BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – FORMER Junior Finance Minister in the PAM Administration and Operation Rescue’s member, Richard Caines is calling on the residents of Cayon and its surrounding areas not to support a Chinese restaurant, which he claimed would soon be established within that community.
He made the call last Tuesday evening (Oct. 6) on WINN FM during his social watchdog group’s weekly talk show programme, ‘The Operating Room’.
Caines was at the time highlighting the comparison Canada-based Kittitian-born Anthony ‘Tony’ Ross Q.C. made between that North American country and the Federation concerning the status of immigrants.
He stated that there is need for the immigration regulations in St. Kitts and Nevis to be enforced more rigidly, noting that “we are at a point in our country where we must think seriously about the things happening around us”.
Caines claimed that unlike Canada, people are coming into the Federation from all parts of the globe and given jobs that could be done by nationals.
He also stated that though the Labour Commissioner does not issue work permits, he is calling on him to look into the matter, because “there must be some leverage in law that says who can work and who can’t”.
In addition to work permit, Caines said he has a problem with the authorities issuing licences for businesses, especially supermarkets, which could be established by nationals.
“We have businesses in St. Kitts and they are businesses that can be done by local persons. I was a minister of government. I was in the Ministry of Finance for 15 years and I could tell you that people would come there wanting business licence to do things in St. Kitts that we were doing already. No licence would have ever been issued to anyone to put up a supermarket. What suspicion about that, what are you contributing? But we blame our people because they don’t see it.”
To lend credence to the stand he took in the past and still takes today, the former Government Minister stressed that Chinese business owners in the Federation are not charitable, and to prove or disprove his perception, he suggested that nationals should approach them for donations for a worthy cause, including health issues.
Caines claimed that a new Chinese supermarket would soon be established in Cayon and he believes that the licence was not issued by the Team Unity Administration.
“I don’t think that the government I supported to be in office will issue licence for persons to come from China to set up a supermarket in St. Kitts, but I am hearing that a supermarket going in Cayon now.
“I am not going to say what my own reaction is going to be, but to my brothers and sisters out there, I will say to you…be careful. Think in terms of all the little shops, starting with Joe Mike all the way up top and you go down to the bottom by Grant and all the other people…all of these mom and pop shops, as we call them. The whole stock, you can walk in there and buy off their stock, but that’s alright, that’s our custom.”
He referenced names of individuals, including Charlie Daniel, whose business had started at that level but progressed to become striving entities, and also others such as McDougal “who is still out there with his little thing”.
Caines also mentioned the vast amount of Chinese businesses in Basseterre and noted that they have spread as far as St. Paul’s, Newton Ground, Sandy Point and Old Road as well as New Road where a supermarket was recently established.
Reflecting on the past, Caines said one could no longer see many locally-established small businesses because they were forced into extinction by the Chinese.
“When you go out now what will you find? A Chinese shop set up! Is it that you only could eat Chinese food or products that Chinese selling? I have said already that I will eat grass before I buy from them. I’ll go and cut grass and eat it. I am not going to buy from them and I don’t think that it is unreasonable for me to say what I am saying because we are Kittitians and Nevisians.
“And so what happens in this country? What about our fundamental rights, our right to work, our right to life? Aren’t these worth anything at all? So you are going to tell me somebody is going to set up and all of us going to find ourselves to become customers of theirs?”
The social commentator claimed that the supermarket would be established in Lower Cayon in proximity of the Cayon Police Station and is calling on residents of that community not to support the entity.
