REFORM THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF BARBADOS – SEP 27, 2017 BY EDMUND G. HINKSON, ST. JAMES NORTH MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT

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The educational system of any country must ultimately provide the opportunity for young persons, on reaching adulthood, to have developed the character, competence and personal responsibility traits that they will need to be successful independent citizens. Barbados’ educational policy must be geared towards inculcating in our children characteristics such as self-esteem, self-confidence, industry and the spirit of volunteerism at a very early stage of their school careers.

After ten years of stagnation and in fact a decline in the quality of our country’s educational system at the point of its delivery, too many of our youth do not display such characteristics on becoming adults. Under the Democratic Labour Party administration in the three year period between 2013-4 and 2016-7, Barbados has in fact declined sixteen places from 6th to 22nd on the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report in terms of the quality of our educational system.

A new Barbados Labour Party Government needs to place greater emphasis on developing the social and interactive skills of our children as well as developing their care, sensitivity and tolerance towards other’s needs and interests. Our educational system must seek to engender in our children, even in their early childhood education, a more positive attitude towards others and a greater appreciation of the differing cultures and environments which exist among our Caribbean people and among our fellow global citizens. Additionally, our youth must be provided with the necessary ability to think critically, to solve problems and to resolve conflict rather than to engage in physical confrontation or violence.

An Incoming Barbados Labour Party Administration will strive tirelessly to create a safe and nurturing educational and social environment within which our young people can fulfil their maximum potential. As a Progressive Government, it would understand that heavier investment in science and technology, business, art, creative industries and culture is required, even from our primary school system. This would act as a catalyst for the creation of innovative products and services as well as for the development of entrepreneurship in our Island.

As policymakers, a Barbados Labour Party Government needs to ensure that our current educational system is seriously reformed to cater to a wider cross-section of non-academics. It is estimated that approximately fifty per cent of our children leave secondary school without any formal certification. Rather than be classified as failures, these school-leavers need to be given the opportunity to enter a youth service programme which would ultimately provide them with some of the technical and vocational skills required to succeed in this increasingly competitive world.

A new Barbados Labour Party political directive must ultimately restore the position which previously existed up until three years ago whereby young people are not deprived of tertiary education just because they cannot financially afford it.

An Incoming Barbados Labour Party Administration will recognize that more children with disabilities, many of whom have unique skills just waiting to be given the opportunity to be tapped, must be brought into our mainstream educational system. They will consequently be better equipped when they become adults to realize their full potential. As is their entitlement as citizens, they should be given the opportunity to contribute to national development and to participate positively in our socio-economic and political affairs.

Our educational system has not undergone any curriculum reform since 2000 under the Ministerial Leadership of the Honourable Mia Mottley with the Honourable Cynthia Forde as her Parliamentary Secretary. It has to be reformed in the very near future to produce a larger percentage of young Barbadians who are productive, self-reliant, capable and multilingual global citizens with the confidence that they can make a decent living anywhere in the world.

Edmund Gregory Hinkson Member of Parliament, St. James North, Attorney-at-Law and Shadow Education Minister.

 

CRITICAL MASS: SMALL JURISDICTIONS AND BIG PROBLEMS-LOGISTICS AND
INFRASTRUCTURE CHALLENGES TO MEET SMALL JURISDICTIONS EXPECTATIONS TO ACHIEVE THE SAME SERVICE LEVELS AS LARGER ONES MAY, 2016 BY EDMUND G. HINKSON, ST. JAMES NORTH MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT

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It is an absolute necessity that the Parliament of all nation states, no matter
their territorial size or demographics, enact, implement and strictly enforce legislation providing for accountability and transparency in the governance systems of their respective countries. The cost, financial, developmental and otherwise, resulting from a failure to undertake this process, is just too significant. This cost cannot be afforded, particularly by small jurisdictions which have in the recent past been experiencing severe challenges to achieve and sustain competitiveness in the new global economic and trading order.

Clear and precise laws as well as orders and policy directives emanating therefrom need to be in place in small independent countries in order to maximize solid governance principles involving the administration of both the public and private sectors.

Auditor General departments need to be empowered with criminal prosecutorial powers to be able to properly investigate and pursue those who do not comply with modern day financial and accountability provisions. Those persons in positions of responsibility, whether from the political class, the bureaucracy or the commercial sector, must be liable in law for breaches in the system of governance falling under their purview.

Fiscal Responsibility legislation must exist so that these countries can ensure that best practices rein in terms of the fiscal management of government.

Parliamentary Committees must be established or, if already established, must be given more powers to investigate, pursue and enforce alleged breaches of the financial, tendering and accounting rules of government.

Additionally, Freedom of Information legislation must be enacted and enforced to empower the public, including the media, to obtain information relating to the country’s governance. This ought to be their right in the public’s interest. Citizens ought to be able to receive information on the basis that it is their tax-paying dollars by virtue of which the elected politicians and public officers administer the nation state. Failure to provide for this type of legislative framework and the continuation in this era of archaic Official Secrets Acts are a hinderance to any nation’s developmental progress. This is even more the case in small jurisdictions which invariably possess greater familiarity among persons than exists in larger, more developed states.

Finally, it is absolutely essential in this context that the Parliaments of small vulnerable nations, particularly those in the developing world, enact, proclaim and enforce modern day Prevention of Corruption, Bribery and Integrity in Public Life Legislation.

Persons who come into public life, whether they are elected or unelected officials, must be subject to the full weight of the law for their corrupt practices and for breaches of trust and faith if small jurisdictions aspire to achieve the same service levels as larger ones.

It is estimated that corruption costs individual nations millions if not billions of dollars each year, if not dealt with and pursued. This comes at a tremendous price and disadvantage to those citizens who are consequently denied maximum educational opportunities, health care and social and welfare services which the state would otherwise be in a position to financially afford them.

Small jurisdictions, while not having the human and financial resources at their disposal which richer developed countries possess, have absolutely no excuse in failing to make legislative provision for their best systems of governance through insisting on the development of a culture of accountability, transparency and anti-corruption throughout their respective societies.

Edmund Gregory Hinkson
Member of Parliament, St. James North, Barbados.

 

CONTRIBUTION TO DEBATE ON PRIVATE MEMBER’S RESOLUTION BY LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION OF NO CONFIDENCE IN GOVERNMENT ON 10^TH MAY, 2016 BY EDMUND G. HINKSON, ST. JAMES NORTH MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT

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1. INTRODUCTION:

Praise to Leader of the Opposition for her outstanding and commendable marathon effort in presenting Resolution.

Substantial majority of St. James North constituents, similarly to other Barbadians, now have no confidence in Government’s ability to take country out of socio-economic malaise of last eight years, to properly and effectively, manage nation’s affairs of state or to govern in the best interest of people. Every day people ask me when are the Elections and what BLP doing about changing the Government.

PM’s statement that you have to experience Good Friday to celebrate Easter Sunday makes no sense in relation to what is going on in present day Barbados. The suffering has gone on for too long and Easter Sunday is nowhere in sight.

