WHY INCLUDE TRADE UNIONISTS WITHIN CORRUPTION LEGISLATION?

The Prevention of Corruption Bill, 2010 was in July last year committed by Parliament to a Joint Select Committee for its review. In its present form, the Bill includes the President and Chief Executive Officers of registered trade unions among those persons in public life who will be required to file with the Prevention of Corruption Commission annual declarations of their financial affairs as well as those of their spouses and minor children.

There is no valid reason why trade unionists per se ought to be included within the ambit of integrity legislation. It is impractical and unnecessary to include representatives of labour within this law when there are representatives of some private sector organizations, which are not registered trade unions, who will not be required to comply with this statutory provision.

Furthermore, the Bill in its present form, if passed, will deter many worthy citizens from contributing to the socio-economic development of Barbados by serving on statutory boards and Government companies. Integrity Legislation within the context of a small Island state such as in our Country ought not to compel ordinary board members of Government corporations and presumably constituency councils to declare their financial affairs to the Commission. Only the Chairman and Deputy Chairman ought to be so obliged.

Conversely, the definition of persons in public life who are statutorily required to declare their financial affairs ought to include not only Heads of Government Departments and public officers at the level of Permanent Secretary, as is presently being proposed, but also public officers at ranks below the top who regularly interact with the general public in our revenue earning, security and law and order institutions.

We can only eagerly look forward to this Bill emerging from Parliament’s Joint Select Committee back to the floor of the House for debate and eventual enactment into law, as the DLP pledged to the electorate during the last general elections campaign to immediately undertake.

Edmund G. Hinkson

Attorney-at-Law

NO HOPE FOR THE DISABLEDUNDER THE DLP

 BY

EDMUND G. HINKSON

Attorney-at-Law

It is now over five years that the Owen Arthur Administration signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities which came into force on 3^rd May, 2008. This DLP Government in the meanwhile has apparently made no attempt to bring to Parliament Legislation which will ratify this Convention.

Indeed, the members of the disabled community and those of us who believe in their cause have had, over the last five months, to go to the extreme of signing a petition to the Prime Minister and his Government, urging them to pass the Convention into law.

The Government’s enactment of Disabilities Legislation will lead to persons with disabilities gaining more favourable educational and training opportunities than is now the case. It will lead to a large number of the estimated over five per cent of our population who are differently-abled having a greater chance to realize their full potential and to contribute to national development, as is the right of any citizen of Barbados. Furthermore, Legislation providing for affirmative action programmes beneficial to them will act as a catalyst in facilitating their employment, self-employment and otherwise, in areas of work for which they qualify and are capable of performing. Such law should also outlaw all forms of discrimination at the workplace on the basis of disability.

The DLP cannot by any measure validly claim to be putting people first and to be building a society and not only an economy when it has continuously ignored the grave predicament in which the vast majority of persons with disabilities in Barbados and their caregivers find themselves in.

The recent Country Assessment of Living Conditions report indicates that a substantial percentage of persons with disabilities comprise the 19.8 per cent of people in our Country who are presently living in poverty. The sum total of this Government’s attempt to better the position of these persons in its present term of office has been to raise the disabilities pension by a mere $2.00 every two weeks two years ago.

Meanwhile, the Public has not heard a word from the Minister of Social Care, Steve Blackett, or any other Government official as to when this Government intends to bring Disabilities Legislation to the House. This position is all the more appalling in light of the statement by Chris Sinckler, at the time the responsible Minister, on 18^th January, 2009 that “we are just short of bringing this Bill to Parliament”.

Edmund Hinkson, BLP St. James North Candidate, is a member of the Association for the Blind and Deaf and of the Council for the Disabled

BARBADOS LABOUR PARTY CANDIDATE NOT AFRAID TODECLARE HIS ASSETS

Edmund Hinkson, the Barbados Labour Party’s St. James North candidate, will declare his assets and liabilities to the Speaker of Parliament and to his political leader even in the absence of Prevention of Corruption or Integrity in Public Life Legislation, once he becomes a Member of Parliament.

