Nigeria sends Deputy Governor Amos Utuama to investigate allegations against himself and alleged mistress in Barbados!

A few days ago, we reported that 90 Nigerian students are alleging that Deputy Governor Amos Utuama and his mistress Donna St. Hill pocketed programme funding for the Delta Youth Trainees in Barbados, causing the students to be shifted from the nice Infinity Beach Hotel to an inland dump of a hotel with no running water and slops for food.

Now, just like you’d expect, the Nigerian government sent the subject of the allegations to Barbados to investigate himself!

No problem, folks! We can write the results of the investigation right now… everything be fine. just a misunderstanding. everything is A-okay.

There.

That takes care of that!

Nigerian mission

• A HIGH-LEVEL NIGERIAN GOVERNMENTAL TEAM is in Barbados on a fact-finding mission pertaining to the 87 Nigerian students here on a nine-month educational programme.
  
• Deputy Governor of Delta State, Professor Amos Utuama, landed in Barbados last night, while Acting Nigerian High Commissioner to Trinidad, Ganiyu Adeyemi, his deputy Frank Nmadu and financial director, Paul Ataime, arrived on Saturday from Trinidad.
  
• The acting high commissioner and his team met with all of the students at the Casa Grande Hotel in St Philip, where they are being housed, while they also held discussions with facilitator of the programme Donna St Hill, former administrator Sharon Brathwaite, who has been relieved of her duties, as well as Asha “Ram” Mirchandani, owner of the hotel. Reports indicate that the team also did a walk-through of the hotel, which has been a bone of contention with the students, and they were also on hand to examine the meals being served, among other things.

Barbados must regulate, tax and ensure the standard of all tourism accommodations

I would imagine (and hope) that one of the imperatives of the newly formed Barbados Tourism Product Authority (BTPA) in the new year will be to indentify and register all currently unlicensed tourism accommodation offerings.

Frankly I have never understood how you can ever successfully market any product, in this case the destination, without knowing what ‘our’ room inventory consists of.

I will be quick to point out that I am in no way advocating imposing any overtly deterrent restrictions on persons wishing to mount the first rungs on a tourism ladder.

It should also not be a big stick approach implying potential threats and intimidation. My initial thoughts would be to build an online enrollment site, which could be entirely self-funding through a small license fee. This surely should not be a challenge as the BTPA has yet to launch a functioning website.

It’s all about protecting our quality, and making a level playing field

Any portal should allow for registering critical quality assurance evidence like fire, health and swimming pool certificates and public liability insurance together with the capability of paying the annual fee online and revalidating participation each year.

Accommodation providers initially would be given a grace period to submit their documentation and if they did not comply then clearly they would not be eligible for any marketing support and/or concessions.

Like many other holiday destinations approved properties would be given a unique identity number and allowed to use approved signage guaranteeing some form of quality assurance standards.

With the advent of websites like Airbnb and Homeaway it has now become a minefield for the potential visitor who presently has absolutely no idea if the thousands of lodging options comply with minimum standards and this obviously does not enhance our reputation.

If anyone is lured into thinking this ‘non-hotel’ element forms a miniscule part of our tourism sector, then understand at the time of writing this column, Airbnb had a choice of 556 alternative Barbadian accommodation possibilities on offer and Homeaway a mind boggling 1,277.

Many excellent examples of quality assurance framework websites are already in operation on which to model ours and I found the Failte Ireland one particularly impressive. Their words, to me, seem to exactly define the intended purpose ‘working with you, we will ensure that these standards meet consumer expectations, help your marketing efforts and support product development’.

Barbados Government behind two years in paying VAT refunds!

I also believe that it would identify a new source of revenue (especially VAT) that is not currently collected and paid into Government coffers, possibly helping to level a playing field where currently those complying with the rules are in many cases severely disadvantaged. This might even allow the administration to recover sufficient monies to repay small businesses like ours who have not received agreed and due VAT refunds for up to nearly two years.

Government has to realise there is a consequence to this policy. Hotels largely upgrade, maintain and enhance their properties in the quieter summer months, when cash flow is acutely stretched. If the owners feel that do not stand a realistic chance of reclaiming the VAT element payable upfront will be repaid on-time, then they simply won’t embark on those improvements. Plus with our current reduced national credit rating, it is almost inhibitive to borrow money at commercially available interest rates.

While many accept we have a largely ‘tired’ hotel plant it is almost entirely fallacious, especially when the means to correct the problem is being at least partially withheld by the people making that observation.