2. MISGUIDED FISCAL POLICIES, POOR ECONOMIC MANAGEMENT AND FAILED LEADERSHIP

DLP Government came into office in 2008 to bat with a firm foundation laid by outgoing BLP Government. Unemployment was down, foreign reserves were up, Barbados was occupying a leading role in Caricom. Ball started to swing and seam slightly. But DLP batted with very poor technique and soon put team Barbados in trouble. High taxation in first budget, failure to make timely fiscal interventions before 2013 General Elections, followed by continuous fiscal adjustments strategies one after the other starting with 2013 Budget, all of which failed. Result has been over 3,000 laid off from public service after PM on Saturday, 27^th October, 2015 assured Barbadians that DLP will not be cutting jobs in the public service. “We are going to protect the people of Barbados and the public service from that kind of political slaughter. It will be a recipe for disaster”. Result of this promise has been that in many cases, not only one but both breadwinners in a household no longer have a job having been fired from government employment. House has been lost, young adults have had to drop out of Cave Hill University and people’s health care has been placed at severe risk. No right-thinking person can have modicum of confidence in this Government which in 2008 told us that they will not “lie, cheat or steal” but has proceeded to break every major Manifesto commitment made to the people.

Government has continued to impose draconian taxes and fees on citizens, over 33 in eight years, whilst removing the vast majority of tax allowances which income earners could have claimed as tax refunds. The Government has used the same kind of thinking which it used to create the problem in its attempt to solve them even although, as Albert Einstein said, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”

All this whilst restricting the quality of social services which people had become accustomed to receiving paid for by their taxes. This has especially affected the community of persons with disabilities and senior citizens, two categories comprising the most financially vulnerable persons in Barbados. The middle economic class is under increasingly severe pressure while poverty is growing, as revealed in the last study on poverty submitted in 2010 which indicated that 20 per cent of Barbadians at that time were living below the poverty line. End result of Government’s incompetent economic management and political leadership is that Barbados, our beautiful country, has fallen from a lofty ranking of 37^th of 182 Nations on the Human Development Index in 2007 to 57^th of 188 in 2014. A very large number of Barbadians have no confidence in Government going forward.

3. DLP’S ANTI-TRADE UNION STANCE:

This has been most despicable. Mention PM’s condemnation in July last year of NUPW leadership in calling it bullies, irresponsible, etc. BLP under National Heroes Sir Grantley Adams and Sir Hugh Springer founded BWU and was instrumental in legitimizing of trade union activity over 75 years ago. PM’s threat to amend section 49 of the Constitution to curtail trade union’s power is unbecoming of someone holding the office of PM.

4. BLUNDERING EDUCATIONAL POLICIES:

Nowhere is this Government’s incompetence to manage and lead our country more patently obvious than in its educational policies or lack thereof and its management of the Ministry of Education. Minister acknowledged as worst Education Minister out of 13 by the press, teachers’ unions, university students, BCC students who now also have to pay tuition fees for their degree programmes, polytechnic students and parents alike.

Country was previously known among small developing countries newly emerged from the trappings of colonialism as having a globally competitive educational system which was the envy of many. Sector after 8 ½ years under Jones is lurching from crisis to crisis.

Inability to resolve industrial relations disputes with respective teachers’ unions, as “shoot off heads and crack skulls mentality” has been adopted. BUT members are now “on work to rule.”

Inability to resolve growing number of issues related to student on student violence, conflict between teachers and students, principals and teachers, principals and teachers on the one hand and parents on the other hand and teachers and the Ministry. Jones’ approach has been to label some children as “demonic” and to establish a committee two weeks ago to investigate violence in schools which, he says, will provide recommendations as to its resolution.

This decision is a complete dereliction of the ministerial duty of Jones as the person entrusted with the very important political mandate for the educational development of our people, especially our youth. It is indicative of why the general population and the stakeholders in education have no confidence in him as Minister. Numerous studies already have been undertaken. The establishment of committee is merely a substitute for decisive political action which is required. The Education Act and Regulations have sufficient teeth to effectively deal with this issue. We have no confidence in this Minister.

This government has failed to reform curriculum after 15 years to make it more relevant to modern day Barbados. The Education Ministry is now apparently preoccupied with partisan politics.

There has been a refusal by Minister Jones, a former BUT President being advised by a Chief Education Officer and Parliamentary Secretary, both former union head and secretary respectively, to meet with teachers. My advice to the teachers is not to meet with him or with those in cabinet who have publicly voiced support for him when they come to ask you for a vote.

Failure to appoint 100’s of eligible teachers to permanent positions in spite of promises to do so.

Failure to resolve a plethora of environmental issues at a myriad number of schools, as the Ministry has no policy of proper maintenance of the school plant and infrastructure.

Failure to establish Teachers Service Commission provided for in the Constitution of Barbados as promised to the teachers on 6^th September, 2012. Minister Jones then told them that the paper to establish this Commission had already gone to Cabinet.

Jones has presided over the dismantlement of 50 years of hitherto previously free university education for Barbadians, resulting in the loss of hope for 1,000’s of Barbadians from working class backgrounds. No Barbados government has ever been able to afford free university education but all of our governments previous to this one did. PM had in October 2012 committed to Barbadians that the DLP will continue to fully fund UWI education of our citizens. This promise was broken within one year afterwards.

Failure to clearly enunciate policies relating to funding of tuition fees of some UWI students, whether it is by way of bursaries or grants, again resulting in hundreds dropping out.

Jones should be removed as Education Minister. Furthermore, he has failed to honour pledge and commitment to this Parliament first made 14 months ago and repeated in March this year to deliver policy documents relating to education to the Opposition Party. Under Westminster system, he is no longer fit to be a cabinet minister.

5. LACK OF TRUST:

The people have lost trust in this Government led by a PM who has presided over an administration which has been marked by broken promises after broken promises. Ultimately he has to take full responsibility for his party’s failure to honour its commitments.

6. PROPOSED CABINET MEMBERS’ SALARY INCREASE:

Government’s display of callousness, insensitivity and contempt for Barbadians is demonstrated by Resolution which was laid in Parliament last week to raise salaries by ten per cent in a situation where public servants have not had a salary increase, bar increments, for the last 7 years. These Ministers are effectively telling the public who pay them and who they should serve that they cannot exist on a monthly salary of $13,000.00 plus travel and entertainment allowances plus over US$150.00 each day whenever they travel overseas as they frequently do flying first class. However, the DLP government is telling the electorate that the 1000s who have been fired from their government employment and are still unemployed as well as those who have not received their termination pay or even vacation pay after over two years must find a way to survive.

7. LACK OF COMMITMENT TO PROPER GOVERNANCE:

PM has to take responsibility of failure of Government to enact Prevention of Corruption Legislation. The AG’s recent statement that those who draw reference to this failure are making “stupid noises” demonstrates that he too is not fit to be the principal legal advisor to the government.

There is a total lack of accountability and transparency in Government. No Freedom of Information Legislation. These are further breaches of 2008 Manifesto promises.

8. COVENANT OF HOPE:

We in the BLP today pledge to restore hope to our country’s youth as opposed to the hopelessness that many are now experiencing under DLP. We will create a safe and nurturing environment within which they can grow to their maximum potential. We will aim to create through our policies, a new generation of confident and capable, multilingual world class citizens, as we are capable of doing. We will give them the skills and provide them with the opportunities which will allow them in turn to make our Barbadian brand again the envy of other small developing countries.