Hinkson told a recent meeting of his constituency branch that he has nothing financially to hide and strongly supported the need to have such legislation on the Statute books of this Country. “I have practiced law for 26 years without any client ever having to report me to the Bar Association for anything. I have nothing to fear from the enactment of Integrity Legislation”, he declared to his branch members.

Hinkson severely chided the present Government for so far failing to have the Prevention of Corruption Bill passed in Parliament. “The late Prime Minister made serious allegations of corruption, which were subsequently not proven to be correct, against Owen Arthur and certain members of his cabinet. A significant number of Barbadians voted for the DLP last election based on these allegations and on that Party’s promise to pass Anti-Corruption Laws and to bring a greater level of transparency and accountability to our Country’s political governance. The DLP has broken its manifesto covenant and its election promise to forthwith enact this legislation on coming into office” he stated. “The Government has instead sent the Bill for consideration before a Joint Select Parliamentary Committee, a process which the Attorney General himself has last month stated is taken when you wish thwart the enactment of a Bill”.

Hinkson also asserted that the need for Integrity Legislation and Laws relating to campaign financing should be even more pressing now, in view of the CLICO scenario. “It cannot be right that that company took up investors’ hard-earned money and give it in such volumes to certain political parties to assist their electoral fortunes, without declarations on the matter having to be made to any authority or to the same investors”. He opined that 38,000 Barbadian investors and policy holders in CLICO were being financially sacrificed at the altar of the political financing circumstances of the very few.

Hinkson was also of the view that the present Member of Parliament for St. John, as a public figure now in her own right and as the former office manager of Thompson and Associates, had a moral duty to Barbadians to say what did she know and when did she first know about the 3.3 million dollars in legal fees received by that firm in January, 2009 which, according to the forensic report was then paid to Leroy Parris as a part of his gratuity in the absence of any CLICO Board of Directors’ approval.

Enact Disabilities Legislation Now

BY

EDMUND G. HINKSON

Heartiest congratulations to Miss Kerry-Ann Ifill on her elevation to the Presidency of our Country’s Upper Parliament. This highly deserved honour bestowed on one of our most outstanding citizens will hopefully help positively change some attitudes which perceive persons with disabilities as possessing limitations preventing them from being able to participate in a wholesome life. Many others besides President Ifill in the community of differently-abled persons also have the talent, mental ability, capacity and acumen to contribute significantly to the governance of our Nation.

Our Government however now needs to go much further in how it treats to persons with disabilities. It continues to fail to ratify and enact into internal legislation the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which was signed by Barbados in July, 2007 and came into force on 3^rd May, 2008. Successive Ministers of Social Care in this present administration have promised to bring this Convention to Parliament for ratification, without yet having done so.

On 18^th January, 2009, then Minister of Social Care Chris Sinckler was quoted in another section of the Press as saying that “we are just short on bringing that bill to Parliament”. He then identified the main delay as Government itself having to meet the conditionalities contained within the document. He announced that a study was being conducted at the level of the UWI to find out what obstacles prevented people with disabilities from obtaining employment in both the public and private sector. In July, 2009 this Minister reported that this study’s recommendations had been received and were being examined by the Social Safety Net Committee.

It is therefore an absolute shame that this Month of the Disabled the present Minister of Social Care, Steve Blackett, responded to the appeal for an affirmative action policy to ensure that more persons with disabilities are employed, certainly within the public service, by stating that “ I could turn my attention to something like that”. His Ministry ought to have approved this policy initiative a while ago.

This DLP administration has procrastinated for too long on the absolute necessity of legally empowering the over five per cent of our population who have disabilities. While we still continue to await official figures emanating from the Census which was conducted two years ago, it is believed that approximately 90 per cent of persons with disabilities are unemployed or are less than gainfully employed in our country.

It is imperative that Disabilities Legislation, based on the provisions of this United Nations Convention, be passed in our Parliament without any further delay, interalia outlawing all forms of discrimination at work on the basis of disability. Such legislation also needs to facilitate the employment of disabled individuals in capacities for which they are qualified, through affirmative action programmes that favour them. Incentives can be offered to private sector employers to hire persons with disabilities. Furthermore, such differently-abled persons ought to receive favourable treatment in their quest to become self-employed. This legislation needs to also stipulate that the disabled may not be excluded from mainstream education systems in Barbados, in an era where there is still no legal right to free education for many children with disabilities. Equal educational and training opportunities must be provided as of right to the differently-abled as a part of an employment strategy which promotes their integration into the workforce.

