By James Milnes Gaskell
Two of my causes featured in politicians speeches last week.
On April 21st SKN Vibes ran my article about Lyndeta Martin, Double Deuce, Newfound and this and the previous Administration. I was interested to find that Mr. Brantley on his ‘On the Mark’ programme adopted much of what I had written. Both of us say that Lyndeta was induced by the CCM Administration to establish a beach restaurant and bar on Pinneys adjacent to the Pinneys Beach Hotel, on the expectation of security of tenure. Both say that it would be unfair and unfortunate if the current registered owner Newfound Pinneys Ltd. were permitted to evict Lyndeta. Although we may agree thus far, he uses the situation to suggest incompetence, blame and bad faith on the part of the NRP Administration. Whereas I say that the CCM Administration should not have sold out the Pinneys Estate, and within it Lyndeta’s Double Deuce site, to Newfound without securing Lyndeta’s position when they had induced her to spend money on and develop the site. I have to concede that when the current Administration re-negotiated the Newfound deal they could and should have sought to protect her position. Notwithstanding the aggressive tenor of the Administration’s legal pleadings, I understand that they have asked for negotiations with Newfound. Good political and electoral sense demands that the Administration exerts itself to ensure the continuance of Double Deuce. They have simply to do what is fair and not rely upon legal technicalities to absolve them from their responsibility, and as I said in my article, ‘More about Elections’ still on SKN Vibes, ‘Standing up for this Nevisian business would earn respect and much needed support’. The converse is also the case. This seems to me to be one of the easier tasks now confronting our Government.
Occasionally I watch a part of the programme ‘In touch with the Premier’. I was somewhat surprised but of course gratified to hear lavish praise of the efforts of Hastings Daniel, Mark Roberts and myself to improve the quality of school meals. More of that in a while, but first I must return the compliment. It is clear to me that this island is in a perilous precarious financial position. How far this is understood and appreciated overall is hard to assess. On the screen we see an obviously intelligent and sincere man, patently trying his best in measured tones to outline and explain various situations of importance. Let me mention one of these situations. Much has been made on Mark Brantley’s Wednesday programme of the Premier saying that if the Four Seasons does not re-open ‘Dog dead with Nevis’. This was in the context of a statement that he was doing all he could to ensure the re-opening and that he hoped and expected that it would come about. Does it matter that that Nevisian expression was used? We all know that it means that if Four Seasons fails to re-open our serious financial position would then be one of extreme gravity affecting everyone. In another country a politician might say, “We are in the soup”, or “we are done for”, or “we might go under”. If the Premier thought he needed a colourful expression to bring home to the people what might happen in our country, surely he should use it. We are told that Four Seasons accounts for an incredible forty percent of our Gross National Product. To lose this for two years is a tragedy, to lose it for good is a calamity. If Mark Brantley acknowledges or praises any actions of this Administration, you can be sure that a few sentences later he will qualify that approval. He commended Mr. Parry’s efforts to have Four Seasons back in operation, but then said that what he had done should not be over emphasized. The fact is that the Premier did all he could. A Court in the State of Delaware, had jurisdiction to decide the status of the legal owner of the land on which rests the Nevis Four Seasons. It involved a question of the possible bankruptcy of that owner. To get Four Seasons back into business at the earliest date, the bankruptcy application had to be successfully resisted. Some weeks ago it was put to me by a former Vice President of the Four Seasons main board, that if the Premier could tell the judge the part Four Seasons played in our economy and the sad position of those who depended upon it, that this might sway the Court. Although the Premier did not go himself, this is probably what happened, as he sent a representative to put our island’s situation before the Delaware Court. The Court dismissed the bankruptcy application. I think that this was the first opportunity open to the Premier to influence in any way what was to happen to our major hotel. He could have decided that there was no point in trying to prompt and persuade a Court in the USA. Instead, he acted, and we have the required result. Generous unqualified appreciation from the Opposition in this kind of situation would be more seemly and less divisive. This Court ruling does not tell us when this great hotel will again play an important part in our lives, but, as I understand it and in the absence of an appeal, it removes the legal road blocks, and makes an early re-opening more likely.
The job of Premier and Minister of Finance in our island, at a time of recession and breakdown in revenue, provides no easy choices for the Minister. You can either borrow and borrow and try to continue as best you may your intended programmes, or you have to try to cut your expenses, the civil service and its pay, and your various social programmes in education, health, public works etc. Some on the CCM side would say that you should cut the Commission of Inquiry (for which they have invented a cost of EC$9 million). I would reply, that we have lately heard from Carlisle Powell on the Government side that the Nevis Housing & Land Development Corporation had a deficit of over EC$50 million when the NRP Administration entered office, and that we have apparently also heard from ex Premier Amory that his CCM Administration handed over the NHLDC with a profit of EC$20 million. We, the voters need to have confidence that our monies are being properly spent and properly accounted for. A declared disparity of EC$70 million requires an impartial investigation of its own.
I return to the second of my two causes, that of the improvement in school meals. Due to the Administration ‘s excellent choice for Director of School Meals, Earlene Maynard, an inspirational and knowledgeable educator, the programmes for the five schools in the system are running nicely, but we cannot afford to get stuck there. The kitchen at the Charlestown Primary School is that of a small house, and it was never intended to be somewhere from which 350 – 400 students and teachers could be fed. That School has to have a purpose built kitchen. We have talked about it for long enough. The Ministry has architectural drawings for what would be a satisfactory kitchen. It would be the first professional built from scratch school kitchen. It has been designed and amended from drawings of a prize winning school kitchen. It would be a first class kitchen for preparation and provision of 400 school lunches using locally grown and raised ingredients. There is space in which to teach children to cook. It would be used for refresher courses for cooks from other schools. It could play a part in Government functions. If we are to progress to the next stage we have to have it. That it has not already begun, is, I surmise, due to a shortage of Government funds. For me it is an absolute priority, because it is only when children learn what proper, palatable nutritious food is, and learn to cook it, that we have a chance for the future to get away from ever growing numbers of obese and diabetics and the morbidities that each one carries. Did you hear the Premier mention that there are now eight and nine-year-old diabetics in our community? It is not their fault but it is due to ignorance and the lack of the kind of school kitchen facilities and practical programmes to go with them. If it is indeed a shortage of Government funds that has failed to move our kitchen off the drawing board I wonder if Mr. Brantley could get the necessary funding from The Windsong Trust, which he says is going to provide money under his direction for education in Nevis?
Education in schools is for life after school. There is nothing a human being needs more than the ability to maintain him/herself physically. And our children do not have a blue or a green digestive system. They have that of the universal child, and they are our responsibility.