9. CONCLUSION:

I fully support this Resolution and call on the Government to dissolve Parliament and place the fate of our citizens during the foreseeable future in the hands of the electorate, since we cannot continue on this path for another 20 odd months.

 

THE NEED FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD AND PRIMARY EDUCATION REFORM IN BARBADOS

By

Edmund G. Hinkson, M.P.

Successive Governments of Independent Barbados have consistently and correctly allocated the highest percentage of its annual revenues to the Ministry of Education. Only allocations towards the sustainable health of our citizens have come near to what has been allocated to the educational advancement of our people, particularly our youth, over the last sixty years. Indeed, our first Central Bank Governor Sir Courtney Blackman remarked that in the 34 year timeframe between 1966 and 2000, a period over which Barbados has almost equally been governed by both major political parties, successive Governments of Barbados had spent US $15 billion on education costs. Our country’s present annual budget towards education is now generally about ½ billion Barbados dollars.

Barbados still generally possesses an educational system with its fundamentals rooted in colonial times. Other former British colonies, for example, have moved away from the concept of a single exam on a defined day determining an 11 year old child’s transition from primary to secondary school. We need to seriously decide as a people if we can afford to continue along this path in a modern era of a highly competitive universe without trade or financial preferences, as was previously the case due to our small size and history. Contemporary times demand that we maximize our human resource capacity to include and involve as many of our people as possible in our national development.

The time has therefore come for us as a nation state to critically assess whether we are obtaining maximum returns from the investment of significant taxpayers’ money in the education of our youth. We still have a situation in contemporary times when it is estimated that close to 50 per cent of children leave secondary school without any formal certification. We need to examine the reasons why our systems have failed these children.

Barbados’ political directorate must firstly formulate a vision of where we wish our country to be in terms of national development in the next 15-20 years. Related to this national goal, our society has to determine the type of citizens we wish to create in order to take us where we need to be.

The last BLP administration wisely sought to attempt to place our country in the strategic position where it would become the smallest developed country globally by 2025. We were also to become the entrepreneurial hub in the region by 2020. This DLP government has not even attempted to define a place for Barbados in the World, as it has just led our country into socio-economic malaise.

The Minister of Education is mandated by the Education Act, inter alia, to frame an educational policy to provide a varied and comprehensive educational system which is characterized by excellence. He is also required to contribute toward the spiritual, moral, mental, physical, social, cultural and economic development of the community by ensuring that efficient education is available to meet the needs of Barbados.

Our political leadership needs to understand that Barbados, with the significant resources that have traditionally been spent on educating our people, is in a prime position to become the leading technological and scientific hub of the Caribbean in the next 15 years. After all, as Nelson Mandela remarked, education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.

We must also attempt to aim to be the entrepreneurial capital of our region. To achieve this will however require political leadership of a kind that this DLP government, including the political leadership of the education ministry, has miserably failed to demonstrate in almost eight years of governance.

The Owen Arthur administration sagaciously promoted and advanced the need for the commencement of supervised early education training for our children from the nursery age of three years old. Eeva Hujala, a child development specialist in Finland which is recognized by the United Nations Human Development Index as one of the top four countries in the world in terms of educational delivery, opines that “early education is the first and most critical stage of life-long learning. Neurological research has shown that 90 per cent of brain growth occurs during the first 5 years of life.” Finland, for example, in fact provides each and every parent of newborn babies with a book for their child at birth as well as a book for the child in order to foster a culture of reading, so critical an emphasis that country places on early childhood development.

In preparation for our vision for Barbados as the leading technological, scientific and entrepreneurial hub in our part of the universe, we need to provide our children, from nursery and primary school, with a greater opportunity to develop their individuality and creativity. We need to place wider emphasis on developing their social and interactive skills, their care and sensitivity to others’ needs and interests. Such awareness must seek to engender in our very young persons a more positive attitude towards others and a greater appreciation of their differing cultures and environments. Additionally, our early childhood education must provide our youth with the ability and capacity to think critically, to problem solve and to resolve conflict.

We must further attempt to inculcate in our children at a very early stage characteristics such as self-esteem, self-confidence, independence and the spirit of volunteerism. They will consequently acquire the psychological profile to become more responsible and useful adults. Barbados, as it moves towards 50 years of nationhood, will clearly benefit from a more active and productive citizenry, capable of employing themselves and others in their community who will need their help.

We have not undertaken any curriculum reform in our educational system since 2000 under the ministerial leadership of the Honourable Mia Mottley. We need to reform the existing subject matter to place greater emphasis during primary school education on science and technology, business, art, drama, music and craft. We also need to encourage and place systems in place for those older primary school children with an aptitude in language to study more Spanish and may be even French. Serious consideration needs to be given to appointing specialist teachers in primary schools to facilitate this paradigm shift in focus on early childhood education. Furthermore, successful business persons should be invited as of course to assist our children, even at this level, in the basic concepts of turning your hobbies and interests into legitimate money-making ventures.

Of course, we need as a country to include children with physical disabilities, many of whom have unique skills just waiting to be given the opportunity to be tapped, into our mainstream education system. In this manner, they will in the future as adults be better equipped to contribute to the national development of our country and to participate positively in our socio-economic and political affairs.

Furthermore, our Government needs to establish a Teachers’ Service Commission, separate from the Public Service Commission, as was enacted by Parliament 40 years ago in an amendment to the Constitution of Barbados. This will allow greater efficiency to be brought to bear on the reform required in the administrative structure of our educational policy and on issues relating to our teaching profession.

Any visionary political administration should be concerned with the provision of an adequate nursery and primary school system which will enable the youth to be reasonably prepared to eventually become valuable citizens. Barbados needs to sustain its reputation as one of the leading countries in our region in terms of the education of its people. This DLP administration now however only allocates about 16 percent of government revenues to the education of Barbadians, down from a high of approximately 23 per cent during periods of both the Errol Barrow and Tom Adams led governments.

We as a people cannot afford to lose hope in our youth or to neglect their future. We can only hope that the day will soon come when a responsible, caring Barbados Labour Party will be given the mandate by the people to implement more appropriate policies and programmes for the early educational development of our children.

Dated 30^th October, 2015

Edmund G. Hinkson, Attorney-at-law, is the Member of Parliament for Saint James North as well as Shadow Education and Human Resources Development Minister

 

HINKSON CONCERNED ABOUT GOVERNMENT’S WELFARE POLICY

The Government of Barbados owes it to the citizens of this country to clearly spell out its welfare policy towards the poor and unemployed as well as towards persons with disabilities.

Many of my constituents who have not found employment in view of the harsh economic circumstances presently prevailing in our country and who were previously on welfare are being either taken off of the programme or have had their monies severely cut. No reasonable explanation has been forthcoming from the political directorate as to why this has happened. These are in the main single mothers with many children of school age, persons with disabilities and senior citizens who are not beneficiaries of old age contributory pensions.

In the midst of all of the Government’s financial cuts within recent times, the welfare grant to individuals from the Social Care Ministry has been cut in this year’s Estimates by 32 percent from what was actually spent three years ago in the year leading up to the last General Elections. This year’s Estimates for grant of welfare to individuals are less than $16 million, down from the over $23 million which was spent in 2012-13. This Cabinet decision has been taken even although the Finance Minister and Central Bank Governor wish us to believe that the economy is “turning around”.

