WHILE commending government for employing persons through its national clean-up campaign, Opposition Leader Bishop Joseph Atherley says debushing should not be the highest aspiration for persons, and shows up a systemic failure in the political system of Barbados.
He was speaking in the Lower House on a resolution for a supplementary to go to the Ministry of the Environment for the programme, where he stressed that his remarks were not intended to disrespect persons who do these types of jobs.
He suggested that little pay doing menial work is “distressing”, against the backdrop of high cost of living, high bus fares and additional water rates.
“It is discouraging. And those who sit in the corridors of here and those who hold the reins of government today and those who hold the reins of government tomorrow must understand that it is a higher level of dignity attaching to these people than we seek to think. These people are not simply units to be used for voting purposes every five years, and then have to be relegated to a station where the best they can hope for is that we give them a de-bushing job a Christmas. This is bad,” he exhorted.
“The political system is guilty of creating a culture in which menial, and it is menial if you understand clearly what I am trying to say, and I’m not speaking out of any sense of disrespect of contempt for those who do it, but this is a menial job and it should never be the highest aspiration for any of our people that this should be their lot in life.
“And the political system in Barbados , whichever administration has been in office, is guilty of creating that kind of mindset. Guilty of creating that kind of culture, in which too many of our people believe is that the highest thing to which they can aspire is to get a de-bushing job around the Christmas season,” he lamented.
“Now here we are talking about alternating them from one week to the other. And the next time around, we will not alternate them from one week to another, but we will alternate the persons who we engage. So it will be a different 12 from all the other 29 constituencies. And that is not good enough.
“We expend as a people, taxpayers, as governments, various administrations, lots of money invested in education of our people and for them to come through this system and not be so skilled, not to be so qualified in one way or another, that they can aspire beyond this to me is a systemic failing that we continue to perpetuate in Barbados,” Bishop Atherley charged.
The parliamentary representative for St. Michael West says that a lack of the requisite skills and knowledge base that would equip persons for better jobs in the society is being seen.
“The failing of the economic system has been that we are not providing that number of alternative, more sophisticated type of employment for people. So people feel they are confined and consigned to this. And the highest aspiration therefore of the single mother from down in Parris Gap is that at Christmas time I am going to the “MP” and see if I can get a job de-bushing.
“That is a failing of the political system in Barbados, it is a failing of the economic model that we pursue and persist with. And I know Mr. Acting Chairman that this government is better than that. And though somebody has to do the job, let it be simply that, that somebody must do the job, and not that the majority of people feel that that is the only opportunity they are going to get, or the majority of people feel that is the only thing for which they are ‘qualified’ or of which they are capable,” he said.
(JH)