Last Updated on August 26, 2022 4:04 pm by Editor
The current controversy in Barbados over the proposed changes in NIS pension arrangements and reported malfeasances there are but the tip of the iceberg of the problems we continue to have with this concept called “government”.
Beneath this tip lies the very fundamental issue of democracy and what it means. Our argument is that the NIS issue is but one symptom of the systemic infection of what we call have come to call “parliamentary democracy”.
Rebranding the country as a republic has not made it better; from one perspective, if anything, it has only exacerbated the problem.
Unless we recognize that the real problem we are facing in Barbados is a twisted understanding of what government and governance is all about, we might fix the NIS issue, only to witness the breakout of the NIS pox on the body politic somewhere else in the system.
Anti-People
Increasingly, it appears that government, not only here in Barbados but in many so-called democratic societies across the world, are waging war on and against the people who put them in power. That is as topsy-turvy as it can get.
Such war is often at the directive of some external, global, non-governmental agency such as the WHO or the IMF.
This systematic onslaught against the people is not necessarily military in nature. On the contrary, two of the most common areas in which this war is being waged against the people are in the arenas of information and finance.
In the information arena, we experience it in the form of government silence when silence is inappropriate, government propaganda, plain lying, outright deception and various forms of censorship including self-censorship.
Self-censorship is where someone has vital information but chooses not to disclose it for fear either of victimization or of being taken to court. We suggest that in most cases those fears are unfounded. Too many people are victims of what one sociologist called “learned helplessness”.
In the area of finance, we experience government’s war against the people with burdensome taxes, mismanagement or abuse of public finance, outright theft of public funds and plain vanilla corruption.
NIS Fiduciary Responsibility
The NIS has a track record of malfeasances and anti-customer practices despite its tagline, “More than a contribution…it’s your lifeline“. In 2021 we published two strong reviews of NIS practices and issued the institution with two Customer Disservice Awards. These articles can be found here and here. Our feature image indicates we have issued it with a third Customer Disservice Award.
Any institution that treats customers with the gross contempt that the NIS has displayed, making people feel they are begging for what is really theirs by legal right (among other contemptuous behaviours), needs to be brought to heel swiftly.
Therefore, the notion being floated in country: that NIS should be sued, is a step in the right direction. Although this is by no means legal advice, those who will be the plaintiffs in this issue, the people, should pursue the argument that the NIS has broken its fiduciary responsibility.
According to https://www.upcounsel.com, fiduciary responsibility refers to “the obligation that one party has in relationship with another one to act entirely on the other party’s behalf and best interest. It is considered to be the standard of the highest care.”
Take note that the definition of fiduciary states that the individual or institution charged with that responsibility (“the fiduciary’) must “act entirely on the other party’s behalf and best interest”.
In the case of the NIS, that “other party” consists of we, the contributors to those funds. Therefore, simply put, the Board and Director of the NIS must be held accountable for a breach of fiduciary responsibility.
Fiduciary responsibility is basically the same type of responsibility that one would expect of the executor of an estate or a trustee of a foundation; one expects the individual to act in the interest of the client and in THAT INTEREST ONLY AT ALL TIMES.
Management of the NIS is charged with the responsibility of managing the contributions of the people. Those funds are not the property of central government and should not find their way into the Consolidated Fund.
It would seem that the NIS managers have broken fiduciary responsibility by not “treasuring” the funds in a professional manner and by allowing the central government to “borrow” NIS funds, despite the Prime Minister’s self-serving and lame assurance that the funds were put in the right place.
In any event, we must also remember that Barbados has access to the Caribbean Court of Justice as the court of last resort.
It is time that the people reassert their power and make elected officials and public officials understand that they are SERVANTS of the people and not their masters.
Political Reform Needed
The cases of NIS, the Auditor General’s damning report, the serial malfeasances of BRA (Barbados Revenue Authority) and the GIS (Government Industrial School)- to name a few – tell us that there is need for urgent and effective reform of our system of government. This is the unseen part of the iceberg.
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The primary purpose of these reforms must be to restore power to the people and simultaneously force elected officials as well as parliamentary representatives, to recognize their duty of accountability and fiduciary responsibility where appropriate, in other words, to acknowledge their duty as servants and not masters of the people.
Electoral Reform
The first reform badly needed is in an abandonment of the FPPS (First Past the Post System) which we have been using and which has been responsible for one party obtaining all thirty seats twice in succession. Not to prevent the occurrence of such aberration a third time would be incredibly stupid of the citizens of this country.
And it is preventable!
The solution is that we must move urgently to install some form of PR or PPR (Proportional Representation) which, all other things being equal, will prevent this recurrence. We will discuss the mechanics of a PPR system in a separate publication.
Power to Recall
The next urgent reform we need is power to recall parliamentary representatives. This means that even when an individual has been elected for a five-year term, the electorate should be able, by some agreed process to be decided, to remove parliament representatives who do not fulfil their responsibilities or act egregiously against the interest of the constituency or Barbadians as a whole.
Auditor General Empowerment
In the wake of the last Auditor General’s damning report, many have called for the AG’s office to be empowered to prosecute government agents and agencies for failure to adhere to the financial reporting rules.
As audit professional, Krystle Howell has suggested, it is unthinkable that a government agency (BRA) could be reporting negative cash balances! Our view is that this is an insult to the accounting profession and the head of this agency ought to be sanctioned, if not fired.
Therefore, we support the call for an extension of the powers of the Auditor General, as indicated above, as one of the major and urgent reforms for our system of governance.
Summary
Both of the so-called established parties have been guilty of warring against the people and conspiring to circumvent professional propriety. The current malfeasances of the incumbent government are quite clear.
However, the late Errol Barrow of the DLP has been credited with introducing legislation to give the political directorate more control of the public service or as Starbroek News put it, “impose parliamentary supremacy over both the judiciary and the civil service”. For this and its recent malfeasances, the DLP has much for which to answer.
Prospectus
The need to move away from the two “established parties” is growing clearer every day. The problem is that no third party has yet been able to organize itself around a clear set of people-empowering policies that address the deficiencies in the existing system, let alone formulate a sound plan to move Barbados away from its dependence on tourism.
So while we desperately desire some new blood – ideally in the form of a vibrant new (third) party – we have to set the bar at this level because we must ensure we get the best going forward.
The question is: Will we, like the Israelites, have to wander about in the desert for forty years until the those who say that the two “established parties” are sacrosanct are dead?