The Minister of Social Care, or some other member of the Cabinet, needs to clearly outline what is Democratic Labour Party’s policy as to how it chooses who is being off of its welfare budget or whose welfare allocation is cut. The Government also needs to inform the public as to what programmes it has in place to specifically provide opportunities for these Barbadians to become gainfully employed. Additionally, the public ought to be informed as to what policy is in place to facilitate these persons who are being removed from Government’s welfare programme so that they can obtain the necessary skills which they may require to find employment in these very difficult times.

It is socially dangerous and politically unwise for any Government of Barbados to just cut off poor, unemployed and disabled persons, many of whom have young children, from the welfare system without any strategy as to how they will be provided with money for their continued viability and for the survival of their dependents. A society must be always judged by how it treats to its most vulnerable persons.

The Country Assessment of Living Conditions Study indicates that in 2010 one in five Barbadians were already living below the poverty line. The implications which will arise from the present political administration’s policy to reduce the welfare allocation to some of the most financially desperate, combined with all the other crises going on in our education, health and other social services, are potentially catastrophic to our society.

17th April, 2015

EDMUND G. HINKSON
Attorney-at-Law and Saint James North Member of Parliament

Private Members’ Resolution

Mr. Edmund G. Hinkson, M.P.-Member for St. James North

WHEREAS Data from the 2010 Population Census of Barbados indicates that about five per cent of the total population of Barbados are physically or mentally challenged or suffer from hearing or visual impairment.

AND WHEREAS the Barbados Country Assessment of Living Conditions 2010 Report submitted to the Government of Barbados in December, 2012 indicates that these persons with disabilities are among the most vulnerable in our society and comprise a significant percentage of persons who live below the poverty line.

AND WHEREAS the 1966 Constitution of Barbados as amended does not guarantee persons with disabilities as a group protection from discrimination under the law.

AND WHEREAS the Government of Barbados on 30^th May, 2000 laid in Parliament and debated the Green Paper on Persons with Disabilities as a part of its national development policy.

AND WHEREAS this document outlines basic principles which seek to empower persons with disabilities and organizations promoting the special interests of persons with disabilities so that these persons can be better equipped to become involved in the socio-economic development of Barbados and to ensure equal opportunities in all areas of the development of their lives in Barbados.

AND WHEREAS the Government of Barbados on 20^th August, 2002 laid in Parliament and debated the White Paper on Persons with Disabilities outlining the strategies, policies, programmes and activities which it intended to develop to empower and protect persons with disabilities and to create an environment in Barbados conducive to the integration and inclusion of persons with disabilities at every level of our society.

AND WHEREAS the Government of Barbados on 19^th July, 2007 signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (“the Convention”) which entered into force on 3^rd May, 2008.

AND WHEREAS the Government of Barbados on 27^th February, 2013 ratified the Convention, internationally binding itself to enact and have proclaimed legislation promoting, protecting and ensuring the full and equal enjoyment of all the human rights and the fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities in Barbados and promoting respect for their inherent dignity.

AND WHEREAS the Government of Barbados in July, 2014 launched a monitoring committee, as provided for under the Convention, with its mandate being to submit a comprehensive report by early 2015 on measures taken by Barbados to give effect to the country’s obligations under the Convention and on progress made in that regard.

AND WHEREAS Barbados committed itself under the provisions of the Convention to submit to the United Nations’ Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities established by virtue of the Convention a comprehensive report on these measures and on this progress by 27^th February, 2015.

BE IT RESOLVED:

1. That within six months of the passing of this Resolution, the Government of Barbados shall lay and have debated in the Parliament Disabilities Legislation providing , interalia, for:-

1. respect for the inherent dignity, individual autonomy including the freedom to make one’s own choice and the independence of persons with disabilities,
2. non-discrimination of persons with disabilities,
3. the full and effective participation by and inclusion in society of persons with disabilities,
4. the equality of opportunity for persons with disabilities, including in their educational, health, employment, cultural, sporting, recreational and political development, and
5. full accessibility for persons with disabilities to the built environment and natural environment, to education at all levels and to employment and entrepreneurial opportunities.

 

 

Notice of this Resolution was given on March 16, 2015.

 

HINKSON CALLS FOR DISABILITIES LEGISLATION

Another Month of the Disabled is about to be recognized without any comprehensive legislative framework in place in Barbados to advance the cause of persons with disabilities. There continues to be the crying need for the enactment of laws addressing all forms of discrimination on the basis of physical and mental disabilities and hearing and visual impairment in our society. There is also a need for laws providing for equal opportunities to be granted as of right to differently-abled persons so that they may have a greater chance to realize their full potential, live as independent and active a life as possible and participate as worthy citizens in the development of our country.

We recognize the fact that the Government did finally ratify The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on 27th February, 2013, albeit after a delay of almost five years after the Convention entered into force and only after stakeholders serving the cause of persons with disabilities presented the political administration with a petition calling for ratification.

We also take note that the Ministry of Social Care finally in July last year established the monitoring committee as provided for under the Convention, with its mandate being to submit a comprehensive report by early this year on measures taken by the country to give effect to its obligations under the Convention and on progress made in that regard.

However, the Government needs to now go the ultimate step and bring to Parliament disabilities legislation penalizing the discrimination of persons with disabilities in our country and providing for the full and effective participation by, and inclusion in society of, persons with disabilities. We also need to legislatively provide for an equal opportunity for their participation in aspects of society relating to their educational, health, employment, entrepreneurial, cultural, sporting, recreational and political development. There must also be full accessibility, supported by legal rights, for differently-abled persons to the country’s natural and built environment. It is noteworthy that the Jamaican Government four months ago passed disabilities legislation through both of its Houses of Parliament.

Furthermore, the Government needs to restore the subvention for the disabled during next month’s Estimates Parliamentary Debate to its pre-2013 general elections level, after it was cut by 10-12 per cent last year. The 2010 Country Assessment of Living Conditions Study indicates that a large percentage of the almost 20 per cent of persons living below the poverty line in our country are differently-abled. We cannot continue to severely jeopardize the quality of life of those persons who are the most vulnerable in our society by depriving them and their caretakers of the basic necessities which are required for their existence.

Dated the 25th day of February, 2015

EDMUND G. HINKSON
Attorney-at-Law, Saint James North Member of Parliament and
Director of the Council for the Disabled

 

A PERSPECTIVE FOR BARBADOS’ ADVANCEMENT IN SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION

After almost seven years of DLP government, our beloved Barbados continues to be in the midst of the deep socio-economic crisis where it has been since 2009. The Stuart-led political administration has been unable to articulate in any clear manner either to our citizens, to our potential foreign investors or to the international organizations of which Barbados is a member a pathway whereby it would lead the country out of this existing depression.

One of the strategies which government ought to adopt in order to return Barbados to positive economic growth is to invest more heavily than it is at present doing in science, technology and innovation. The political directorate needs to recognize that integrating a vision for science, technology and innovation in an understandable long-term development strategy can be a key factor in achieving an improved quality of life for the majority of our people. However, for such a policy to be successful, our scientists and innovators must be supported by high-level government officials who have the vision, pragmatism, political will and understanding as well as the ability to formulate such strategy and subsequently to lead its implementation.

