Fellow Citizens and Residents of St. Kitts and Nevis. Brothers and sisters all.
As we come to the close of 2012 and welcome the first rays of sunlight of 2013 we can truly say that we have this past year witnessed a time like no other in our young Nation. The year 2012 is now gone, relegated as it were to the scrap heap of history. It was a year of tremendous calamity for our country. A year of missed opportunities. A year of continued demonstration of poor leadership in Government. By any account, the year on which the sun has now set has been a difficult one for our Nation. Societal and economic ills have continued to plague us, many sadly self created and self inflicted.
I wish brothers and sisters that I could today paint a rosy picture of the past and offer some balm for the immediate future for our battered souls. I wish I could wave a magic wand and in one fell swoop restore the name and image of our Nation to the heights that we once occupied. Alas I am but one man, not ten in one. And I must speak to what I see, what I feel and what the people of this Nation have been experiencing.
In 2012 St Kitts and Nevis for the first time in her history defaulted on her debt. For so many years the warning bells have been ringing. So many have made a frightful clamour about the unprecedented debt levels to which our country had been taken. Throughout the people have been fed a steady diet of empty platitudes and falsehoods. “The debt doesn’t matter” we were told. “It is irrelevant”. “Everybody has debt”. And so our leadership in both St. Kitts and Nevis continued to borrow and continued to spend like drunken sailors on shore leave. And, as if a salve to our collective psyche, we went to bed knowing something was wrong but afraid to confront it, holding fast instead to vacuous assurances from those bent on misleading us.
Then the proverbial bottom fell out of the bucket that was sent to the well once too often. For the first time in our history, the people of St. Kitts and Nevis faced the ignominy of defaulting on payment if its debt. Our Government then told us that it had not defaulted but rather had chosen not to pay. Yet more deception even as St. Kitts and Nevis’ economy imploded and our pride of place in this region as a well run, well managed country evaporated.
Then came the IMF to our shores. Having themselves warned for years about the precipitous path on which our Government had embarked, these bureaucrats from their perch in Washington descended on us, a hitherto Sovereign nation, to dictate to us an austerity programme. Since we had shown ourselves incapable of managing our fiscal affairs, those fiscal affairs would now be dictated by the IMF. 2012 marked the year when the IMF elected no longer to stay at our door but to take up residence in our living rooms, our bedrooms, our kitchens. Of course the deception of our leadership continued. We were told that the austerity pill was not imposed by the IMF; it was homegrown, as if by so saying, the pill would prove any less bitter. And so we got 17% VAT, an 86% increase in electricity charges in St. Kitts, increases in taxes and rates across the board, wage and hiring freezes, increased cost of living and more of our people slipping into poverty.
In addition, our Nation embarked on a much vaunted debt restructuring programme. The narrative went thus: “We have no money to pay bond holders so bond holders must either accept a haircut of 60% or higher in real terms or the St. Kitts Nevis Government will not pay at all”. Bondholders, stuck with the choice of getting 40 cents on the dollar or nothing at all, in the main accepted the 40 cents. Those who refused were forced to accept under the drag along provisions of such restructuring. Local businesses and private individuals were caught. Our Social Security, trustee of our retirement funds, was caught. Our local banks were caught. Regional investors were caught. Even local Churches were caught. None were spared the financial carnage. All had to pay the price of seeing their investment halved to pay for a debt we were repeatedly told did not matter.
But that brothers and sisters was not all. We then saw the tragic policy of swapping land for debt. Some 1200 acres in St. Kitts was bargained away in a single sitting of Parliament. Some 200 acres we are told in Nevis is scheduled to be swapped as well. The Nation was again deceived. “Poof” we were told, “the debt is gone”. What we were not told is that “Poof” the land was also gone. This land for debt swap was perhaps the unkindest cut of all. Coming as it were against a backdrop of our peculiar history of landlessness and the struggles by past leaders to secure land for our people, the alacrity with which our current leadership gladly swapped our patrimony for debt must pain us deeply. But again the deception of our leadership continued. Now we are told that our people will be given first option on the purchase of the 1200 acres. Where will the young man or woman in Cayon, the elderly farmer in Sandy Point, the single mother in Cotton Ground find the money to buy 1200 acres of land or even a portion thereof?
And as 2012 rolled merrily along, Kittitians and Nevisian saw their passport, a badge of their identity, being sold around the world in far flung places such as Pakistan, India, Russia, Lebanon, Nigeria and the oft referred to Dubai. Hundreds of millions of dollars from that sale end up in the SIDF fund, a fund we are told which is private with no oversight or control by our Government. Indeed, when asked in Parliament, our leadership could not even tell the Nation how many economic passport applications had been received or processed or how much money sat in SIDF accounts around the world. St. Kitts and Nevis it seems no longer merely has an Executive branch, a Legislative branch and a Judicial branch. We now have a fourth and extremely powerful branch of Government called the SIDF which miraculously has hundreds of millions of dollars of private funds from the sale of a public asset, our citizenship. And to make the St Kitts Nevis passport even more appealing to our new wave of citizens, our leadership has conveniently removed any reference to a person’s place of birth on our passport. So if you are from St. Peters or Hanley’s Road or from Iran or Iraq, it really makes no difference anymore. To the world we are all the same. We are all Kittitians and Nevisians.
