Well, Actually...

Electricity price hikes in Barbados, Haiti gets worse somehow, Air Canada returns to Trinidad.

Nov 07, 2024

Well I think the toughest part of the US election cycle is over. Check in on your Democrat friends, they might not be doing so hot right now. I usually put an interesting fact here so… if you’re really worried about US foreign policy after last night, just keep an eye on the state department appointments. Goodluck.

This is Disgruntled Musings, a compilation of quick commentary on the latest socio-political news and updates from across the Caribbean region. I’m your host Shem, podcast producer here at the CPSI and it’s great to be back. Let’s get into it.

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Barbados to expect higher electricity bills for the end of year

Nation News

The island’s FTC (Fair Trade Commission) has approved a hike in energy generation price (per kWh) so that the Barbados Light and Power Company can recoup just over 800000 BBD in rental costs for temporary generators being used to shore up the island’s capacity. Okay let’s unpack this one before we grab pitchforks. Or we could unpack it as we storm towards FTC HQ with said pitchforks. I believe in us, we can multitask. So what you’re telling me is that the island’s electricity generation infrastructure is so inadequate at the moment that we have rented generators, which are costing us so dearly that BL&P would rather pinch our cheeks as they pickpocket our pay cheques rather than eat the cost.

I beg your finest of pardons. Who is at the helm here because I am monumentally confused. I feel like I’m living in the damn upside down in Barbados because how could electricity bills get any higher!? It was 150 USD last month just to run my little portable unit during the hottest hours of the day. And that’s me pretending I can afford it, so what about those who can’t even imagine affording it? We’ve got so called green and solar initiatives out the ass, springing up all over this island and yet somehow we still have some of the highest energy costs in the world. Mia, ma’am if even your aid is listening, please consider this. The march to unsustainability is just that, a march. And right now we are stomping with aplomb towards gross unsustainability.

Why is our grid so wretched that it’s running on spare tyres? Mind you we still have one of the most reliable supplies in the world. Barbadians will talk up a storm about the occasional outage which is so rare for most it feels like armageddon whenever the lights flicker. Those first few price increases at the turn of the decade were inevitable, such service cannot be provided for cheap. But the idea was that we would be taking measures to either wean ourselves off fossil fuels to cheaper alternatives or at least make some kinda deal to bring the cost of the current service down. Neither is happening. Seeing thousands of solar panels on every roof in an industrial park doesn’t bring me joy. Seeing them on the roof of the house of everyone with a retirement plan from Sagicor, also doesn't bring me joy because at the rate we’re going I'll never be able to afford either. It feels like we’ve been sold this grand idea of what energy in Barbados is going to be but it simply isn’t materializing.

The cost of electricity in Barbados is simply too damn- huh? What’s that? The expected cost to the customer is only about $3 extra on our bills? Oh. Okay we’ll circle back to this I guess. Yea, you can keep the pitchforks at the door.

Tobago’s ANR expansion underway, POS welcomes Air Canada back

News Day, Trinidad Guardian

We’ve got some promising developments in aviation happening on the twin island republic. First up, the expansion to ANR Robinson Airport is “over 70%” complete according to PM Rowley, and estimated to be finished by early 2025. The project, which is being executed by China Railway construction, is expected to ring in at 130 million US and includes a new terminal to increase yearly capacity to 3 million passengers. Tobago is directly served by British Airways twice a week so maybe we’ll see that number go up to something more befitting of a news report.

More good news, Air Canada returns to Port of Spain with 4 times weekly flights after suspending them over a year ago. The flights are expected to resume next year on May 1st. So much for that Carnival season. Trinidad is a rather odd country tourism wise. It’s got an almost anemic visitor count that only substantially sees any increase during the brief Carnival season. They milk that year round because they have no other events for the rest of the year with risking a bullet for. I do have plans to see the rural Paramin, so wish me luck I guess.

