Barbados’ Prime Minister Freundel Stuart won the political battle but lost the economic war in 2013.
His Trinidad and Tobago counterpart, Kamla Persad Bissessar, set a record by losing four political battles in a year, while Grenada’s Prime Minister Dr Keith Mitchell set another record by leading his New National Party (NNP) to a clean sweep of all 15 seats in the February general elections. This was the second occasion he had achieved the feat within a decade.
St Kitts-Nevis’ Dr Denzil Douglas defied calls to debate a motion of no confidence in his administration for a year even though the matter reached the courts and in Nevis, the Concerned Citizens Movement (CCM) defeated the Nevis Reformation Party (NRP) to take control of the Nevis Island Administration (NIA) after a year of wrangling in the courts over the validity of the last elections.
In Suriname, President Desi Bouterse dismissed calls to step down following the arrest of his son by United States law enforcement officials on drug trafficking and terrorist related charges. But during the year, Bouterse fired his finance minister, Adelien Wijnerman, because of the slow progress achieved in clearing government’s payment arrears. Since coming to office in 2010, Bouterse has replaced ten ministers.
Resignation
His record is perhaps matched in the Caribbean only by Persad Bissessar, who accepted the resignation of her embattled National Security Minister Austin “Jack” Warner, only to see him successfully defend the Chaguanas West seat in a by-election and form his own political party.
In Belize, Prime Minister Dean Barrow sacked his junior minister of immigration Elvin Penner based on the fact that he “did not discharge his responsibilities with either the due judgement and balance, or the scrupulous regard for appearances, which the prime minister demands for all his ministers”.
Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit continued to enjoy his honeymoon and the birth of his son by taunting the opposition, which elected a new leader in Lennox Linton, with the possibility of an early general election.
Andrew Holness survived a challenge to his leadership of the main opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), but his former prime ministerial colleague, Stephenson King, was not so fortunate in St Lucia, bowing out to his former Minister of Tourism Allen Chastanet.
A Brazilian court gave the green light for former Turks & Caicos Islands Premier Michael Misick to be extradited to his homeland to face charges arising from a commission of inquiry into alleged corruption and maladministration during his tenure in office.
Yet politics did not dominate events in the Caribbean in 2013; economics did. St Lucia’s Prime Minister Dr Kenny Anthony summed up the economic situation perfectly when he said some Caribbean countries were refusing to face up to the impact of the global economic crisis on their countries.
“The tragedy of the times is that we are in the throes of a major crisis like the Caribbean has never ever experienced before, but we are refusing to face the reality that confronts us and all of us are engaged in one form or another of self-denial,” Anthony said, challenging his regional colleagues to be honest about the “hard and unusual decisions” that must be made because of difficult global economic conditions.
Cards on table
“We don’t like frank talk. We don’t like open talk. We don’t like honest talk,” he added.
The Bermuda government laid its cards on the table by telling citizens that they should not expect the local economy to show much growth in 2013.
“Overall, the Ministry of Finance anticipates that Bermuda’s GDP (gross domestic product) will be flat to negative 0.75 per cent in 2013,” it said.
The Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago revised the economic growth for the oil-rich twin island republic, saying it was now projected to grow by 1.5 per cent this year as against earlier predictions of 2.5 per cent.
The test of Anthony’s frankness came early in the year when he warned striking public servants that bowing to their demands for a 15 per cent salary increase would force the island into the clutches of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Public sector trade unions had rejected an offer of zero per cent increase and a one-time payment of EC$1 000. But the government said the counter proposal by the trade unions would increase its wage bill by an estimated EC$55 million annually while the back pay associated with this proposal would cost about EC$40 million, “leading to a worsening of the current deficit of close to EC$100 million for this financial year”.
“It also means that for every ensuing year, government would have to borrow an extra EC$55 million just to meet the increase. This is clearly a path that a responsible government should not take,” Anthony argued.
In the end, despite street demonstrations, the public sector unions signed on the dotted line, accepting the government’s offer.