It is highly doubtful that the Barbados government as presently constituted is capable of this task. The Ministerial portfolio of Science, Technology and Innovation is presently like an outcast third cousin attached to the portfolio of Education. There is neither a permanent secretary nor administrative office within this Ministry to lead any strategy for the development of a science, technology and innovation agenda in our nation.

The National Council for Science and Technology (NCST) was established by the Tom Adams-led administration in 1977. It is the most long-standing institution in the area of science, technology and innovation in Barbados. It presently exists from the offices which house the Ministry of Commerce and Trade and not the Ministry of Education. Its total operating expenditure granted in this financial year’s Estimates as laid in Parliament is a mere half million dollars.

The Barbados Human Development Strategy Paper, 2011-2016 describes the main functions of this department as the promotion of science and technology, creativity and innovation to the public, particularly the youth and the rendering of technical assistance to persons seeking to research, develop and commercialize new, innovative products and service ideas. The agency is also supposed to act as an information hub on science and technology and to collect, analyse and disseminate reliable, current and relevant information. It is, however, unquestionably understaffed, under-resourced and incapable in its present form of playing any part in facilitating any leading role for Barbados among small island developing states in the development of this area of potential economic growth.

This DLP administration has failed to communicate any transparent policy or vision on what should really be a major development tool of government policy. The present political directorate is like a “rudderless ship” drifting further and further out to sea without any captain on board. Many countries in the world which have demonstrated that they are serious in advancing themselves as countries of excellence for the development of science, technology and innovation have placed institutions monitoring this area under the cabinet responsibility of the Prime Minister. This is the case in Malaysia and in Finland, which is a pioneer state in this field.

Additionally, the present Government of Barbados defeats its own stated objective of “[recognizing] the importance of investment in research, innovation and entrepreneurship as providing a competitive advantage in an increasingly global economy” (Barbados Human Development Strategy Paper at page 62). It is the first Government in half a century to impose the payment of tuition costs on our citizens seeking to study at the campuses of the University of the West Indies, including in the departments of science and technology. Furthermore, the current Minister of Education must bear full cabinet responsibility for the decision of that Ministry, in the space of a year, to reduce the number of National Development Scholarships granted to Barbadians to one-third of what were granted in the year just before the last general elections. In addition, the areas of study for which such scholarships can be awarded have been drastically cut.

A progressive Government would understand that heavier investment in science and technology from our primary school system right through to our university is required to act as a catalyst for the creation of innovative products and services as well as for the development of entrepreneurship in our country. An enlightened administration would comprehend that research and development in the sciences and technology should be given some degree of priority at the tertiary level of our education system. For example, the Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic ought to be granted more financial and technical resources coincidental with Barbados’ developmental requirements for the next two decades, so that it can offer a greater variety of courses to a larger amount of students at more numerous locations throughout the country.

Furthermore, a caring political directorate would visualize that the creation of an enabling environment whereby more persons with disabilities could be educated in areas of science and technology development would ultimately lead to some of the most vulnerable in our society having the opportunity to realize their full potential.

Such a Government would have encouraged science and technology parks, perhaps through our university, for the increased knowledge base and practical education of our youth. A greater number of national innovation scholarships, awards and other incentives would have been granted to facilitate and encourage innovators and entrepreneurs in new fields of development for the ultimate benefit of Barbados and the wider Caribbean.

All of these policy initiatives, if implemented, would ultimately result in the further development of our people, our society and our economy. Such initiatives would in the long term lead to greater national productivity, increased commercial competitiveness and a reduction in our unacceptably high unemployment rate.

The DLP Government has instead taken the highly retrogressive policy position of not supporting the full financial costs of all of our tertiary education students and of being in present debt to our University of the West Indies campuses to the tune of over $200 million.

The BLP envisages government as the facilitator of opportunities for all worthy Barbadians to progress with the necessary skills and knowledge to compete in an advancing technical age. This DLP government has failed the citizens of this island in its stated attempt to create a just society and economy. The BLP on the other hand remains committed to supporting Barbados’ development as a centre of excellence among small island developing states in the areas of science, technology and innovation and as part of a national effort to again create sustainable economic growth, increased employment and to produce a higher quality of life for all citizens in our country. We must strive for a better standard of technical and scientific education and innovation.

EDMUND G.HINKSON
Attorney-at-Law, Advocate for the Disabled and St. James North MPAppears in BLP’s 2014 Conference Book

THE BARBADOS LABOUR PARTY CALLS FOR MINISTER JONES’ REMOVAL
FROM THE CABINET OF BARBADOS

The Barbados Labour Party today calls for the resignation of Minister Ronald Jones from the Cabinet of Barbados. Failing this, we call on Prime Minister Stuart to dismiss him.

The citizens of any democratic country must be able to believe, rely and act on the words and public undertakings of a cabinet minister. They must be able to plan their everyday lives and future based on the statements and promises made by any member of the highest executive body in the nation. Events over the last six months have clearly demonstrated that Barbadians, whether students, their parents or the general public, have found it next to impossible to hold sacred the public pronouncements of this Minister as they relate to the funding of University of the West Indies’ onerous tuition fees of financially challenged students. Minister Jones has, in our opinion, failed to meet the expected standard of ministerial conduct such that citizens affected can reasonably plan their affairs and future.

Minister Jones will go down in political history as the official who had cabinet responsibility for dismantling one of the fundamental pillars for the socio-economic development of our citizens and nation over the last 50 years. Free tertiary education at the UWI has been the ladder by virtue of which tens of thousands of poor Barbadians, who have traditionally comprised over 80 per cent of the local students attending this institution, have been able to climb their way out of poverty and into better social and financial circumstances.

On 15th April this year, 3 days after Member of Parliament Miss Cynthia Forde and I held a press conference, the Education Minister publicly announced at the 40th annual general conference of the Barbados Union of Teachers that his Ministry will be providing “a substantial number of bursaries so that no eligible Barbadian student will be disadvantaged” from attending UWI.

Nothing further was then heard on the issue of the grant of any bursaries to any UWI student from either Minister Jones or from any high-ranking education official for 3 months. This Minister on 11th July at the plaque ceremony inaugurating the UWI Chinese Confucius Institute then announced that “in the first few years, we will do some 3,000 bursaries to help these UWI students with challenges.” He in fact proceeded to inform the public that “this has already been agreed to”. These bursaries were to be thereafter launched in two weeks and were to be made available to Cave Hill, Mona and St. Augustine Campus Students. Furthermore, Minister Jones publicly stated that they would cover about 50 per cent of the successful students’ total tuition costs. He additionally was quoted as saying that “Sir Hugh Wooding Barbadian law students would not have to pay tuition fees”.

The Ministry of Education finally announced through a GIS release on the evening of 28th July that the bursary application forms would be available from the following day. This was the same date when I publicly expressed concern over this Government’s continued broken promises to put adequate arrangements in place for the financing of UWI students’ tuition fees and over the fact that there were no bursary application forms in existence and no criteria as to how bursary recipients would be selected.

