BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - SINCE the passing of the St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla National Bank (Vesting of Certain Lands) Bill, 2012 on September 21 that made provision for 1 200 acres of land to be swapped for a $900M debt, the opposition has been up in arms about the possible alternative measures that could be used to settle the debt.
When challenged by Hon. Marcella Liburd at a Town Hall Meeting in Cayon on November 1 to "show their solutions" or cease to criticise the government's efforts to reduce the National debt, the opposition intimated that "if the government wants the opposition to deal with the National Debt then they should get out" of office.
The opposition also stated that they would not be giving the government any alternatives.
However, in a post protest rally held last Thursday (Nov. 22), Representative for Constituency Eight Hon. Eugene Hamilton, while addressing protesters, who had gathered on Bank Street, provided two alternatives which he claimed would assist in the reduction of the National Debt.
Hamilton's first alternative was to repay the St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla National Bank through the earnings of the Sugar Industry Diversification Foundation (SIDF).
"When Denzil Douglas agreed to give National Bank the opportunity to form an organisation called SIDF - Sugar Industry Diversification Foundation - formed by National Bank. National Bank is raking in, in the SIDF, hundreds of millions of dollars. I estimate since the formation of SIDF they have raised over $600M. Now if you give SIDF two more years, they can pass $900M...they might even reach one billion.
"Well it seems to me that all Douglas has to do was, rather than give National Bank and SIDF to rake in hundreds of millions, direct all that money into the treasury and then he would have been able to pay National Bank its $900M debt, and all of us would still have our lands.”
Hamilton's second alternative was to allow Social Security to acquire the lands and have the government purchase them from the institution once their finances were in order.
"Social Security is an organisation that has a lot of money in the same National Bank. National Bank uses Social Security money to make millions of dollars of profit every year - let anybody deny that. It could have been easily said that some of the lands could have been purchased by Social Security, because Social Security has long term obligations to its customers.
"Douglas could have let Social Security buy the lands at the regular price and then when government put its finances in good shape, buy it back from Social Security so that you and I would still have our lands."
Hamilton said that those were just two of many alternatives, claiming that the PAM could provide a number of others that would assist in reducing the debt.
"Those are two reasons, two initiatives, two suggestions that I have given that you know would have worked. It is wrong, it is wrong, it is improper for National Bank to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars in SIDF that is going to be spent on places like Kittitian Hill," Hamilton told the protesters.
Hamilton said if the Labour Administration is in government and has no solutions, then they need to relinquish their post and let the PAM take over, adding that they [PAM] are the ones who have alternative measures to giving away the land.