It can only be hoped that Miss Ifill’s elevation to constitutional prominence serves as an impetus for the present political administration to legally empower persons with disabilities so that they have a real opportunity to realize their full potential and to contribute to national development, as ought to be the right of all our citizens.

Edmund Hinkson, BLP St. James North Candidate, is a member of the Association for the Blind and Deaf.

DLP’s Housing Programme a Breach of Promise

The “star housing programme” on the basis of which DLP Parliamentarians are asking Voters to re-elect their Party has not been anywhere nearly as successful as they are promoting it to be. Mr. Edmund Hinkson, the BLP’s St. James North Candidate, in a recent address to his Party’s Women’s League, revealed that a document prepared by the National Housing Corporation indicates that the DLP Government has only completed 374 housing solutions in its first fifty six months of office.

“This works out to be an average of eighty houses per year compared to the promise made in their 2008 Manifesto to build 2,000 housing solutions per year during this term of office. In fact, the Government has not provided a single housing solution through the NHC, in its principal housing agency, in six parishes namely St. James, St. Lucy, St. Joseph, St. Thomas, St. John or St. Andrew” Hinkson pronounced.

This is the present situation, even although this Government is in a position to draw down on a US $30 million international loan which was negotiated by the previous Owen Arthur administration.

Many housing projects, such as those at Constant, Lancaster, West Terrace, Durants and Parish Land in St. Philip, which were due to be completed last year, have not yet provided solutions for any of the thousands of Barbadians who want to either buy or rent houses.

The former NHC Deputy Chairman also stated that the DLP Government had so far failed to provide any of the 500 lots of land at $5.00 per square foot for first time home-owners, another promise which it had pledged to carry out within its first five months of office. These lots were said in its Manifesto to have been already identified.

Hinkson opined that this Government’s housing programme must also receive a failing grade, just as the majority of its other policies, particularly when it is also considered that there has been a significant curtailment in the transfer of urban tenancies programme instituted by the last BLP administration. Furthermore, only a few NHC tenants, including those in Deacons Farm, Fernihurst and the Pine, have been the beneficiary of the DLP Government’s stated policy to transfer their units free of cost to them where they have been renting them for over twenty years.

Furthermore, the BLP St. James North candidate stated the Government has failed, as promised, to establish any Home Ownership Revolving Fund to provide interest free loans to first time homeowners in the public sector with five or more years’ service or to increase the annual allowable tax deduction for mortgages to $20,000.00.

DISABLED NEED OPPORTUNITIES

By

EDMUND G. HINKSON

The President of the Barbados Association for the Blind and Deaf, Mr. Elviston Maloney, recently publicly addressed the issue the general unwillingness of our Public Sector to employ visually impaired persons or to continue the employment of public workers after they lose their vision.

It can only be hoped that our Government will in the near future ratify the 2008 United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, as Minister Chris Sinckler has pledged will shortly be done.

It is essential that a legal framework be implemented in Barbados whereby persons with disabilities on the whole enjoy equal opportunity and treatment in the employment arena, for which they are suitably qualified. While we await official figures emanating from the recently conducted Census, it is believed that approximately ninety per cent of persons with physical disabilities are unemployed or are less than gainfully employed in our country. Our Government needs to take the lead in embarking on an employment strategy which promotes the integration of these persons, who are not mentally challenged, in open employment. This policy must co-exist with programmes which finally provide equal educational and training opportunities for persons with disabilities in a Nation which holds sacred the concept of free education from the nursery to the tertiary stage.

An enlightened Government ought to realize that employers who have given persons with disabilities an opportunity to work in areas for which they are qualified consistently agree that they are generally more productive, dedicated and inspirational employees than persons without any ostensible disabilities. Furthermore, it makes economic sense for a Government to employ persons with disabilities in positions for which they are qualified, since this would reduce the cost of disability benefits which are paid by our social security system and would reduce poverty among some of the most vulnerable persons in our society.