Hundreds of Barbadians filled out bursary application forms on reliance of the Minister’s word that free grants would be given to financially disadvantaged UWI students. Required supporting documents were submitted by these many applicants. Weeks have passed since then and first UWI semester is almost midway in duration.

The public of Barbados has now been told, not by Minister Jones or any high-ranking official of the Ministry of Education, but by a media house that the Ministry of Finance will not be funding any bursaries to any UWI students as promised by Minister Jones or at all. In the meantime, the Education Minister yesterday left Barbados on a ten day first class travel trip to China, presumably partly if not completely funded by the taxpayers of this Country. This when hundreds of the declining numbers of UWI students do not know how they will pay the next due monthly installment on their tuition fees and are now, in the continued absence of the promised bursaries, seriously contemplating their future education.

Furthermore, the Sir Hugh Wooding Law School Barbadian students were told on arrival last month that they will have to pay their own tuition fees, contrary to Minister Jones’ public assurances on 11th July.

In any proper functioning Westminster-type democracy, a Prime Minister would not have had to request the resignation of his cabinet minister under these or similar circumstances. The Minister, having announced government policy on an issue so fundamental to his country’s human resources development without his cabinet colleagues’ approval and now in fact, apparently, with his colleagues’ disapproval, would resign forthwith. Minister Jones for the last six months pronounced on a government educational funding policy without the approval of the Minister of Finance.

He has apparently, according to the news report, been “admonished” by Finance Ministry officials for so doing. He ought to be relieved not only of the Education, Human Resources, Science and Technology portfolio but of any ministerial responsibility whatsoever.

Minister Jones has throughout this whole episode also acted with a degree of arrogance which, in our opinion, has shown utter contempt for the people whom he has been elected to serve. His earlier incendiary statements in Parliament about “cracking some heads” and “shooting some people” have been matched by his more recent statements about “hungry people” running him down asking about the sharp decline in UWI applicants this year whilst the media “beat him to the ground” and people “run him down” about when we can get the bursaries.

Clearly, Mr. Jones is no longer capable of engendering any feelings of hope for their future in the youth of our country. Indeed, his ministerial legacy has been one of despair and frustration among thousands of Barbadians who wish to further their tertiary education. The public can no longer have confidence in this Minister in his public capacity.

Yesterday’s statement by the Acting Education Minister, Senator Harcourt Husbands, did nothing to inspire any one as to when, if at all, bursaries would be granted, under what criteria, to whom they would be awarded and how they would be financed.

The Prime Minister ought to relieve the public of Barbados of the ministerial liability which, in the submission of the BLP, Mr. Jones has become and which the public can no longer afford to carry. The Education Minister himself has been quoted as saying that he is “really tired”. Previous Barbadian Prime Ministers from both political parties have dismissed cabinet ministers for much less.

Edmund G. Hinkson
Shadow Education and Human Resources Minister
And St. James North Member of Parliament

7th October, 2014

RIGHTS OF PUBLIC WORKERS BEING ERODED BY DLP GOVERNMENT

The workers’ rights and entitlements which government employees, political leaders and trade unions in Barbados have fought for and achieved over the last 60 years are in a large measure being surely eroded by the current DLP Government.

We now have a situation where not only thousands of workers have been summarily dismissed and retrenched by this Government but in addition to that travesty, having been so dismissed, they still cannot get the money that is due to them under the laws of the country six months and more after their dismissal. All this after the DLP promised leading up to last year’s election that not one public worker would be retrenched if it was re-elected to office.

It is politically irresponsible for any Government of any just society to fire its employees without being in a position to compensate them in accordance with the law of the land. Yet six months after they have been dismissed thousands of the employees, whether formerly of the Transport Board, National Conservation Commission, National Housing Corporation, Beautify Barbados or of other government entities, cannot get their full money due. Furthermore, many of them have had to demean and dehumanize themselves by demonstrating in front of their former work headquarters to even get a hearing from the relevant authorities in order to find out when they may possibly get their money.

Under the Severance Payments Act, the Minister of Finance ought to ensure that these former government workers receive interest at the rate of at least 6 per cent per annum on all severance monies due to them which remain outstanding four months after their dismissal.

About half a dozen of the 60 odd Beautify Barbados general workers are my constituents. I have written to the Ministry of Environment and Drainage since May this year on behalf of some of them requesting payment of the monies due to them. No positive response has been forthcoming from any one in that Ministry. Many of these workers were employed by the Government of Barbados in this project for about 15 years. Under the 2007 Public Service Act, enacted under the last BLP administration, they were entitled to be appointed to the public service and were entitled to the benefits of such appointment. Instead of so appointing them and giving them security of tenure after so many years of employment, this DLP Government dismissed them with one week’s notice, with no gratuity and with only 3 weeks’ vacation pay.

All these dismissed Government workers are a part of the most vulnerable sectors of our society. There were the general workers, maids, gardeners, bus drivers, life guards, beach rangers, field supervisors and clerks. They have children to send to school, to clothe and to feed, utility bills and rent or mortgages to pay and taxes to render unto the Government. What manner of political administration will treat poor people in this way?

All the gains made over many decades by public workers in this country are in serious danger of being rolled back by a political party that has shown itself to be callous and uncaring towards the people who have elected it to govern.

EDMUND G. HINKSON
Attorney-at-Law and St. James North Member of Parliament
6^th October, 2014

FUTURE EDUCATION OF THOUSANDS OF BARBADIANS IN JEOPARDY

The future tertiary education of thousands of Barbadians continues to be in severe jeopardy as a result of the DLP Government’s continued broken promises to put in place adequate arrangements for the financing of their UWI student tuition fees.

The latest episode of this woeful saga is the failure by Education Minister, Ronald Jones, to ensure that his Ministry is in a position to process applications for the 3,000 bursaries which he, on the 11th of this month, stated would be launched in two weeks’ time to help those financially challenged citizens who were already attending one of the three UWI campuses or who wished to enter for the first time. Minister Jones, on that occasion, revealed that the bursary arrangements had already been agreed to and that he was clearing up some of the “noise and mischief” circulating on the issue of paying tuition fees. However, both current and potential students of our three campuses continue to be clueless as to how they can even apply for a bursary. No application forms to so do presently exist and no criteria of how the process for the selection of recipients will be done has been established or announced.

Furthermore, no indication has been given as to who would be entitled to full bursaries, who would only be entitled to partial bursaries or how many of the declared 3,000 bursaries would be given in this coming academic year and to which faculty’s students. We do not know whether students who are part time and who are employed will be eligible. We do not know whether persons with disabilities and others who make up the most vulnerable segment of our society would be given preference in so applying. We do not know whether potential students need to first apply for a loan before they can be eligible for a bursary. Most importantly, we do not know whether the selection process will be saddled with political considerations, with supporters of the governing party as well as relatives and friends of DLP politicians having a distinct advantage in accessing these bursaries.

I myself incognito contacted the Education Ministry last Friday and could obtain no response from any official on any of these queries. Has Minister Jones under public pressure, in yet another knee-jerk response made without any serious discussion with his Ministry’s officers, proclaimed an initiative without the finances being in place to fund it?