Why is Dengue Fever up 300% so far this year?

Dengue is serious business, and a secondary infection can be a disaster shutting down the liver or damaging the heart.  That’s serious business alright.

Epidemic Dengue is also serious business when it comes to tourism and the economy.  So what is the government doing about a spectacular 300% increase in cases?

It should be a national emergency, but all I see is the same old, same old.

Arab-Israeli Conflict or Jewish-Muslim Conflict? Whatever it is, can it be solved?

A Barbadian engineer and author proposes some answers
Our blogging friend Grenville Phillips II is a prolific writer and what I’ll call an “activist structural engineer” in the best sense of the term. Whether the subject is the proper installation of rebar when building a home, or politics or religion – he looks at all the factors, identifies the problems, researches and then methodically builds his solutions.  Read anything at his Weighed in the Balance blog and you’ll see proof of that.

But Grenville is also a man with a sense of history and humanity – he’s not just a numbers guy. I think it is the combination of structural engineer, historian and teacher with genuine concern for humanity that makes everything he writes so worthwhile. That, and his talent for being able to present his ideas clearly and simply enough to be understood.

Writing under his nom de plume Walter Phillips, he has published two books…

Solving The Arab-Israeli Conflict, (2009) subtitled “A practical way forward that allows both sides to negotiate a solution in good-faith”and

Brothers Kept Apart (2008) “Compelling and explicit evidence that exposes the myths that have unnecessarily divided Christians and Muslims for the past 1,300 years.”

Time to buy Phillips’ latest book!
For some reason I missed Grenville’s blog post Solving the Arab-Israeli Conflict but after recently coming across it and reading the wonderful discussions he provoked from around the world, I think I have to purchase and read his latest book.

Damn, I hate it when Grenville makes an argument in such a compelling manner that I have to rethink my own perspective! (Just kidding – that’s what I love about life, learning and growing.) - Marcus

PS: If Grenville doesn’t mind, I think we’ll put his blog and books on our banner list.

Barbados Politics: Too Much Confusion, So Much Frustration

Our friend Titilayo runs Gallimaufry*, “A blog about nothing in particular.” This week, SHE (corrected!) sums up the political feelings of many Bajans with his post “Too Much Confusion, So Much Frustration“…

All of which just leaves me shaking my head. As I said, I try not to get tie up with politics, but I found myself unaccountably let down by Mr. Mascoll’s move to the ruling party… I had always thought of him as a man of some integrity, a man who would be directed by principle and not by political expediency. And now, much like Jeannette Layne-Clark, I find myself somewhat dismayed and disappointed.

Gallimaurfry reader Sungoddess commented… “My concern is that there is no real opposition in Barbados. It’s very close to a political dictatorship, because there is no opposing view.”
Yes, indeed, Sungoddess. Yes, indeed.

*Gallimaurfry: A hotchpotch, jumble or confused medley.

Gone Night Tree Fishing In Barbados

Updated – We Are Back – Scroll Down
Up so early and out we go into the night – so no posting today. Maybe late Friday evening if we are not too tired when we get home. I hope those bad charter boys will leave us alone.
Any of our friends care to tell the folks what is “night tree fishing” ?
Marcus

Update: Tree Fishing
So nobody took us up on Tree Fishing… but then I suspect that the penetration of the internet is greater with those who make their life on land as opposed to the sea.

Tree Fishing is a Bajan south-coast term for a technique known in Trinidad as “Table Fishing” or “Log Fishing”. Whatever the name, coastal fisherfolk know that if you go to sea at night, and then toss a large log or tree into the water, you will get fish. A more refined technique has a 5 or 6 foot wooden table top put into the sea. A float is tied on so it can be seen from a distance.

Then, the fisherfolk wait for sunrise. When Mr. Sun comes up, the small fish will stay under the table as protection from the sun, instead of heading to the bottom as they normally do in the daytime.
Stupid fish.

The bigger predators start to come around and viola! … the feeding cycle is artificially raised from the bottom to the surface. Now, the fish gather in one spot near the surface, an they be hungry! Drag your line by the table top and you pickup Kingfish by the dozen – 3 feet, 4 feet, sometimes almost 5 footers.

A good technique – but the fisherfolk hate it when they have been out all night setting up a tree, and then those bad old charter fishing boats come out of Bridgetown and just drag by to steal the fish. Some bad blood and words happen over that.

Theft. Nothing but theft from people who already can make $1000 in one day.
And that is all I will say about them today.