We Need Structural Change, Not Reform

There is growing evidence that the evolutionary approach to change in both the public sector and the business community is no longer sustainable. For us to grow the economy, provide meaningful employment and expand the range of choices for our people we need a fresh approach to both the structure of government and business organizations. This includes the country’s learning centers from primary school to university.

The productivity of people is directly related to the structure of the organization in which they work and the flow of information. Thus the limiting factor on an individual’s performance is more likely to be determined by the organizational structure of the unit in which he works rather than his personal abilities or work ethic.

Over the past few decades we have been consumed with employee performance standards and evaluations, training of personnel and the development of incentive programmes. The results have been less than stellar. As a result, there is a reform fatigue setting in and a certain cynicism developing that makes us accept things as they are and not what they should be.

It is time for us to use the tools of new technology and communication systems to change the way we work and share information as well as how we learn. For this we need to continue to develop a robust and secure communications infrastructure that will ultimately deliver fibre optic connectivity to both residential and business locations as well as third and fourth generation wireless connectivity. The pace of this development is painfully slow and is largely a result of a lack of appreciation by both government and business leaders in the value of state of the art communication infrastructure in shaping the business of the future.

Another area that is sadly lacking is the inability of the banking system to support online real time transactions despite the investment made by the Central Bank to facilitate this activity. This is an intolerable state of affairs and hamstrings the major customers of the banks in their efforts to improve their efficiencies and customer service.

One example of structural change would be to allow more employees to work from home offices unless their presence at a specific physical location was absolutely needed. Today online access and video conferencing are very affordable and facilitates a wide range of remote employee activities including remote conference calls and online training. The resultant saving in commuting expense and the reduction of office space would be significant. Many families have two cars to support the transportation needs of a husband and wife who work in two different locations. If one or both of them participated in online work the need for two cars could be eliminated reducing their capital cost of transportation and the expenditure of foreign exchange. Finally, the stress of commuting through the parking lot at Waterford Bottom or the Garfield Sobers Roundabout would be eliminated as would be the need to spend tens of millions to address the Warrens traffic nightmare.

But that’s just it. We are more comfortable spending hundreds of millions of dollars just keeping up and essentially marking time rather than thinking outside the box, creating revolutionary change at a much lower cost and ensuring that we have a future.

phillip.goddard@braggadax.com

Garden Spot or Shabbyville

One of the many attractions of Barbados as a recreational destination and as a good place to live and conduct international business is the visual aspect of the landscape, its cultivation and a sense of order and cleanliness. Unfortunately, in recent years, there seems to have been a decline in cultivation and an explosion of weeds and shrubs overtaking the landscape. There are two factors at play here. One is the decline of the sugar industry and farming cultivation in general, and the other seems to be a decline of individual pride in keeping one’s surroundings tidy, clean and attractive.

No doubt our economic decline is playing a part in all this, but the belief that “government should do it all” also plays a large part. What makes this all the more evident are oases of colour in villages throughout the countryside where individuals take the effort to create neatly trimmed garden spots that surround the most humble of homes juxtaposed with modern unpainted houses with yards sprouting weeds and littered with the detritus of a throw away consumer society.

We need to reverse this trend and to make Barbados the garden spot of the Caribbean by reversing the fortunes of agriculture and incentivizing the public to play their part in the creation of an exceptional tropical paradise that all of us can enjoy and be proud of.

Government has a role to play in terms of leadership and security as well as providing appropriate incentives to stimulate food production and to create a legislative and regulatory framework for efficient distribution. Corporate Barbados also has a role to play by setting examples of good housekeeping and property management as well as community involvement to stimulate community beautification efforts. Finally each and every one of us should take an interest in our own environment to combat illegal dumping and to improve the cleanliness of our homes and communities.

The Minister of Agriculture has spoken several times recently about the urgent need for us to produce more of our own food. There is nothing new in this as successive ministers of agriculture have sent the same message for decades. His recommendations are more of the same shotgun solutions with a wide range of government initiatives that look remarkably similar to those of the past. Why these initiatives will work this time is a bit of a mystery.

Individuals get into economic activities because they can make a profit to sustain and educate their families and because they enjoy what they are doing. The fundamental responsibility of government is to provide for the security of the nation and ensure the rule of law. Unless government discharges that responsibility fully, the environment for farming will always be more hostile than necessary. Regardless of the technology used, the work ethic applied and allowances for the vagaries of the weather, if the crop is stolen or destroyed the incentive for farming evaporates.