Registration for the UWI school year will commence in three weeks’ time. This political administration has created so much uncertainty over the funding by students of their tuition fees, whether on the issue of the student revolving loan funding, government granted bursaries and otherwise, that over 40 per cent of the present students are today uncertain about whether they will be able to continue their courses. They strongly believe that they are not in any position to access the finances to pay the onerous tuition costs which the DLP has now burdened them with. Additionally, there is presently a 50 per cent decline in new applications to enter UWI for the first time.

The Stuart/Jones and Sinclair led Cabinet, which presently owes the three UWI campuses a total debt of approximately $221,000,000.00, is in serious danger of leaving a legacy of destruction of higher academic achievements to which our nationals have previously aspired. The misguided, ad hoc and uncertain education policy which this government has suddenly foisted on Barbados has the potential to take us back to our pre-independence era after our socio-economic advancement over the last half century.

27th July, 2014
EDMUND G. HINKSON
Saint James North Member of Parliament and BLP Shadow Education Minister

“THE BARBADOS REVENUE AUTHORITY IS ACTING OUTSIDE OF THE LAW”

The Barbados Revenue Authority, already embroiled in controversy with the Municipal Solid Waste Tax, is now flouting the law as it relates to land tax certificates to the further economic and other disruption of our citizens’ lives.

The BRA has taken a policy decision that it will not issue a land tax certificate that all current and arrears of land taxes due on property have been paid to Government until the owner of that property has paid the municipal solid waste tax being levied on that property.

The major and immediate direct implication of this stance is that no sale or other transfer of property in Barbados can be completed until the municipal solid waste tax being now charged thereon has been paid since, under the Land Tax Act, the Registrar of Titles can only stamp and record the document of sale or transfer if a valid land tax certificate is produced.

The Authority is clearly acting ultra vires in law by taking this policy decision.

The Municipal Solid Waste Tax Act has not given it the legal power to adopt this position.

The Authority cannot act on its own whim and fancy outside of the laws as enacted by the Parliament of this country.

Furthermore, the Minister of Finance, who has cabinet responsibility for the Authority, has been at pains on numerous occasions to contend that this municipal solid waste tax, easily one of the most pernicious taxes ever passed in the 375 years of Barbados’ parliamentary history, is not a land tax.

He immediately ought to, as he is empowered to do under the new Act, give written directions to the Authority that it has no legal power whatsoever to adopt such a policy that is so contrary to and is in breach of the existing Laws of Barbados. Again, under the new Act, the Authority will have to comply with his directions.

The Authority will surely very shortly be sued under administrative law if it does not reverse its stance in the very near future. This will certainly incur very high legal costs to the Government when it loses the case.

On another but connected issue, Minister Sinckler, during his interview last Sunday has given the public the impression that the Municipal Solid Waste Tax Act has to be given parliamentary approval to be extended beyond one year.

That impression is erroneous since nowhere in the Act does it say that it will only be of one year’s duration. What the Order which was made under the Act by Minister Sinckler on 12^th May this year says is that the rate of the tax at 0.3 per cent of the site value of improved land shall be applicable for one year between 1^st April this year and 31^st March next year. The Finance Minister can in fact either lower or raise this percentage rate without parliamentary approval.

 The only parliamentary approval which he requires is to repeal the Act which we in the Opposition will readily agree to and support at next Tuesday’s sitting of Parliament.

This Minister and this Government have repeatedly caused confusion, hardship and misery as the DLP continues to impose more taxes on an already overtaxed people.

This new development by BRA to prevent the issuance of land tax clearance certificates is patently wrong.

The Minister and Government must correct this unlawful move and iron out the many fundamental flaws in this tax.

But this is what happens when you introduce an ill-conceived, draconian and unjust piece of legislation.

 

July 10, 2014

EDMUND G. HINKSON

Saint James North Member of Parliament

 

 

 

UWI STUDENTS AGAIN LET DOWN BY DLP

The Democratic Labour Party Government has reneged on its promise made to Barbadians attending the University of the West Indies that it will from this coming school year guarantee loans granted by the Student Revolving Loan Fund when the imposition of payment of tuition fees comes into effect.

Education Minister Ronald Jones in his contribution to the debate of last year’s Financial Statement and Budgetary Proposals on 15th August told Parliament, Barbadians and indeed the whole world that the Government would guarantee student revolving loan funds taken out by students who could not afford to pay the twenty per cent cost of their University of the West Indies education out of their own pockets. Yet, he has recently announced a policy for these loans that does not in any way remove the previous requirements of two sureties or collateral security, such as cash, land, property, government paper, shares or mutual funds for a loan of $50,000.00 or less or of two securities to secure to secure the first $50,000.00 and collateral security to secure the remainder if the loan amount is greater than $50,000.00.

Only loans of less than $12,000.00 can be secured without any sureties and no government guarantee is involved in this case either.

The BLP however supports Minister Jones’ call for borrowers to pay the agreed contractual instalments on these loans in a timely manner and for defaulters to clear all arrears which they owe as a matter of priority.

Secondly, we have heard nothing further of the proposal announced during his 2013 budgetary presentation by Minister Sinckler of the establishment, together with local finance houses, of a National Registration Education Savings Plan with appropriate tax allowance provisions for savers which would have assisted in the future tertiary education of our citizens.

This whole episode marks yet another in a string of breach of promises made by the DLP to the people who elected them in order to improve the quality of their lives and that of their families. The severity of the Government’s breach of trust on this issue is magnified by the fact that it directly undermines the educational and human capital advancement of our young people, which has previously been one of the major planks of social engineering for our national development during the first sixty odd years of cabinet responsibility.

This political administration has clearly lost touch with the reality of every day survival of the majority of our citizens, as is tangibly demonstrated by Minister Jones’ recent statement that if he had his way all those present Barbadian UWI students who drop out of the institution would have to repay to Government the tuition fees which have been already spent on their university education.

We can only wonder when and where this “political recklessness” will end, what with the imposition recently of the onerous Consolidation Tax on gross earnings and salaries and the draconian Municipal Solid Waste Tax being levied on all home and real property owners as well as the hint by various cabinet ministers of the legislation of more taxes during the course of this year.

28th June, 2014

EDMUND G. HINKSON
Saint James North Member of Parliament and Shadow Minister of Education

N.B. I as usual declare that I am one of the external counsel of the Student Revolving Loan Fund.

BLP DISTRESSED OVER SIGNIFICANT DECLINE IN UWI APPLICANTS

The Barbados Labour Party is extremely concerned and disturbed to have received confirmation from the Principal of the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus that he “anticipates a sixty per cent decline in students attending the campus in the next academic year” when, for the first time in its 50 plus year history, Barbadians will be forced by their Government to pay their own tuition fees at this institution.

This revelation by Sir Hilary Beckles gives absolute credence to our Party’s consistent public criticism of the retrogressive DLP’s new educational policy announced during the August 2013 budget presentation of the Finance Minister.

We have constantly warned the Government that its decision will result in thousands of our citizens either withdrawing from the University of the West Indies or opting not to enter the institution, simply because they cannot possibly afford to pay tuition fees ranging from between $6,000.00 and $17,000.00 each year for full-time students in order to obtain a tertiary degree. Indeed it is now questionable whether any Barbadian from a working class background will be able to pursue medical studies at the University of the West Indies without the benefit of a scholarship since this degree will cost $180,000.00, according to Sir Hilary, for the first three years of the course.

