No Outside Influence Needed
Monday July 04 2011 | 11:41 AM

“We do not need someone from outside to tell us what the state of play is or what we need to do.”

This was the message that John Williams, new Chairman of the Barbados Private Sector Association (BPSA) outlined to the business community. 

“We as Barbadians are mature enough to understand the seriousness of our economic situation and responsible enough to develop and implement the measures needed to bring us back on to the right path,” Williams said.

“We did so 20 years ago and we need to do so again now,” Williams told a BPSA Breakfast meeting last week at the Hilton.

In his first address as Chairman of the private sector body, Williams said he is well aware that there will be times “when what I have to say will not please everyone, whether Government, the Opposition, the trade union movement, or for that matter those within the private sector itself.”

However, he made it clear to the audience that members have “my assurance that whatever I say or do will always be driven by what I truly believe to be in the best interest of Barbadians and Barbados.”

Since his appointment, the most frequently posed question has been: What are the BPSA’s plans for the future?

The newly appointed Chairman responded, “There is no single-sentence answer to this question, but reflecting on the issues and concerns of our member organisations and in turn business they represent, there are a couple of themes that are always at the forefront.”

He pointed out that one long-standing issue is the transformation required in our public sector. 
Williams noted that public sector reform has on occasions been criticised as persons wishing to dismiss large numbers of public sector workers or tear apart our social fabric.

Terming this as unfair and unjustified criticism, he said reform should mean that a burst water main should be repaired within hours rather that days; that renewal of a driver’s licence should take minutes, not hours; or the grass on the verges of our ABC Highway should be cut when it is inches high, not feet high.

“That is not unreasonable,” he asserted. 

“It is not advocating the tearing apart of our social fabric. These are but examples of why we are calling for public sector reform,” he maintained.

According to him, “If it is necessary , as I think it may be, to transfer some human resources from the public to the private sector in order to raise national productivity and reduce government expenditure, there is no reason why this cannot be done in as humane and phased a manner with the full cooperation of the social partners.” 

To achieve this transformation within the public sector, the BPSA official said, “We have to make people accountable. But we have to give them the tools to do the job.”

He believes, “This reform must spread beyond the public sector and must be instituted across Barbados. Productivity must become our mantra and we must discard the notion that productivity means doing the same things with fewer people. The real benefit of productivity is when we harness all our resources to produce even more for the benefit of all Barbadians.”

Williams said he not so naïve to imagine this can happen overnight, neither is he too jaded to think it cannot happen at all.

Another issue he pointed out is ensuring that the private sector’s voice is clearly heard when it comes to the current state and future path for our economy.

“We in Barbados have many good things going for us. By Caribbean standards we have a relatively diverse economy. The main money earners – tourism and international business – have their challenges, but they both have great potential. Manufacturing, although not the force it was, is surviving. Construction has faced a serious decline, but this is caused by economic conditions rather than their own lack of competitiveness,” he stated.

“However these business sectors do not exist in a vacuum. The one factor common to all of them is the need for a sound, fiscally prudent, economic environment in which to operate.”

“I wish to point out that we in Barbados are fortunate in having the Social Partnership, a mechanism ideally suited to tackling these challenges. To our partners in the Government and the labour movement I say, ‘we in the private sector stand ready to play our part’,” he affirmed.