Gang violence escalates beyond capital in Haiti

Guardian UK

So the special police mission went down like a lead balloon and reports are indicating that efforts to regain territory have largely failed. Some outlets are describing it as “like a civil war”. And yet we sent a troupe of traffic cops to try to take down gang members with names like Barbecue. One report even detailed how disappointed the local police are in the performance of their Kenyan counterparts. See what happens when you take the lukewarm easy way out of bigger army diplomacy? Shit gets worse. It didn’t need to be a civil war. It needs to be a full scale one.

NatGeo lists Barbados as “must visit” in 2025

National Geographic

National Geographic still has a bit of a shine to it even after the Disney purchase, and have dropped their list of 25 destinations worth visiting in 2025. The list is extensive and features wondrous locales of varying significance to diversity, the arts culture and history.

Visit Senegal for a unique culinary journey, Suru Valley India for rock climbing. And then Barbados for… a new perspective on the slave trade. Oh goddamnit. Why is it always a slave thing? I get it we perfected that shit, but c’mon. The attraction in question is the Barbados Heritage District that’s supposedly being built in 2025, designed by British-Ghanaian architect Sir David Adjaye. It’s a museum and sculpture of sorts, way out in the countryside.

It’s got an interesting design, i’ll give you that but am I gonna start telling people to shell out 1 grand US one way to come look at it… I don’t think so. Did you know Barbados has a new botanical garden? Here we have a chance to really show off our horticultural prowess beyond domination at the Chelsea flower show and all that we have to show for it is a giant open field with a few trees. But hey, come see Barbados for a slave museum. Ugh.

Gaston Browne demands Sandals forks over taxes or get out

Trinidad Express

He huffed and he puffed and he… made a valid request I suppose. Antiguan PM has choice words for Jamaica-based Sandals resorts telling the hotel and spa to stop nickel and diming the people via tax evasion. Oh boy this again. It’s not the first time Antigua or any other host nation for Sandals has had this pain point with the company. This sentiment seems to come in waves depending on how financially screwed the country in question is. It’s like a mother doing the most on a sunday and scolding down the line, taking anger out on each child as she begrudgingly does the chores and regrets life decisions. There’s a US 30 million dollar hole in the coffers of the Antiguan government and Browne says it’s Sandals shaped. The ultimatum was simple: cooperate and pay or ship out.

This is the problem with relying on 1 or 2 large resorts to carry your capacity or product. Barbados runs into similar problems with Sandals here. We have about three marquee brands, Hilton, Sandals, Radisson and, oops 4, Marriott. They’re moderately sized and we invited them to our shores with huge perks and concessions in the hopes that bookings in their rooms would turn into taxi fares, bus fares, trips to Harrison’s Cave and maybe throw local food vendors a bone too. But there simply aren’t enough rooms between these resorts to drive the cost of a stay down, which would in turn convince a larger number of visitors to make the trip. The concessions are put in place with the hope that the resorts would attract enough volume to offset all the money the government left on the table. If you don’t build enough resorts it won’t work.

But wait there’s more, Sandals already contributes a massive amount to the Antiguan economy even with these concessions. The income taxes of their workers, among other things, go directly to the government. In other words, it’s not necessarily a capacity problem, merely gaston wanting more taxes out of Sandals via co-operate tax even though the aforementioned employee taxes outstrip whatever they could reasonably extract out of Sandals via a co-operate tax in Antigua.

Now I don’t place all the blame on the government. It is very likely that Sandals is… optimizing its taxes to maximize profit. But if red alarms are going off and the only solution you can devise is to hit the hotel pinata, you may have a larger problem on your hands.

And now, the long talk.

We’re drawing up to the year’s end so I figured we’d have a little mythbusting session. Can I say that? Is Discovery gonna come after me? Dunno let’s go!

Barbados’ non-existent Blue Economy

This term gets thrown around a lot, referring to the resources and opportunities present within our exclusive economic zone or EEZ. Basically what we can extract from the waters around Barbados. Every country has one, at least every country with an oceanic coastline. You’d think for a rock in the Atlantic surrounded by ocean it’d be a no-brainer that we have one… But it’s actually odd we still do. We’ve pretty much nuked our fishing stock into the floor it seems. Even flying fish, which by the way is a cornerstone ingredient of the country’s national dish, is so scarce in our waters we must turn to Trinidad to get them.