Government should focus on its prime responsibility to fight crop theft that is increasingly bold and violent. A recent incident was so brazen that a thief harvested sweet potatoes alongside workers of a plantation and when accosted, pulled a knife saying that he intended to take what he wanted. He was eventually subdued and tied up for the police to collect. No farm worker should be subjected to that kind of threat. It is time for a rifle shot approach to improving the security of farmers and a multi agency task force established to focus on improving the security of our farms. Everything else is secondary.

Putting our farmers back to work is necessary for local food production and the beautification of our country. This benefits our economy on so many different levels that it is worthy of being a national priority. There are roles for government and the business community to efficiently improve local food production and distribution and to confuse those roles is often counterproductive.

Let us all join in making Barbados the garden spot and bread basket that it could be.

phillip.goddard@braggadax.com

Politicizing Tragedy

The echoes of gunfire in Tucson last week were still reverberating when the pundits of the left leapt into the fray to castigate the Republicans, conservatives and the Tea Party for raising the temperature of political discourse in the United States and implying that this was a significant factor that resulted in the carnage wrought by Jared Loughner. That there was not a shred of evidence to substantiate the claims seemed not to bother them. Evidence based analysis has never bothered the political diatribe of the Left.

There is no doubt that the cut and thrust of political debate in the United States is robust and at times quite muscular. Both sides participate in rhetorical excesses and the imagery reflects a society whose experiences in war and hunting results in metaphors that might shock the sensibilities of a society used to the metaphors of the game of cricket. But there is no evidence to suggest that this caused, or in any way influenced, the slaughter in Tucson. Nor does it substantiate the inference that all opposition to Obama’s policies is violent or racist. Such statements are the result of politically motivated mental gymnastics that are disconnected from reality.

To infer that the opposition to Obama created a climate of hate that influenced Loughner is to ignore all that we have learned about the man. Loughner lived in his own private bubble according to those that knew him. He did not watch television; he was not interested in current events; he was disconnected from society. Thus to say that the current public discourse influenced him denies the facts as told to us by his teachers and acquaintances.

Loughner’s writings are confused, incoherent, punctuated with private numerology and inscrutable taxonomy. He warned of government brainwashing and thought control through “grammar”. He was obsessed with “conscious dreaming,” an apt description of hallucinations. These are the symptoms of a paranoid schizophrenic.

In addition, the evidence available to us dates Loughner’s fixation on Representative Gabrielle Giffords to 2007 when he attended one of her town hall meetings. This predates Palin’s arrival on the national scene and the Tea Party. The only climate of hate that was being generated at the time was against President Bush and the Iraq war.

Finally to suggest that opposition to Obama’s legislative agenda was fueled by racism is ludicrous. A complex, costly and massive Health Care Bill that was not read far less fully debated, spending that has gone out of control, regulatory policies that has kept unemployment at unacceptable heights is what it is all about. The race card is the ultimate calumny designed to whip up sympathy for an embattled President and a cloak for unpopular policies when all else fails.

Obama himself remains hugely popular with most Americans; people just like the man. The reason the Democrats were decimated in the mid-term elections was a result of the electorate’s disenchantment with the policies of the left and runaway spending. It’s the policies not the colour. And Loughner acted on his own as a result of his own private mental hell.

phillip.goddard@braggadax.com

Dictators and Democracy

Man’s experience with totalitarian regimes in the last century seems not to have taught us much. The rise of Communism under Stalin and the Nazis led by Hitler were marked by the most brutal genocidal acts and the murder of fourteen million men women and children between 1933 and 1945. None of these were combatants and most of them were Jews, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Poles and Balts; people native to Central Europe. The Holocaust has been well documented but Stalin’s deliberate policies of starvation leading to the deaths of millions in the Ukraine and purges that resulted in the execution of three quarters of a million in the 1930’s, is less well known.

The response by the world’s leading Democracies was to suspend belief in the atrocities as though it was impossible for such evil to exist. There was a determined resistance in western governments and the press to believe what was happening in Germany before the start of hostilities. Similarly both Britain and the United States suppressed information that the Soviets were responsible for the Katyn massacre in the belief that they could build a working post war relationship with the USSR. The denial of Holodomor that resulted in the death by starvation of millions in the Ukraine is another example of a complicit press that also thought Mussolini a jolly good fellow.