In one fell swoop, the Stuart/Sinckler/Jones administration has destroyed the worthy aspirations and ambitions of many poor Barbadians. These persons comprise 80 per cent of our citizens attending the University of the West Indies campuses throughout the region. Their only sin has been to dream that their full potential can be realized by a university education which will lead them, their families and extended communities out of poverty and into better economic circumstances. The DLP has even unconscionably dismissed our Party’s suggestion that those already undertaking studies at our universities be allowed a reasonable period within which to complete their degrees without having to pay their own tuition fees, since they would have entered these institutions with a reasonable expectation that the status quo would have continued. Furthermore, they have failed to even consider our proposal to waive those tuition fees of eligible persons with disabilities, who are generally among the most vulnerable individuals in our country.

Minister Sinckler on 13th August last year announced that “the Ministry of Education will provide further details on a Means Testing Mechanism to ensure that no deserving person is denied access to university education because of the means of their parents”. He went on to further state that “adequate access to loans with attractive repayment terms is available while the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs will in the coming week work with local finance houses to establish a National Registration Education Savings Plan with appropriate tax allowance provisions for savers” (see page 64 of the 2013 Financial Statement and Budgetary Proposals).

We have however heard not one single word from any policy maker in Government from the Prime Minister down on any of these issues since the Minister of Education in his contribution two days afterwards, in what we strongly believe was a knee jerk, thoughtless reaction to our criticism of the new policy during that debate, stated that Government would guarantee these student revolving fund loans. This statement, from the official with cabinet responsibility for ensuring the education of our population, makes absolutely no political sense. If that is indeed the intention, the Government could as well continue to pay our citizen’s tuition costs, as we in the BLP have urged it to do. Instead it appears that the fundamental viability of our University of the West Indies in the immediate future is in jeopardy.

The only initiative which has been so far announced to assist in the funding of these fees by persons who cannot afford to pay has been that taken last month by the banks, credit unions and other financial agencies. The Government needs, with urgency and without any further delay, to announce to the public the details of a loan scheme for university students with low attractive interest rates, with other favourable terms and conditions and without burdensome penalties for contractual breach. These loans must be equally accessible to all Barbadians regardless of class, colour, creed or political persuasion.

In the meantime, all of us BLP Members of Parliament and constituency caretakers know of many constituents who have decided to drop out of university after this academic year ends next month due to their inability and that of their families to raise the necessary finances to continue their respective education. We all know of other constituents who, having previously considered attending university, have now not even bothered to apply for admission before the stated closing date due to the same reason. Furthermore, their employment prospects are slim, at a time when Government has fired thousands of public sector employees and has sent thousands more back to their substantive posts. Additionally, consideration has to be given to the 5,000 odd young people who will be completing their secondary education in the next two months, a significant amount of whom are already contemplating a dim future in all of these circumstances.

In the meantime, we hear Minister Jones recently hint at an impending social amenities tax, if he gets his way with his cabinet colleagues. Furthermore, only this week Minister Senator Darcy Boyce proposed a new tax to facilitate lower income housing. These new tax initiatives, following on closely from the recently introduced Consolidation tax and the Municipal Solid Waste tax, are being proposed at a time when Barbadians are already taxed beyond capacity while receiving less social, educational and health services from the State.

EDMUND G. HINKSON
Saint James North M.P and Shadow Minister of Education

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DLP GOVERNMENT’S NEGLECT OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

Yet another Month of The Disabled has come to pass without any legislative framework in place in Barbados addressing all forms of discrimination on the basis of physical and mental disabilities and providing for equal opportunities to be granted as of right to persons with disabilities so that they may have a more realistic chance to realize their full potential.

While the Government of Barbados did indeed finally ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities at the end of February, 2013, it has woefully failed to do anything substantial over the last year to advance the cause of persons with disabilities. The Government has had ample time since then in which it ought to have constituted the Committee which it is mandated to establish under the Convention to monitor the implementation of its provisions in our Country. The political administration’s failure to so establish this Committee is compounded by the fact that Barbados is required by February, 2015 to submit to the United Nations’ Secretary General a comprehensive report on measures taken to give effect to its treaty obligations and on the progress made thereunder.

Furthermore, the Government has cut the subvention granted to the Council for the Disabled by 54 per cent since October last year, thereby placing the quality of life of persons who are the most vulnerable in our society in severe jeopardy. A continuation of this political decision will undoubtedly result in a significant curtailment of programmes and projects which attempt to improve the lives of differently-abled persons in our Nation, many of whom are already counted among the one in five persons whom the 2010 Barbados Country Assessment of Living Conditions Study indicates are living below the poverty line.

The Government next week in the Estimates Parliamentary Debate needs to see it as its duty to restore its subvention for the Disabled to its pre-2013 Elections level and to actually transfer those sums to the Council.

EDMUND G. HINKSON
St. James North Member of Parliament
and Director of The Council for the Disabled
14th March, 2014

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ENFORCE ANTI-CORRUPTION LAWS

The ruling Democratic Labour Party has yet again failed to deliver on one of its major 2008 General Elections commitments to the people of Barbados.

St. James North Barbados Labour Party Member of Parliament Edmund Hinkson has chided the Government for its failure so far to establish the Prevention of Corruption Commission, which would receive all declarations and documents from persons in the public life who fall within the legislation’s ambit.

Addressing the BLP St. Philip West branch meeting last Sunday at the Princess Margaret Memorial School, he accused Prime Minister Freundel Stuart of not revealing all of the facts in his recent comments to the media on the status of integrity and freedom of information legislation in the country.

“Having passed the Prevention of Corruption Act as one of its last parliamentary manoeuvres just before this year’s General Elections, the Government has not established any Commission, as is required by the statute, so that the Act can be proclaimed. This eight-member Commission, to be headed by a former judge or a long-standing attorney-at-law, will also be empowered to carry out its own enquiries and investigations into any allegations of corruption by persons in public life and into complaints in respect of failure to comply with the Act’s provisions,” Hinkson stated.

“The real issue is not whether Parliament ought to now enact a separate Integrity in Public Life Act, as the Prime Minister declared, but whether there are indeed certain elements within the DLP which are seeking to delay the implementation of this legislation. The DLP was given a mandate in 2008 to enact this law, which should enhance transparency and accountability in our Country’s political and administrative governance. The Act, having been passed, now needs to be enforced,” he commented.

The attorney-at-law however opined that the legislation goes too far in including top trade unionists as well as ordinary members of statutory boards and government-controlled companies within its ambit while at the same time excluding officers in high levels of the public service below the rank of Permanent Secretary and Heads of Department. Revealing that he had written to the Joint Select Committee of Parliament on this issue before he became a Parliamentarian, he stated his belief that it will become more difficult to encourage citizens to perform national duty by serving on statutory boards and companies just because an Act, which otherwise needs to be in effect, has however gone too far in the categories of persons, their spouses and minor children who will fall within its compass.

EDMUND G. HINKSON
Member of Parliament for Saint James North

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