Outrageous, corrupt government contracts are killing Barbados

by David Comissiong, President of Clement Payne Movement

As we approach Barbados’ 50th year of Independence, I am calling on all patriotic Barbadians to join together and make a determined effort to uproot and eradicate the destructive remnants of the “Old Colonial System” that still exist in our supposedly independent nation.

And one particularly odious remnant is that aspect of the “Old Colonial System” that traditionally permitted the social and business elite of Barbados to have compliant members of the political directorate grant them outrageously preferential business and commercial arrangements that allowed them to feed on the substance of the Barbadian State and on the mass of predominantly black labourers, consumers, and – in more recent times- taxpayers!

Just take a cursory look at Barbados’ history and you will see exactly what I mean. From the earliest colonial days, the planter/merchant elite utilized a compliant House of Assembly to, inter alia:- supply themselves with cheap labour by legislating the enslavement of Blacks; grant themselves legal title to the lands they had occupied; give themselves a commercial advantage by prohibiting free Blacks and Coloureds from being able to give evidence in Court against them; control Black labour by enacting a Post- Emancipation “Masters and Servants Act”; prohibit the migration of Black labourers from Barbados; transfer the burden of falling international sugar prices unto the backs of the large black labouring class; use legislation and the Court system to ensure that the lands of bankrupt plantations did not fall into the hands of Blacks; use grant money from the British Government exclusively for the elite sugar planter class; and the list goes on and on.

In more recent “Independence times”, this old colonial phenomenon has been manifesting itself in the practice of predominantly black Parliamentarians and Ministers of Government granting amazingly preferential taxpayer- funded or guaranteed contracts to elite white Barbadian and foreign business-people – contracts that they would never dream of conferring upon black Barbadian business-people!

One such contract is the so-called “Take or Pay Contract” that the current Democratic Labour Party (DLP) administration granted to Mr Bizzy Williams’ Sustainable (Barbados) Recycling Centre Inc (SBRC) in June 2009. Under that contract, we, the taxpayers of Barbados, are obliged to underwrite a guaranteed minimum payment of $22.6 Million per year over a 20 year period to SBRC for the processing or managing of so-called municipal solid waste, whether or not the company is actually called upon to carry out work of the requisite minimum quantity! Thus, under this contract alone, we taxpayers are saddled with a minimum payment of $45 Million over the 20 year period.  

Another such contract is the April 2013 so-called storage tank lease contract entered into by our Government with the Mark Maloney and Bjorn Bjerkham owned and/or managed company known as Storage Solutions Limited – company number 36264 in the register of companies at the Corporate Affairs and Intellectual Property Office situate at Baobab Tower, Warrens, St Michael!

Under this contract, our Government-owned (and taxpayer-funded) Barbados Agricultural Management Co. Ltd (BAMC) is obligated to pay Storage Solutions Limited the sum of $2,150,000.00 plus VAT every year for 20 years for the privilege of using three molasses storage tanks at the Bridgetown Port. Thus, under this contract, our Government ( and ultimately the taxpayers of Barbados) are saddled with a payment of some $50 Million over the 20 year period!

Yet another such contract is the so-called housing construction contract entered into between this current DLP administration and the corporate entity known as Housing Concepts SRL – also owned and/or managed by the said Mark Maloney and Bjorn Bjerkham.

Under this contract, Housing Concepts SRL was leased a massive parcel of Government land at Coverley, Christ Church at a pepper-corn rent for the purpose of constructing houses for sale to the Barbadian people at prices ranging between $289,000.00 and $ 396,000.00!

But what makes this contract truly remarkable is that our taxpayer-funded Government has entered into a legally binding contractual obligation to purchase from Housing Concepts SRL any house
that the company is unable to sell to members of the public! Thus, once again, we taxpayers are left holding the bag!

And -truth be told- I could go on and on detailing similarly outrageously preferential contracts that our compliant political directorate has conferred on a small group of elite white Barbadian business-people. It is no wonder therefore that our country now possesses a national debt that is virtually as large as our entire Gross National Product!

I wish to conclude, however, with one example of a similarly outrageously privileged government contract that has been conferred upon a foreign company incorporated in one of the Channel Islands off the coast of England – the so-called “Waste To Energy” contract that has been granted to Cahill Energy Limited and its subsidiary Cahill Energy Barbados Limited.

We Barbadians should really thank Opposition Leader Mia Mottley for exposing the alarming details of this old colonial-type contractual arrangement. Subsequent to Ms Mottley’s revelations I was able to read the 37 page document put out by Cahill Energy and Jacob Securities Inc about the project, and discovered that our Government has committed itself to do the following:-

(1)    purchase 15 acres of land at Vaucluse and “donate” it to Cahill free of cost;
(2)    purchase any additional land that Cahill will require for drilling wells and creating a lagoon, and “donate” said land to Cahill free of cost;
(3)    supply the pipelines and other water infrastructure to the Cahill plant free of cost to Cahill;
(4)    pay for the cost of integrating Cahill’s plant into the electricity grid and into the public water supply system;
(5)    waive all taxes and tariffs on Cahill’s imports, exports, income, profits, dividends and transfers of shares;
(6)    provide guaranteed taxpayer- funded payments to Cahill for the processing of waste over a 30 year period;
(7)    provide guaranteed taxpayer -funded payments to Cahill for the purchase of electricity over a 30 year period; and
(8)    provide Cahill with guaranteed taxpayer funded payments totaling close to $2.5 Billion over a 30 year period.

Fellow Barbadians, this is not right! The “Old Colonial System” continues to choke us and to subvert the positive advances we have made as a nation over the past 49 years!

The purpose of this article is to expose the continued existence of these aspects of the “Old Colonial System” and to urge all well meaning and patriotic Barbadians – of all races, classes and creeds – to demand their total abolition. Let us all operate on a level playing field, and let the public purse not be treated as anybody’s cash-cow!

David Comissiong
President
Clement Payne Movement