After the Second World War the Nuremberg trials exposed to the world the horrors of the extermination camps but it was not until the collapse of the Soviet Union that the true extent of the gulag and the deliberate policies of starvation were fully exposed. And the world said “never again”.

Then came Cambodia – two million; Rwanda – eight hundred thousand; and Bosnia – two hundred thousand. This century has started with the continuing genocide of the Darfuri in The Sudan where reporting is scant and the response timid.

It is against this background that we now witness the totalitarian regime of Iran developing nuclear weapons while espousing the national objective of eliminating Israel from the face of the earth. Should we not have learnt from Hitler’s Mein Kampf where the utterances of dictators reveal their true objectives and not dismiss them as hyperbole or for internal political consumption? Is it too much trouble to see the world as it is rather than how we would like it to be?

The Iranian persecution of its minority citizens is vigorous and accelerating. Only half of the Iranian population is Persian, the other half is made up of numerous minority groups including Azeris, Kurds, Balouch, Awazi Arabs and a small group of non-Muslim including Jews, Zoroastrians and Baha’is. All of them are viewed by the mullahs with hatred and are subject to property confiscation and forcible resettlement.

The bench mark of how Iran will treat its neighbours is how it treats its minorities with rigged trials, torture and extra-judicial killings. Such is the nature of totalitarianism wrapped in a cloak of religious extremism. After the recent elections there was a brutal repression of the opposition who protested the rigged election process, and there is a continuing quest to root out and suppress any dissent.

This past Wednesday Hugo Chavez, a friend and ally of the Iranian mullahs, started ruling by decree in response to a moderate change in a balance of power in the Venezuelan parliament. This is another step in his drive for absolute power. Many observers think that the best way to deal with Chavez is to ignore him but his extra territorial ambitions in the region make this a dangerous course of action. It is time for reasonable men and women to speak out against the assumption of absolute power and the destruction of democratic institutions in Venezuela and the spreading influence of Chavez in the region. The cancer of totalitarianism must be resisted at all cost by those that cherish freedom.

phillip.goddard@braggadax.com

Bajan Hospitality and Fine Dining

One of the underappreciated aspects of our hospitality industry has been the remarkable explosion of culinary skills and the range of options available to the many visitors that grace our shores each year. The many fine restaurants, pubs and roadside establishments offer a wide variety of cuisine to match the variable geometry of spending capability and taste of the most discerning epicurean.

From the Baxter’s Road and Oistins fish fry to the Cliff, Sassafras, Champers, Fish Pot and Atlantis restaurants to name an exceptional few. The special luncheons at Fisherpond Great House hosted by John and Rain Chandler on Thursday and Sunday are a special delight as is the unique ambiance of Roger Goddard’s Cutters near the Crane Resort.

There is the Pudding and Souse at Lemon Arbour and the countless rum shops in almost every village where stew beef and rice and peas or ham and cheese cutters are the fast food of choice. Apsara’s Indian and Thai cuisine, the Crane Resort’s Zen for Japanese delights and Tony’s Restaurant in Clapham for basic Bajan are just part of the range available. And who could forget Mama Mia’s Italian experience on Hastings main road or the nearby 39 Steps.

As good as the food is it is the charm and hospitality of those serving the gastronomic delights that make dining in Barbados such a memorable occasion. The relaxed informality and a ready smile adds much to the meal. We who live here seem to take it for granted but our guests truly appreciate the hospitality that they receive while experiencing a remarkable dining experience in restaurants that are often compared with the best of the West End of London.

It is not unusual for visitors staying in our sister islands to the west to fly up to Barbados for dinner or luncheon and return home the same day, such is the attraction of our finest restaurants. In promoting Barbados as a holiday destination I do not believe that we place enough emphasis on the culinary delights of our small island and the quality and range of our offerings.

Good food, fine wine, cold beer, excellent rum and other spirits is an important factor in the holiday experience as well as the hospitality of the financial services industry. The restaurateurs of Barbados deserve a special appreciation for the accolades of visitors and residents alike, and recognition of the contribution that they make to establish Barbados as a premier holiday destination and a preferred domicile to conduct international business.

We should do more to highlight the remarkable dining experience in Barbados while promoting the island as a holiday destination and an international business center. It is a significant contributing factor to the quality of the holiday experience and the quality of life for those who conduct business here and has contributed much to the level of repeat business that is of great value to us all.

phillip.goddard@braggadax.com