Mr. Maloney also spoke of the present situation whereby Government employees who lose their vision or who become in any other manner disabled, but who maintain their mental capacity, are retired disabled rather than allowed to remain in the public service. This policy ought to cease now since there are many options, including adjusting the job requirements, the workstation or the working environment or transferring the employee to a different job in the service, which could alternatively be explored. This disability management strategy ought to also include measures to re-train the employee concerned and to utilize available technology and devices to accommodate these individuals.

Finally, our Parliament urgently needs to enact Disabilities Legislation which, inter alia, introduces anti-discrimination and employment equity laws within the public service as it applies to persons with disabilities, similar to what many developed countries and countries with emerging economies have done.

Only then will persons with disabilities have any chance to realize their full potential and to contribute to national development in our island, as is the right of all of our citizens.

Edmund Hinkson, an Attorney-at-Law, is a member of the Barbados Association of the Blind and Deaf.

THE NEED FOR DISABILITIES LEGISLATION

The Prime Minister, during the course of his recent address to the Fully Accessible Barbados awards ceremony, reiterated his Government’s stated commitment to improving the socio-economic welfare of the 14,000 odd persons with disabilities residing in Barbados. In this regard, Parliament as a matter of priority needs to enact into our local legislation the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which entered into force on 3^rd May, 2008 and to which Barbados is a signatory. This Convention commits the signatory states thereto to observe a wide range of broad principles which ultimately seek to guarantee the full and equal enjoyment without discrimination of universally recognized human rights and fundamental freedoms by persons with disabilities. The Convention also seeks the promotion of respect for the physical and mental integrity of persons with disabilities on an equal basis with others.

Barbados would then be committed to submit to the United Nations a comprehensive report every four years on measures taken to give effect to its obligations under the Convention and on the progress made in improving the lives of its citizens with disabilities. The Government would also be obliged to make these reports available to the public and to allow the public to make suggestions and recommendations on the issue.

Parliament can opt to ratify this Convention as a Schedule to a comprehensive Disabilities Act. This legislation ought to address, among other policy issues, the existing practices and legal framework in our country which hinder the educational and vocational development of persons with disabilities and which ultimately affect their ability to obtain employment.

Furthermore, such a Disabilities Act also needs to make provision for affirmative legislation in Barbados forcing government departments and statutory corporations to employ suitably trained and capable persons with disabilities in positions for which they are qualified. Additionally, the regime of concessions needs to be expanded to provide revenue incentives to the private commercial sector to employ persons with disabilities. Funds and technical expertise need to be specifically made available by the state to facilitate the establishment of cottage industries by persons with disabilities so that they can employ themselves more readily than is presently the position.

This legislation is also required to address issues relating to the social security benefits, housing, public transportation, cultural development and access to the built physical environment as they relate to persons with disabilities. Remedies would need to be made available for breaches of these recommended laws.

Persons with disabilities comprise some of the most socially and economically vulnerable in our society. Barbadians needs to address these and other issues relating to the advancement of basic human rights of its persons with disabilities if we are serious about becoming the smallest developed country in the foreseeable future.

EDMUND G. HINKSON

Attorney-at-Law

June, 2009

Mr. Edmund Hinkson is the former deputy chairperson of the National Advisory Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

THE CASE FOR THE ENACTMENT OF DISABILITIES LEGISLATION

The existing legislative regime in Barbados does not make adequate provision for the socio-economic welfare of those persons with disabilities in our society. There is presently an overwhelming need for our Parliament to enact legislation seeking to advance their rights and status and to reduce the existing discriminatory practices against them.

The Owen Arthur government sought to address the inherent discrimination which exists in Barbados against the approximately 14,000 persons with disabilities by laying in Parliament for debate a Green Paper on the issue in May, 2000 and then a White Paper two years afterwards. Mr. Arthur’s administration also gave tangible financial support to advancing the cause of persons with disabilities by establishing a National Disabilities Unit in 1997 and by providing funds to assist in the construction and management of Harambee House, where the administrative affairs pertaining to disability issues are facilitated. Additionally, a National Committee was formed in 2006 to advise Government on issues relative to the advancement of rights of persons with disabilities.

