With the finer points of the Barbados Optional Savings Scheme (BOSS)
being laid out to all potential stakeholders over this week, there is
a call from Democratic Labour Party General Secretary Guyson Mayers
for the local credit union movement to stay out of the fray.
In a statement released to the media yesterday, Mayers pointed fingers
at Government and credit unions and urged them to be responsible with
the savings of Barbadians.
With the scheme offering any bonds opted out of by the owners going
onto the open market for sale to any interested persons or parties,
Mayers is calling for the credit unions to leave them alone. The
entire statement can be read below:
Hands off …
Should our political loyalty trump good sense or are we stupid? The
credit union movement has throughout the years been held back so as to
give an advantage to other financial institutions. The list of policy
decisions that have stopped credit unions from growing to the next
level of success is long and not limited to one political party.
When there are safe and sure investments, no one remembers the credit
unions. But when senselessness abounds, the credit unions are called
to the fore. Fortunately, the membership of these organisations has
been wise enough to limit what their leaders could do with their
money. Sometimes this conservatism has denied them good
opportunities.
But am I to understand that credit unions are about to follow the
example of rudderless trade unions and act without the consent of
their owners and buy government paper, especially after the
incontrovertible evidence that such an investment is the most
dangerous thing anyone can do with their money in light of the recent
history of this administration? The evidence of the millions lost
recently by credit unions after this Government’s reneging in its
arrangements with government paper is on the institutions’ balance
sheets today.
Every credit union member is an owner of that organisation, in equal
share with every other member. No leader of a credit union has a
larger stake in that body than the last person to join the body. The
credit union movement is not a homogeneous organism or anyone’s pool
of money to be used for political purposes. The ruling administration
has demonstrated its unwillingness to pay attention to this country’s
laws or the financial plans of Barbadians, even pensioners. Poor
people’s money should not be exposed to the whims of unreliable
people.
Instead, the credit unions should be demanding the right to establish
their own bank. When credit unions boast about how many millions of
dollars poor people entrust them with, they should go the next step
and say that every liquid cent they own is in a bank. Put differently,
credit unions are collection agencies for banks.
They should be demanding the removal of all restrictions that prevent
them from competing on an equal footing with other financial
institutions. Poor people’s money should not be sacrificed on the
altar of political convenience.
A Party’s ability to infiltrate the movement and take it over should
not expose the few cents that people are able to save to unnecessary
risk. Let the investment in government paper come from the people who
were forgiven millions in VAT payments that were owed to the
government.
Let those who had the massive tax breaks invest their windfall in
government paper. Keep poor people’s money out of that. No credit
union leader owns the money they manage. Any such folly should have
personal liability attached to it. The courts will decide.