BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – FORMER Minister of Government G.A. Dwyer Astaphan surmised that the recently-formed Government of National Unity would need more than one term to undo wrongs that were left by the former Administration which had served the country for 20 years.
Astaphan – Co-founder of a political activism group Operation Rescue – recently spoke with SKNVibes and explained his view that the Unity Administration has a hefty task ahead of it and, while it has already begun making considerable strides, there is far more work to be done.
“Remember you have a new Administration in office that, first of all, has to get its hands firmly on the wheel to understand what is happening. It has to do an audit comprehensively to find out what it is it has inherited. It has to arrest and reverse a lot of the wrongs that were done over the 20-year period that accrued before it came into office.”
Several people have complained – whether by comments on this site, calling in to local radio programmes or via social media – that certain processes, especially those relating to promises made by Team Unity, are taking too long to come to fruition.
But according to Astaphan, the corrective processes take longer than destructive processes.
“It has to introduce its plans and policies and programmes, it has to be the cheerleader if you will, and the leader in nurturing a new attitude and general cultural outlook in the country. It’s a lot of things and fixing always takes longer than destroying.”
He however gave credit to the Government for the strides it has made thus far.
“Five years is not a long time…So it would be unfair to them or to ourselves to expect that they can provide a complete and comprehensive turnaround of this country in five years time. It is not realistic but they can do an awful lot and they have done quite a bit in their first eight weeks in office. Still a lot to be done!”
