BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - AMIDST fears that we must tighten our belts ‘one more hole’, we must also know that we have within us the ability to take our country forward in the year 2012.
This media house prays that we will find the way, the strength of purpose and the persistence to keep reaching for excellence in every endeavour we pursue.
To do this, it is obvious that we must leave behind the thoughts, the envy, the greed and the egos that clutter our thinking, make our progress sluggish and inhibit us from reaching common goals that will benefit all.
St. Kitts and Nevis have now become notorious for the extreme polarisation we practice in our society. But in the past year we have become a confused society not knowing what to believe because of the mixed messages we constantly receive.
We should never have to choose whom to believe and what to believe and we should never have to be floundering when it comes to finding out the truth.
If we cannot separate truth from spin, we will never know whether we are building the foundation for progress on sand or solid rock.
Even now, thinkers in St. Kitts Nevis who desire to be impartial, go about in a fog of confusion with regard to these matters:
• Electricity – why are our rates so much higher while service becomes so much poorer?
• Bond payments – did we or did we not default on our bond payments?
• Electoral reform – was the review of the electoral list to enable us to register where we now live? Is the division of the country into constituencies now obsolete?
• Nevis elections – what is the purpose of having outside observers if our leaders ignore their pronouncements or confess to not having read them months after they have been circulated?
• Social Security Fund – why do we keep getting statements of efficiency and effectiveness of the Fund’s administration when the facts surrounding the Beacon Heights* Project fail to support the truth of the statements?
• National Honours – isn’t the Government making a mockery of talk of unity and abandonment of polarisation when year after year the list of honourees undoubtedly reflects polarisation?
• Kim Collins – why is it that the one person who has brought most fame to St. Kitts on the global stage has not been given the highest honour and cannot even be found on the New Year’s honours list?
• Is Integrity in Public Life legislation good or bad for the country?
It is quite possible that there are simple explanations for the confusion that abounds in these matters but until plausible explanations are given, we will be fooling ourselves that we are serious about escalating progress.
Kim Collins and our youth in Sports, in Pageantry, in Education, in Community Spirit and in the Parliamentary Association Group have shown us the excellence we possess within us which puts us on par with or better than our global counterparts.
Let us not, as adults, put stumbling blocks in their pathway which will keep them at a level of mediocrity, but let us be so exemplary in the conducting of our affairs that we enable them to blaze a trail to the stars.
Yes, we can....let us in this New Year show that we can. HAPPY NEW YEAR St. Kitts and Nevis! The sky should be our limit!
*Error in putting Beaumont instead of Beacon in first posing is regrettable. Apologies if any inconvenience caused.
