Bdos: Aping the EU

The Barbados Accreditation Council Bill, 2004, adds another tier of bureaucracy for Caribbean nationals simply to function within their own space.

St John MP, David Thompson, voiced this concern yesterday in the House of Assembly while speaking on the First Reading of the Barbados Accreditation Council Bill, 2004.

The former opposition leader said: “In addition to this new bill, the Caribbean national has to get certification from the domestic professional association and apply to the Immigration Department for entry into an island. A Barbadian who is certified by an institution which Barbados accepts may very well find himself having to go through that process 13 more times before he can function within the Caribbean economic space. In my opinion that is total and complete madness. It demonstrates the extent to which we are still bound by very insular feelings.

“There is nothing creative about this bill. There is nothing about this that speaks to making people’s lives easier in the Caribbean. This is just another burden, another restriction, another imposition, another shackle on the citizens of the Caribbean,” Thompson said.

In all things, bureacracy must be the order of the day, especially when it makes our lives difficult.

Let's kill all the lawyers, Shakespeare's character Dick the Butcher says in Henry VI. While I hold no truck with lawlessness, I'm tempted to add "and the bureaucrats, too!"