Both the present and the last political administration have symbolically attempted to promote respect for and to address the rights of persons with disabilities by each appointing a visually impaired eloquent person to the unelected chamber of our Parliament.

Serious consideration however ought to be given to amend the Constitution of Barbados to include prohibition of discriminatory practices against and of unequal legal protection of persons with disabilities as one of its entrenched human rights clauses, just as discrimination on the grounds of race, place of origin, political opinions, colour or creed are therein included. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms passed in Canada in 1982 is an example where such a constitutional amendment has been effected.

Furthermore, a comprehensive Disabilities Act ought to be passed by our Parliament addressing issues relating, interalia, to the education and vocational training, social security and employment opportunities of persons with disabilities. Under our Education Act as presently constructed, Barbadian children with disabilities do not have a right to free primary and secondary education as every other Barbadian child has. It is merely within the discretion of the Education Minister to provide a public education for disabled children, many of whom instead attend private special needs institutions where they have to pay for their education.

More of these children ought as far as possible to be integrated in the regular school system with adequate and appropriate technical and physical infrastructure. Furthermore, it ought to be mandatory for the Education Minister to provide vocational training for disabled secondary school leavers who require the same. Legislation also needs to be enacted to create a special regime for persons with disabilities to access student funds to pursue post-secondary school education.

A society is judged to a large extent by the manner in which it treats its most vulnerable categories of persons. While we justifiably can boast about being the leading developing country in the world in terms of the human development index, we cannot be proud of the fact that over ninety per cent of adult persons with disabilities in Barbados are not gainfully employed or are not pursuing higher education. There is strong evidence to support the perception among persons with disabilities which are not of the mind that they are not afforded fair opportunity for employment, either in the public or private sector, commensurate with their mental or intellectual ability. Indeed, Government is even more blameworthy in this respect than is the private sector. This is the case even though available evidence indicates that persons with disabilities are in many respects more productive and committed employees than are their able-bodied counterparts.

Affirmative legislative action therefore needs to be enacted in our country forcing government institutions and statutory corporations to employ suitably trained and capable persons with disabilities in positions for which they are qualified.

Additionally, the regime of concessions needs to be expanded to provide revenue incentives to business enterprises in the private sector to employ persons with disabilities. Furthermore, funds need to be utilized and technical expertise offered by the State to facilitate the establishment of cottage industries by persons with physical disabilities so that they can employ themselves to a much greater extent than is the present position.

Although the State does provide social security and income maintenance schemes for persons with disabilities, such provision is inadequate for them to maintain a viable existence in this age of ever increasing cost of living. The main beneficiaries under the existing legislation are those who were at some stage employed and were contributing to the national insurance scheme but who were subsequently rendered disabled and incapable of working.

There are many discrepancies on this issue which need to be legislatively addressed in order to realistically cater to the reasonable needs of persons with disabilities. For example, a person who is deaf without speech receives a social security benefit while a person who is deaf with speech does not. A person with a disability will in many instances lose all of their disability benefits as soon as they became employed, no matter how meagre the salary is or how under-employed they are. Furthermore, where persons with disabilities lose their new jobs, it is difficult for them to reclaim the social security benefit.

There is the need to legislatively provide for disability benefits to be paid from the birth of children with disabilities, where their parents or guardians are under severe economic pressure to financially maintain them. Additionally, persons with mental and intellectual disabilities ought to receive the same consideration for social security benefits as do persons with other types of disabilities.

In addition to these socio-economic issues, Parliament needs to legislatively address challenges relating to the housing of the disabled (the Green Paper speaks to ten per cent of new government housing units being allocated to persons with disabilities), their public transportation and their access to the built physical environment.

Furthermore, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which entered into force on 3^rd May this year and to which Barbados is a signatory, needs to be enacted into our local legislation, perhaps as a Schedule to the proposed Disabilities Act.

The various laws proposed in this article require that proper enforcement provisions should be included stipulating remedies to be implemented and penalties to be imposed for breaches of these recommended laws, after a reasonable time period for compliance with the provisions has passed. The advancement of basic human rights of the approximately five per cent of our population comprising disabled persons is fundamental if we are to achieve our goal to become the smallest developed country within the next two decades.

Edmund G. Hinkson

Attorney-at-Law

August,2008