What about environmental benefits and protections? Well the reefs around Barbados seem to be mostly dead. Don’t get me wrong, the dead bodies still protect us from the sea but even that’s not safe. During the pandemic Barbados invited wayward ships and cruise liners to take refuge in our waters when no one else would take them. A grand human gesture certainly, but a rather shortsighted one. The ships were allowed to drop anchor just about everywhere. Even on the reef. A 50 ton anchor can’t occupy the same space as a 100 year old reef so physics quickly corrected that faux pas. So resources, barely, environmental protection, laughable. At this point it really is just the ministry of riveting seaside sunset views.

We basically had a constitution

We didn’t need to write an entirely new one on becoming a republic. The questionable bits just needed to be snipped and the modern requirements added. Barbados’ original constitution/charter was written with a rather autonomous colony in mind. We were already far more independent than most realize, even before actual independence. The transition to a republic was little more than a publicity stunt which has turned into an embarrassment at this point because the new constitution is essentially being held up by God. There are literally people in the senate right now who cringe at the idea of gender-neutral wording for anti-domestic abuse legislation. Color me unsurprised at this shameful delay.

The import bill is a scapegoat in every Caribbean budget

Every Caribbean country spits up a budget yearly whereby the government lays its plans out for spending all the hard earned money it stole from you in taxes. Delicious. Transportation, healthcare, construction are all big ticket items where we gawk and awe at any increases or slashes. But one particular item gets a bad rap by design. The government wants you to think it’s a huge expense that needs to be slashed for the better good. That item is the import bill. Most of the economies in the lesser Antilles are import heavy. They do not produce enough of any one service or goods to export (besides maybe Trinidad, Jamaica and the DR). They don’t make diddlysquat. I remember years ago looking at an Atlas in school that showed that Barbados’ primary export was electronics… primarily light bulbs… what?

You see as these countries modernized, so did their taste in food and goods. Even if you live in Saint Lucia, you can enjoy cereals from the USA and fruit from Asia. it’s not as extensive as our larger neighbors with their juggernauts like Walmart, but even small territories in the lesser antilles can enjoy being a part of the global market. Every video game, pop tart, bottle of wine, Zara dress and even kit from Fenty Beauty, will cost us. We pay for them in US dollars of course, no one wants our ratty single use money. But it is worth it. Our government thinks otherwise. They don’t like when you spend USD so they demonize the import sector every chance they get. They push initiatives like “buy local” and slap high tariffs on imports to dissuade purchase. If Caribbean governments had their way we’d all live off boiled sweet potatoes and fish all day while they get to blow the US reserves on their next BMW. Don’t fall for it. You’re as entitled to that glass of wine as your prime minister. After all, you can afford it. It is the government’s job to make sure they can too, by securing foreign investment and diverse streams of revenue to keep the imports going and the population happy. So the next time you see some politician bringing up the import bill and tell you “we have X at home” tell them to shove it and do their job.

The UWI is trap

Hear me out, it really is. Because where are you going exactly with that degree in theater arts?

The highest number of degrees handed out by the UWI in Barbados is a management one. No marine sciences, or education. It’s the bland concept of corporate people managing. We churn management degrees out like coupons because the UWI has been out of touch with the labor market it supplies for a very long time. The idea that every single person should go to the UWI post secondary is the machination of one Hilary Beckles who was keen to secure the $30000 (BBD) minimum per year that the government subsidizes in fees, per student. We never really had a job market to support these roles. The degree and programs offered at each campus reflect a more global demand, not a regional one. As a result, the UWI directly contributes to the ongoing brain drain of the countries which they serve. The agreed upon process is to get a UWI degree, fumble at some entry level job as a manager and then have that job pay for your post-grad so you can bail at the first chance you get. It’s not really a secret. Maybe trap is a strong word considering it’s a method of escape for some. But there is a non-zero subset who will be spat out and be forced to roam this desolate landscape of a job market or be lured back in to try for a better degree. Don’t do it