The most important intangible ingredient required for Barbados’ economic recovery is confidence.

Confidence among investors, entrepreneurs and the private sector as a whole in the country’s future.

It was therefore required of Opposition Leader Owen Arthur, as featured speaker on Wednesday at the Barbados Chamber of Commerce & Industry’s monthly luncheon, that he convince the business community that he would be able to bring back confidence in Barbados’ economy.

He needed to convince any doubters that his retaking of the reins of government, if so elected to do, would create a climate of confidence through a combination of spending cuts and economic initiatives to regain a competitive edge for Barbados’ in a turbulent global marketplace.

Mr. Arthur, in our view, accomplished the task - with flying colours. 

It was so obvious that the person on the podium was the man for the times that one member of the audience almost called him Mr. Prime Minister.

Mr. Arthur created confidence in himself as a once and future prime minister by couching his speech in almost professorial tones, never once directly attacking the present government or any of its ministers, but instead diagnosing the ailments of the patient and his prescriptions for cure. At the same time he advised that feeling sorry for oneself was not part of the solution, and opined that there was plenty we could do to select and create a new niche for our economy, mainly based on modernising the offshore sector and going after high-end tourism.

The result was spell-binding. There can now be no room for doubt that Owen Arthur remains unsurpassed in his ability to analyse and offer solutions to Barbados’ ongoing fiscal crisis. 

Just three weeks ago, the present finance minister,Chris Sinckler, said he was going to “stay the course” with his dreadful initiative-sapping policies, designed to extract the maximum penalty out of taxpayers, in an effort to rake in more funds to meet his government’s commitments.

Mr. Arthur repeatedly made it clear Thursday that spending cuts and economic reform, while absolutely necessary, had to be complemented with actions taken to grow the economy in a holistic and wide-ranging way.

When pressed three weeks ago, all Mr. Sinckler could do was recite a laundry list of projects in various stages as anecdotal evidence that investment was taking place.

Earlier this week, Standard & Poor’s, while keeping our national debt rated as investment grade, lowered its outlook from stable to negative in yet another body blow to the present government’s fiscal policies.

We have said before that Mr. Sinckler is one of the brightest minds we have serving the country today. But in recent months he has seemed unable or unwilling to adapt to circumstances. It cannot be all his fault.

He appears to be unaided by the prime minister, who has not yet gotten around to making any meaningful contribution to solving our fiscal problems, and a Cabinet that seems even more out of touch with fiscal matters than Mr. Stuart, which is really saying something.

As a result, Mr. Arthur has been able to position himself as the person the country is turning to for his successful track record, experience and political savvy on how to take Barbados out of what he described Thursday as its “economic morass.” He enhanced his image as the man waiting in the wings to once more confidently take centre stage at a time of great economic peril for the country.

Bringing the business community on board required him to show that he is still at the height of all his intellectual powers, and he did just that on Thursday with consummate ease.

His audience stayed longer than they have done for most other speakers in our memory and as they finally headed back to the office, the veteran politician was seen still holding forth to a wide circle of persons, discussing the urgent issues of the day.