The nine-member Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) has long relied on mono crops as well as the tourism industry for their economic fortunes. But the Governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB), Sir Dwight Venner, said they needed “to wake up and smell the coffee” and realize that the global economic crisis had exposed and exacerbated structural issues that had been hidden in the past.
“Let us get sensible. There is the politics in all of that, but in the end you have to do the maths,” he told the Dominica Association of Industry and Commerce, noting that the private sector had a significant role to play in the newly formed Economic Union of the OECS.
Sir Dwight told the private sector officials “that’s the only game in town” and pretending that “we can solve things without doing the math is going to be a very frustrating exercise”.
It was a message not lost on Grenada’s Mitchell, who has a doctorate in mathematics. He had to present two national budgets to Parliament in 2013, stressing at all times the development of what he calls “the new economy” to deal with the socio-economic situation.
The two essential building blocks of this new economy are fiscal and debt sustainability and the Grenada government has said it would present a strategy for the new economy in the first quarter of 2014.
But Mitchell insisted that the “homegrown programme” had been designed for Grenadians and was not a programme put together by the Washington-based International Monetary Fund (IMF). Caribbean people have long equated job cutbacks, decline in social services and a cut government expenditure with the abbreviation, IMF.
Prescription
So when Barbadian voters kept with tradition and provided the incumbent Democratic Labour Party (DLP) a second consecutive term in power following a nerve-jangling general election in February, they would have been forgiven for linking the Government’s announcement of public sector job cuts in December with a prescription ordered by the IMF as the DLP administration seeks to revive an ailing economy.
Their position may have been strengthened by the IMF report on Barbados following its annual inspection of the state of the country’s economy in early December. The Washington-based financial institution noted that the central government debt had risen to 94 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) by September 2013; the Government’s deficit is expected to rise to 9.5 per cent of GDP in 2013/2014; the Government wage bill rose to 10.3 per cent of GDP in 2012/13 – “the highest in the region”; and, most worryingly of all, international reserves had fallen to US$468 million at end of October.
Despite the gloomy picture, Barbadians had taken comfort in the words of Prime Minister Stuart that his administration had always taken the position that, as far as possible, resorting to layoffs would be “a kind of last option when every other option has failed”.
Perhaps the first sign that all options had or were failing came when the Government announced that it would no longer pay tuition fees for nationals studying at the University of the West Indies. The Government’s message to students: free tertiary education was never intended to last forever.
But even as the debate raged as to whether or not the Government would meet the economic fees for students, Barbadians were jolted by the announcement by Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs Chris Sinckler that the Government would trim the public service as well as reduce by ten per cent the salaries of ministers, government legislators, parliamentary secretaries and those considered to be a “political appointee”.
Sinckler said the plan to cut public service jobs would result in the Government saving as much as BDS$143 million and that the Government had also agreed to institute a “strict programme of attrition” across the central public service, filling posts only where it is absolutely unavoidable, over the next five years, ending 2018-2019. The Government said that the first 2 000 job cuts would take place by January 15, followed by others by March 1.
Former prime minister Owen Arthur suggested that the Government consider cutting back on Cabinet portfolios as well as social entitlement programmes, while Opposition Leader Mia Mottley declared the island was in crisis.
Economic reform
If the Barbados situation was worrying, Jamaica has had a long relationship the IMF which continued in 2013. The island signed a four-year US$958 million External Fund Facility with the IMF and Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller urged Jamaicans to remain focused as the country goes through what is perhaps its most ambitious and far-reaching economic transformation programme.
She likened the economic reform programme to working out a business plan, saying: “I speak of creating a profitable enterprise for all our citizens. I always speak of the importance of ‘balancing the books while balancing people’s lives’. This requires, among other things, placing emphasis on poverty alleviation and eventual poverty eradication.”
By year-end, the IMF was making public a letter submitted by the Jamaica government with Kingston acknowledging that while economic growth remained weak and unemployment “much too high”, it was nonetheless confident that the benefits of the economic strategy now being implemented would “become increasingly evident over time”.
The political configuration in the National Assembly in Guyana translated into economic problems for the Donald Ramotar administration in 2013.
