

THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY to report it - Chris Gayle slaughtered Australia.

In the process, the West Indies captain scored the fifth fastest century in Test cricket.

The big left-hander’s response to Australia’s imposing 520 for seven declared was to cane the bowlers to the boundary, beyond it, and even on the roofs.

One of those hits must be near the biggest - if not the biggest - sixes seen in Test cricket in Australia or anywhere.

Gayle raced to his century off just 70 balls, bludgeoning nine fours and six sixes in a display that will long be remembered.

Here, he drops to his knees in celebrating his hundred. (Nation News)

SUE SPRINGER

TOURISM OFFICIALS in Barbados are breathing a sigh of relief now that planned industrial action by British Airways (BA) staff has been averted.

The proposed strike by BA cabin crew was declared illegal by a High Court in Britain yesterday, saying that the cabin crew’s union, Unite, had not correctly balloted its members on the proposed 12-day strike action.

The court backed BA’s claim that the ballot of around 13 000 workers included around 800 members who had taken voluntary redundancy packages and had already left or were in the process of leaving the airline.

Unite called it “a disgraceful day for democracy” and vowed to hold a fresh ballot of cabin crew if the dispute with BA was not resolved.

In a telephone interview, executive vice-president of the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association, Sue Springer, told the WEEKEND NATION the association was “delighted” at the news, especially since the past year was so challenging.

She added that Britain was Barbados’ largest tourism market and the strike would have impacted Barbados heavily.

She said if the BA staff and union decided to hold industrial action next year, the BHTA would do its best to deal with the situation.

Springer said the BHTA was “working closely with the Barbados Tourism Authority and other strategic partners”.

In yesterday’s High Court ruling, Justice Laura Cox stated: “A strike of this kind over the 12 days of Christmas is fundamentally more damaging to BA and the wider public than a strike taking place at almost any other time of the year.”

Unite warned immediately that it would hold a fresh ballot if the dispute was not resolved through talks with BA management, pointing out that an 80 per cent turnout for the rejected ballot resulted in a 92.5 per cent “yes” vote.

The dispute is likely to drag on for some time. The union cannot hold another vote until after Christmas, with a rescheduled strike unlikely before February at the earliest.

The action was sparked after the union alleged the changes to pay and conditions of staff were in breach of contract, but last month agreed to fly with reduced staffing after failing to win its own court injunction banning their imposition until a High Court decision on the dispute February 1.

For its part, BA argued the disputed changes to staffing and pay - including a pay freeze in 2010, a switch to part-time work for 3 000 staff and a reduction in cabin crew sizes from 15 to 14 on long-haul flights from Heathrow Airport - were necessary to ride out its dire financial situation.

The planned walkout by 12 500 cabin crew of British Airways between December 22 and January 2 would have grounded Heathrow Airport’s largest carrier, which normally operates 650 flights and carries 90 000 passengers each day. Travellers had already started a scramble for tickets on rival airlines, as passengers were seeking to find alternative means of completing their journeys.

A few days ago, a leading aviation analyst had warned the pending strike might see BA losing between £10 million and £30 million (about BDS$32 million to $96 million) a day because of the strike action.

Andrew Fitchie of Collins Stewart estimated the impact would come as a further blow to BA, which is already struggling against recession pressures and a slump in long-haul travel.

Reports on the Internet indicated that BA had reported a record £401 million (about BDS$1.3 billion) loss in its last financial year and recently posted its first ever interim loss, at £292 million (about BDS $934 million) for the six months to the end of September. (CT/CA/AP) (Nation News)