In the post-independence period, Barbadians bought into the model for social and economic development. They accepted that accessing education and health services in particular required making some sacrifice in the form of taxation.
On the other hand, successive governments understood that there was a limit to taxation. Unfortunately, the current Government continues to exceed the limit of taxation, while access to education and health services is diminishing by the day.
The progress, not so easily won since Independence, is being seriously threatened by an administration that fails to see the bigger picture. It is now the case that the youngest among us will not have access to an educational system that appreciated its role in redressing social imbalance, and a health system that minimised the ability to pay as a way of giving us access to the most precious social good on earth.
Furthermore, the property-owning class is now being called upon to pay a municipal waste tax that is easily the worst tax ever imposed on Barbadians.
It brings every property into the tax net; it imposes a tax that bears no relationship to the nature and quantum of waste generation; it is not intended to improve the collection of waste and it certainly will not reduce the generation of waste.
The municipal solid waste tax, even in its borrowed name, is a perfect example of all that has gone wrong in the fiscal affairs of this country. It is just about raising more revenue to feed the unplanned spending of a wayward Government. It ignores the persistent burden placed on taxpayers over the last five years in the face of declining income.
The country has now reached the stage where taxation is no longer being justified on grounds of fairness but rather on grounds of necessity.
It is not the necessity of the people or even the economy, but the necessity of the Government in its fight for relevance or rather survival at all cost. Taxation is now being used to prolong undeniable failure that threatens in its persistence.
All governments prior to 2008 understood that by definition our economic resources are limited.
This realisation magnified the need to be prudent in the management of the resources. This is especially true of our financial resources.
Therefore in the same vein that Barbadians generally accepted having to pay taxes to have access to social services, previous governments understood, for the most part, the need for fiscal prudence.
The failure of the current administration to adhere to this basic principle is the single most important reason for the state of the country’s poor finances and economic health.
There is no way that thousands of Barbadians would have been able to move through an educational system from primary school to university, if education was not seen as a priority by successive governments. The repayment to the state for such privilege naturally came as these individuals were used to build out the new services economy in particular and obviously in their lifelong contribution through the payment of taxes.
Failure to appreciate the role of the certified class in the transformation of the Barbadian economy from agriculture to services in less than 40 years is being conveniently avoided, and surprisingly by some who benefited from the country’s investment in its human capital. Barbados’ previously envied success in “punching above its weight” was the direct result of such an investment.
Success is hardly ever achieved in a vacuum. Typically there is an identifiable structure to the method used to achieve success. This is no less so for a country’s success. Barbados’ journey was not accidental – it was built on pillars of access to health, education and property ownership that are being systematically removed by the current Government.
It is unforgivable for the gains made in education and health to be reversed on grounds of revenue insufficiency. Such a baseless assertion is intended to be an excuse for a misguided Government to abandon the model used to achieve our country’s hard-fought progress since Independence.
There will never be unlimited funds to pursue and persist with Barbados’ model of development, and this is why all governments have to prioritise the country’s needs.
The incompetence of the Government was clear up front in its failure to understand that financial resources are always limited. And having confused itself about what is a society and/or an economy, the Government proceeded to damage both the Barbados economy and the aspirations of the society.
Dr Clyde Mascoll is an economist and Opposition Barbados Labour Party adviser on the economy.
