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Cutting and contriving best response, says panel
Published on: 2/9/2010.
BARBADIANS should use recent utility rate increases and the proposed wage freeze as motivation to cut and contrive.
Chairman of the Productivity Council, Anthony Johnson, made this statement during Starcom Network's Brass Tacks Sunday.
"If these operations do not have the support from an operation point of view to either maintain their costs or increase their revenue they too will run into problems, and the problems will accumulate...[So] you have to cut and contrive and make the relevant choices," he said.
Johnson stated that he was not defending the rate increases, but the entities, namely LIME, the Barbados Light & Power and the Barbados Water Authority, were all economic entities which incurred costs to run their operations.
"Any economic unit has to manage its operations and make adjustments accordingly."
Fellow panellist, programme officer at the Caribbean Technical Assistance Centre (CARTAC), Therese Turner-Jones, agreed with Johnson's statements.
"Is there ever a good time to take medicine? The timing may be bad from a public relations point of view, but the timing may be seen as long overdue to the utility [companies]," she said.
"It may well be the case that the utilities were undervalued and undercharged to the public for a long time, and we are at the point where they can no longer continue."
Jones also believed that the response of the general public should be to contain spending wherever possible.
"We as consumers pretend as though we are passive agents in economic activity when we are not. This is an opportunity for the public at large to learn about how they spend their own resources and not think of the Government as the one to bail them out." (LW)
6 comment found!
Price Increases : 2/9/2010
I guess the utilities heard about government cutting back on co2 gas emissions, so is this why the prices have gone up? Government is encouraging people to cut back on regular electricity and use solar panels to get power from the sun. And to cut back on using water.
: 2/9/2010
Many countries, including Barbados participated in Copenhagen and climate change. We really need to start using whatever resouces we have. The largest producers of solar panels are China and Germany. With sun all year round, what do we do? Like the other poster, guess we will wait to buy the final product from other countries.. never build our own and, God forbid! export something
Electricity : 2/9/2010
Barbados gets approximately 325 days of sunshine per year, in Canada, we get maybe 120 days, but we are investing in solar power, since it is cleaner and more inviromentally friendly. Wake up Bim, oil is a nonrenewable source.
Might not be the answer : 2/9/2010
I understand the argument about cut & contrive, but as it is Bajans already have a strong savings culture, which implies that money is not being circulated into the economy. Barbados already has very high taxes which further impacts on individual disposable income, the idea of cut and contrive will cause such a contraction of the economy that BIM could end up in serious peril. I am not implying that BIM should spend their way out of a recession, I am saying that increase income tax, consumption taxes and utility increases will not solve the problem, because people will spend less, companies will suffer more and employ less people. The whole idea should be to limit wastage, shelve or postpone capital projects and end ridiculous entitlement projects. It is important from and economic and social perspective not to use taxation as a way to emerge from a recession, doing this will essentially turn many middle class people into the working poor or worse create a financial and regulatory environment that couple lead to companies laying off people.
The present administration might be going about this recessionary period all wrong and might be planting the seeds that could lead to serious social problems. I mean when you choose to put a medical doctor at the head of economic affairs, There is a problem.
WHY? : 2/9/2010
The answer is quite simple, 'Dear Why'. SOLAR POWER IS NOT COMPETITIVE. It only makes sense when it is subsidised by somebody, - government or other utility customers.
The situation may be different at some time in the future but, right now, SOLAR IS NOT COMETITIVE!
why why why? : 2/9/2010
why are we paying so much for electricity, when we have the sun, why are we not investing in solar? It is the way forward in the 21st century. we can sell solar to the west, with climate change, Europe will get colder as seen this winter. so we in the Caribbean have a god given product that we should get serious with. The chinese have this knowledge, are they not willing to share it, or, we are mainly to be exploited , we need more investment in solar, tourism is a dying industry, we cannot depend on the tourist dollar any longer.
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