By G.A. Dwyer Astaphan
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Since the elections eight months ago, the mood in the country has taken a negative turn.
And here are some of the reasons for that.
People are feeling the grim reality of:
1. spiraling debt;
2. cost of living issues;
3. growing disappointment, frustration and anger among denied home seekers;
4. job layoffs, joblessness, and business closures present and anticipated;
5. the specter of ongoing (perhaps worsening) crime;
6. below-par infrastructure (as Hurricane Earl exposed);
7. a stay-over tourism sector which cannot seem to get its head above the water, although reports indicate that, in general, Caribbean tourism has now pulled out of the recession, as places like the Bahamas, Cuba, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, St. Maarten, St. Lucia, Barbados, and others keep posting good results; and
8. more and more talk of misuse and abuse of public office, and of nepotism and corruption.
Further, people are anxious about VAT, its timing and the manner in which it is being thrust upon them, as well as other taxes which are coming, and which will place an even heavier load on a struggling society and an economy which has been shrinking over the past two years.
And to cap it all off, there is a growing perception (among Labourites and others alike) of a leader who is deceitful, manipulative, disrespectful of the law and of people, unable or unwilling to provide good and transparent governance, arrogant, dictatorial, inefficient, and the main cause of these severe challenges that we are experiencing in St. Kitts & Nevis.
And make no mistake about it, the hope, the dreams, the delusions and the illusions that were deliberately and strategically planted in the minds of voters, especially the younger ones, in the elections of 25th January, 2010, while critical in helping the Prime Minister succeed in maintaining his choke-hold on power, have, to a large extent, now evaporated and have been displaced by growing distrust, frustration, disappointment, cynicism and anger.
A lot of people feel that they and the country have fallen victim to an historic con job by the Prime Minister.
And while his friends at the British firm, Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL), who, according to St. Vincent & The Grenadines Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, have as their principal business “the art and science of mind bending”, achieved their goal, St. Kitts & Nevis people are outraged.
With specific reference to SCL, more and more citizens and residents are asking, and they have the right to know the truth, if the US$2 million, or whatever the amount was, that was paid to SCL for its services to the Labour Party in the last elections was in fact money that rightly belonged to of the people of St. Kitts & Nevis.
And this question has now been taken up elsewhere in the region.
In an open letter to the people of the Caribbean dated August 24th, 2010, Prime Minister Gonsalves said:
“I have been advised that in another Caribbean country, a foreign entity with the exclusive right to sell that country’s passports and citizenship financed SCL to run the recent campaign of a political party in that country. This must be a matter of great concern to the Caribbean people.”
If this story about the US$2 million (or whatever other sum) of what should have been the people’s money being used to fund a re-election bid is true, then a major, major sin has been committed against the people of this country.
And quite apart from anything else, if the story is true, that and that alone would be more than sufficient reason for the people to send Dr. Douglas home.
Remember, taxpayers’ money is taxpayers’ money! It’s not money which a Prime Minister, a Government or any other person is free to use or direct or redirect willy-nilly. And it is money which is vitally needed to improve health awareness so that all of this diabetes, HIV, hypertension, and cancer might be reduced; to help the schools; to improve electricity and road services; to fortify the national security agencies; to step up our food production and processing capacity; to pay down the national debt which has gone through the roof under Dr. Douglas’ stewardship; and generally to stimulate and stabilize our society and our economy.
This matter needs to be inquired into by the local, regional and international media and by the general public. It cannot be swept under the carpet. It provides a defining moment for the people of this country, for us to decide what type of leadership we want and deserve, what type of society we want to be, and perhaps most importantly, what type of legacy we want to leave for future generations.
Let’s look at some other situations. I do so only to fortify the argument that Dr. Douglas needs to go.
He has a friend who owes $1 million to a Government entity, but that entity is impotent to collect it. That $1 million is one-tenth of the amount of money that the Port Authority is borrowing to pay off the 150 workers who it is now sending home.
The Port cannot get its money from him, so it has to borrow that $1 million, plus $9 million more, to pay off the workers who are being sent home. He is more important than the Port, and more important than the 150-plus workers who are being laid off. If he had paid, some might have kept their jobs.
