Opinion: Work permit increase threatens businesses

Alred Frett

By Alred Frett, Contributor

With all the madness, badness and sadness going on throughout the world one can start from any point and still not know just where to begin. Fabrications and denials have become a daily way of life and brand-new societies are based on old racism, segregation, class structure, colonialism and the willingness of slave descendants to ignore, accept and excuse themselves back into slavery.

Slavery is founded on racism and if we ever doubted its existence we just need to read the news and compare Trump and Cosby. While both are accused of disrespect and abuse of women the one with no worthwhile contribution to society is elevated to the White House while the one who gave a life of positives for slave descendants is dragged through courts in their rush towards prison.

I totally oppose sexual molestation. However, facts show Trump openly bragging about his exploits whereas Cosby is accused decades later. In addition, Cosby is claimed to have drugged these females before the act and the sad irony is that the process of ‘drunkening’ (drugging) females to achieve sexual relations has become the accepted norm of modern society.

Again, just like slavery, the accepted norm does not make it right but just like Trump bragged, those in positions of influence tend to feel an unnatural right to do wrong. This would explain the bad laws and policies that serves to destroy growth and harmony within societies and play major roles in turning ordinary citizens into career criminals and radicalizing this and future generations.

Walk a while in your brothers shoes before taking them away

Such scenarios would be painful to anyone who cares about their fellowman and no good leader should fail to fathom the consequences of their actions before acting. They would have a good idea if their actions would cause persons mental, medical, physical or social desperation and better yet, they would have imagined themselves in the same circumstances as those they affect.

Now, ‘Mr or Lady Leader’, what about putting yourself in the shoes of fathers working all-out, seven days a week but still unable to keep up with the bills, or mothers doing multiple jobs at minimum wage and still unable make ends meet? How do you tell these persons that your enormous salary is not enough and you want more so you have decided to take away the little they have?

Compare where we were two decades ago and reason whether your actions and personal greed contributed to effectively desensitizing, radicalizing and criminalizing our society? Don’t you feel accountable for putting good persons to steal from one another, steal from employers, prostitute themselves, destroy their families and hurt and kill one another just to satisfy your personal greed?

Think about the bad laws and policies all around us and I believe you would know the answer. Thus, the bigger question is what will you do to prevent or correct this? A classic example is the unfair increase in work permit fees where Government knew it was wrong and persons believed they cared when they promised to improve the system and claimed to have withdrawn it indefinitely.

They did neither but we appeared so willing to be fooled that we never bothered with the hard facts and overlooked the openly stated intent and desire of these fee increases which was specifically to gather revenues for Government by any means necessary. Perhaps our inaction led leaders to believe no one really cared so they simply laid low until the dust settled – maybe they were right.

Enlightening the children of our children

Nonetheless, today’s youth and future generations will bear the brunt of their actions and they deserve to know how and why their futures are held hostage to leaders using work permit fees as a means of taking food from their mouths and more monies from workers and companies for use and abuse by Government. My explanations are for those disenfranchised children and parents.

Again, this process is primarily a revenue extractor for Government and it is easy to reason that this was made necessary because of the squandering and bad planning and management of the public’s funds. What was not revealed to the people is the projected amount, urgency of the process and intended destinations of these collected funds. These are treated like top secrets.

Nonetheless we would have ideas because we have seen roads and walls built and demolished time after time. We have seen public automation and payroll grow at an alarming rate even as they claim to be under-staffed and unable to function and, just as alarmingly, we have seem those in high offices find devious ways to increase their own pay packages at the expense of the less fortunate.

All of these drain on the budget and carry financial consequences so, short of selling people and national lands there are limited areas from which Government can collect. So far, farming has been crippled, tourism is on life support, and financial services are under terminal threats. The resulting financial vacuums need to be filled if our leaders are to save face and postpone failure.

Subsequently, they have been seeking alternate sources and you may recall their grand claims of the vast resources they would obtain from their ill-advised National Health Insurance scheme. That dream appears to have collapsed and instead of large reserves, NHI appears challenged to pay on time and are already seeking ways to renege on their much promised obligations.

Nonetheless NHI hawks still cherish the desire to destroy local providers and health insurers in the hope that BVIHSA will survive. Meanwhile, even as the coffers grow dry and national debt increases, there is still that dictatorial mentality pushing us further into deficit with unnecessary projects that cannot pay for themselves and will add to future burdens on generations to come.

Not only asses were designed to carry loads

This is not all there is to see but they appear not to care about us mere followers with the slave mentality of ‘going along to get along and the colonial hope that some great god will save us from ourselves’. Maybe our past actions have convinced them that we too dumb to realize that burdens placed on our backs will neither grow less or lighter by us being quiet and standing still.

Failure to fight against unfairness and injustice is an acceptance that your children and their children are not worth the effort. The new cost of work permits is just another brick on the backs of the blacks for while you believe locals do not pay work permits  and these costs will be passed on to clients and companies, you are accepting the likelihood that Local Companies will cease to exist.

This should surprise no one since for decades governments have done little or nothing to ensure the growth and prosperity of BV-Islanders and their businesses. Please refresh your memory how, not so long ago, Government removed all privileges that were provided for local companies thereby effectively giving foreign companies the greater advantage over local businesses.

Are we really created to be footstools of the rich and powerful?

For decades we have been treated like strangers in our own homes and these fees are clearly destined to further increase the salaries of those who would oppress us in their own forms of trumpism or BVI dictatorial democracy. It is one thing to recognize Government’s power to remove or improve this measure but there is no reason for us to be anxious to carry their load.

If basic facts cannot convince you then religion should remind you what happened to King Solomon’s son when he overtaxed the people. He shattered the Kingdom. Unless leaders feel the negative effects of their actions they will grow as millstones around the necks of our people, crime will increase, our standard of living decrease as our Territory become unsustainable.

Our backs are breaking from the strain as our children face futures of hardship and deprivation while leaders are guaranteeing themselves futures of luxuries and pensions. What is good for one should be good for all so just as they have altered the pensions of civil servants at whim, the time has come to see about reducing these golden parachutes they insist on giving themselves.

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