BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - IT stopped deliberations in the National Assembly; it decreases the level of productivity in many business houses; it destroys carefully prepared plans for each day; it creates homework problems for those students doing research; it delays the smooth completion of household tasks – cooking, washing, cleaning.
It has a serious effect on those whose medication must be refrigerated; television viewing is abruptly brought to an end; a hot day becomes suffocating without fans and air conditioning; important tools cannot be used; it is playing havoc with appliances and computerized technology and yes, it is causing a great deal of frustration and outrage.
Power outages have now become a daily and sometimes twice daily occurrence. Why? And while speculation abounds, the population of St. Kitts needs to know why in this modern age it has to be subjected so regularly to this quality of life.
No one can say the situation is improving; the question being asked is how much worse must it get before it is realized that this is a crisis!
It is now time to engage “a Pied Piper” as they did in Hamlin. And those of you who are not familiar with that story, the excerpt of this poem will remind you of the tale where a town was so overcome with rats that it well nigh caused a riot! It had become unbearable.
“Rats!
They fought the dogs and killed the cats,
And bit the babies in the cradles,
And ate the cheeses out of the vats,
And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladle's,
Split open the kegs of salted sprats,
Made nests inside men's Sunday hats,
And even spoiled the women's chats
By drowning their speaking
With shrieking and squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats.
At last the people in a body
To the town hall came flocking:
"'Tis clear," cried they, 'our Mayor's a noddy;
And as for our Corporation--shocking
To think we buy gowns lined with ermine
For dolts that can't or won't determine
What's best to rid us of our vermin!
You hope, because you're old and obese,
To find in the furry civic robe ease?
Rouse up, sirs! Give your brains a racking
To find the remedy we're lacking,
Or, sure as fate, we'll send you packing!"
From “The Pied Piper of Hamlin” by Robert Browning
We are respectfully asking the ‘powers that be’ to give their brains a racking to find the remedy we are lacking’
Nowhere in the world do people take kindly to increased rates for poorer service.
And while we are on this ‘problem solving’ super conference, remember we also have a reputation to sustain when our Commonwealth delegations arrive here next month from all over the world. We may have to rethink holding that Opening Ceremony at Brimstone Hill.