In fact, he is more important than the 45,000 of us because that $1 million could also have been used towards the purchase of a scanner and or other security and surveillance equipment at the Port, thereby providing us with better protection against the guns, ammunition and other contraband that are entering the country.
The same friend also owes over $200,000.00 to second Government entity and over $250,000.00 to a third Government entity. That $450,000.00 could have been used to make the Coast Guard vessels (and their crews and all of us) safer, or to finish the Dieppe Bay Police Station (have you seen it recently?), or to start upgrading or building another Police Station, or to improve our Fire or Prison services, or to help build the Juvenile Home which has been on stream for the last ten years (thereby protecting these youngsters from Prison and from becoming hardened criminals).
But that’s not all.
How is the friend ‘punished’ for his failure to pay his debts to all of the people of this country who Dr. Douglas swore on oath to faithfully and honourably serve and protect?
He gets a taxi certificate and concession on duty for one or two vehicles, again, under the approving eye of his friend, the Prime Minister, depriving the people of another much needed $50,000.00 to $100,000.00 which could have been used to keep the Springfield Cemetery, where we all have loved ones, looking clean and presentable.
And still there is more, because it is said that the friend owes just about everybody in town, and that there are judgment debts out against him, but that nobody can take him in and enforce those judgments.
What is that other than corruption and abuse and misuse of power? Isn’t that disrespect for the people of this country and for the sacred trust of high office and responsibility?
So how can the Prime Minister now tell the people of this country that in order to avert economic disaster, he now has to introduce new taxes, when he is compromising the Government’s capacity to collect revenue by allowing his friends to get away with not paying taxes and on top of that granting them duty-free concessions left, right and centre?
Clearly, the Prime Minister’s major interests and priorities are not the same as ours. What is fun to the butcher is death to the cow, and he is the butcher and we the cow. That can’t work!
And, I would bet that if the people of this country were to see the list of persons who have gotten vehicles and other things duty free, they would run Dr. Douglas out of office in a heartbeat. Freeness and nepotism!
I doubt he would be as generous with his own resources.
Meanwhile, other friends in places, high and low, both in the public and private sectors, are doing as they like, and nobody can touch them. Rules don’t apply to them. There are those who are getting sweetheart and exclusive deals that offend every tenet of transparency, decency, democracy and good governance.
Some of them are doing things that would make the notorious cricket match-fixing criminals in India look like saints. Well that can’t work. There must be consequences, and if he is allowing it to happen, then he must bear those consequences.
The ‘system’ of governance in the public service is too much based on the person of the Prime Minister. Supervisors and managers have no real authority, news carrying and intrigue are the order of the day, standards and discipline are unsatisfactory, and the Public Service Commission is basically impotent.
And while friends are getting away with murder in this reign of inequity, little, 100-square feet shops at the airport are on the verge of closing down, reporting sales of EC$35.00 a day (if they’re lucky), and having to pay $1,700.00 a month rent; people are having their electricity turned off; and honest, hard-working people with children can’t get land or homes, or assistance from certain public sector institutions. Yet friends of the Prime Minister walk in on a phone call and get what they want.
And after he has so grossly mismanaged the finances of the country and messed up just about everything else, after he prioritizes the interests of himself and his friends over those of the country, so that our national security, our infrastructure and our patrimony are compromised, and after taxpayers’ money (if that is in fact what has happened) is converted to some other private use, then what is to come of the people of this country?
So what conclusion can people reasonably and justly reach other than that the Prime Minister has to go?
Look at how his acolytes and attack dogs are so busy trying to discredit and embarrass Dr. Timothy Harris who is a member of Cabinet! Look at what they’re doing to him! And make no mistake, they can’t be doing it on their own. Dr. Douglas doesn’t want Dr. Harris. He wants Nigel Carty to be the next Prime Minister.
So the attack dogs have been ‘hootsed’ on the man from Tabernacle.
What is that?!
Dr. Harris is at least as qualified as Dr. Douglas to be Prime Minister. Indeed, in the minds of a growing number of people in this country, and abroad, Dr. Douglas has lost his qualification.
The ship has run aground. The captain needs to go. And his entourage of acolytes, sycophants and opportunists need to go with him.