Blacklisted by the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force after it failed to approve legislation to combat money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism, the Guyana government watched helplessly as the opposition legislators used their one-seat majority to block the multi-billion dollar Amaila Falls Hydro Power project.
Government described the opposition vote not to support measures aimed at raising the guarantee limit of loans for the development of hydro-electricity in the country as a “travesty against the people of Guyana”.
Dominica did not have that problem as it sought to further develop its geothermal energy potential in 2013. Roseau remained buoyant about the prospects of developing geothermal energy for local consumption after hosting a two-day international forum that provided an opportunity for stakeholders to recommit themselves to the project.
Not to be left out on the geothermal landscape, the tiny island of Nevis announced that it had awarded the Nevis Renewable Energy International Company, a consortium of international companies, an award to develop geothermal energy on the island.
The economic problems of the Caribbean in 2013 provided yet another opportunity for two of the world’s superpowers, seeking to consolidate their relationship with regional countries. On the heels of a visit to Trinidad and Tobago by United States Vice-President Joe Biden, China’s President Xi Jingping came bearing a US$3 billion concessionary facility gift for eight CARICOM countries.
“We did thank him for that very generous gesture. The $3 billion are for infrastructure projects . . . in the region,” said Prime Minister Persad Bissessar, who hosted the Chinese and the regional leaders.
Ground-breaking judgement
Biden had described his discussions with CARICOM leaders as “frank and cordial”, and pledged Washington’s assistance on a wide range of issues affecting the socio-economic development of the 15-member regional grouping.
The year 2013 will be remembered in the Caribbean for the ground-breaking judgement by the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as it relates to the free movement of Caribbean nationals across the region.
Two years after claiming she had been denied entry into Barbados and subjected to a humiliating experience by immigration authorities, the Jamaican Shanique Myrie received a substantially lower figure than the BDS$1 million compensation she had sought. But the CCJ ruled that Bridgetown had breached her rights when she sought entry into the country.
Myrie had alleged that when she travelled to Barbados on March 14, 2011, she was discriminated against because of her nationality, subjected to a body cavity search, detained overnight in a cell and deported to Jamaica the next day. She also claimed that she was subjected to derogatory remarks by a Barbadian immigration officer and asked the CCJ to determine the minimum standard of treatment applicable to CARICOM citizens moving around the region.
The CCJ held that CARICOM nationals were entitled to enter CARICOM member states “without harassment or the imposition of impediment” and to stay up to six months. The right was derived from the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas and a 2007 CARICOM decision made at the Conference of Heads of Government of CARICOM. The right could only be denied, the court said, when the visitor was an “undesirable person” or “one likely to become a charge on public funds”.
But less than two months after the court ruling, the issue of free movement flared up again after Trinidad and Tobago deported 13 Jamaican nationals. It led to calls for an economic boycott of Port of Spain and took the intervention of the foreign ministers of both countries meeting in Kingston to bring about a resolution.
Crime continued to have a serious effect on the socio-economic development of the region in 2013, as it has done over the past years. Murders continued to be a major headache for countries like Trinidad and Tobago, The Bahamas and Belize.
Regional governments have complained about spending scarce resources on having to beef up security for their nationals. In Jamaica where more than 1 400 people were murdered in 2013, National Security Minister Peter Bunting acknowledged that the fight against crime seemed to be a futile endeavour.
“I am not embarrassed to say that right now as minister of national security, I am going through a kind of a dark night of the soul,” he said, noting that despite the efforts of law enforcement authorities, “yet so little headway, such slow headway is coming out in the statistics”.
Death continued to stalk the Caribbean as the year came to a close. In St Vincent and the Grenadines and St Lucia, heavy rains and winds associated with a slow-moving, low-level trough was blamed for at least 14 deaths in the two countries.
The Caribbean lost a number of its personalities, including Dame Hilda Bynoe, Grenada’s first-ever native head of state; former president of the Barbados Senate Sir Branford Taitt; Alimenta Bishop, the mother of Grenada’s slain prime minister Maurice Bishop; and broadcaster, cultural activist and musicologist, Anthony “Tony” Laing of Jamaica. (CMC)