And so alas, 2012 will go down in history as the year the proverbial chickens, born of reckless fiscal policies, had come home to roost. St. Kitts and Nevis, that once majestic ocean liner sailing on this azure Caribbean Sea had been reduced to the region’s poster child of what NOT to do in managing the fiscal affairs of a Nation. And all the while our leadership maintained that if it had the chance to do it all again it would do the same. A more crass celebration of failure and mediocrity is difficult to imagine.
Indeed, our Federation also made legal history in 2012 which saw the unprecedented decisions of the High Court and the Court of Appeal seeking to right the ship of democracy after it had been hijacked by pirates posing as leaders in Nevis. The Judge at first instance proved mild compared to the views of the Judges at the Court of Appeal. The Government in Nevis lost every single point argued, the election in St. John was declared null and void, and a Premier and his deputy were both castigated as being guilty of misconduct and bad faith.
The region and the world looked on in astonishment at how men desperate for power had set out on a diabolical mission to deny their own people their fundamental right to vote. The Supervisor of Elections resigned in disgrace. The Registration Officer at the epicenter of this scandal resigned in disgrace. The NRP’s deputy leader who once held the high office of Deputy Premier too resigned in disgrace. Individual reputations were destroyed but more importantly, our democracy was left battered and bruised in the streets of Charlestown. To date there has been no apology from any of the actors, no condemnation from any of our leaders in Government. The deception has merely continued.
But 2012 was not yet done with us. We saw our best athlete and best hope for a medal at the London Olympics, Kim Collins, banned from competing, a saga played out in the world’s Media to the shame and chagrin of our Nation. 2012 saw for the first time an Embassy opened in Dubai with naked nepotism as the only guide and without the knowledge of the responsible Minister. 2012 saw our Deputy Prime Minister being denied access to the national broadcasting station ZIZ to address the Nation unless his speech was vetted by someone selected and not elected. 2012 saw serious rifts in the Cabinet of our Government being laid bare for the public to see and acolytes of the leader of our Nation being let loose to attack and disparage our most senior Ministers. Reason brothers and sisters had surely fled to brutish hearts.
And yet 2012 was not yet done with us. We see Nevisians being forced back to the polls in a General Election as opposed to a by-election to fill the St. Johns seat. We saw the Nevis Island Assembly being dissolved without any date being fixed for an election, another first in our history. Indeed, even as I speak, the date for Nevis’ election is still being closely guarded by those whose fear of the electorate caused them to disenfranchise large portions of the electorate.
And still 2012 continued. As the rancour within the Government ranks reached a crescendo, 2012 saw the historic filing of a Motion of No Confidence in the leadership of St. Kitts and Nevis. Since that filing, the Nation has seen every contortion imaginable from a leadership now afraid to enter the halls of the National Parliament. From the Speaker’s sudden illness to the cancellation of the Budget debate to rumblings about the Motion having to wait; it must be clear to all that the current leadership of our Nation is afraid to enter the halls of our Parliament to do the people’s business. And so, in a move reminiscent of 1993, we have heard calls of incitement and talk of blood, desperate cries from a leadership that has overstayed its welcome and is now long past its sell by date.
And so what, in this 2012 might we have looked back on with some fondness? Perhaps we should celebrate the fact that our murder rate dropped by nearly 50% albeit still unacceptably high. We do not know if we can celebrate an overall drop in crime as statistics now are hidden from our Media and our public. Yet, we thank as we must our Police and security forces for their work in difficult circumstances over the past year.
May the tremendous drop in the murder rate for 2012 spur them to even greater efforts to restore our homes and our communities to the bastions of peace that they once were.
Perhaps we should look back with some fondness at the dignified manner in which His Excellency Sir Cuthbert Sebastian served this Nation as Governor General over the past 17 years and celebrate that his service was one untainted with the scandals of the executive branch of Government.
We must celebrate and congratulate our youths who have excelled in school and in particular the State Scholar for 2012 young Tishana Hazel. Her remarkable academic feats are to be admired and should inspire her peers and us as a people.
We should definitely celebrate the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court for its independence and courage displayed in seeking to restore democracy in Nevis and defying those in high office who sought to destroy our democracy. Our Court continues to demonstrate that it is our only bulwark against oppression and tyranny. Our people should be rightly proud of the independence of our judiciary as it safeguards our collective rights as a people.
So with the turmoil in our country in 2012 what lessons have we learnt? What new resolve must we now fashion? I confess a certain tiredness of spirit that has gripped me. I am tired of a country where we see wrong and say nothing. Where our leaders in Government perpetuate wrong with impunity. Where our civil society is beholden to one side or the other while the country disintegrates. Where even our Churches are silent and our people afraid to speak.
If tyranny has reared its ugly head in our Nation, it is us the people who have allowed it to take root and have watered it with our apathy and our appeasement. It must therefore be for us, all of us, to uproot it.
We face an island election in Nevis shortly. Pundits say we shall soon face a national election in St. Kitts and Nevis as well. It is therefore for you the people to determine where you wish to see this country go. Do we stay on the same path or do we change course? Do we continue to appease badness or do we finally stand up? Do we want the old tired leadership of confrontation and empty bombast or do we wish to usher in a new dawn for our Nation?
We, each of us, all of us must look back on 2012 and ask: What have we done that we can do better? To what extent were we held accountable for our actions or inaction? How have we treated our families and our neighbours? How have we helped or hurt our country?
Each of us must face these choices and make decisions for ourselves. I believe that change in the New Year must come if we are to survive and have a fresh start at nation building. I believe that change must come to our hearts and our minds if we are to fashion a Nation of which we can all once again be proud. I believe that the tumult and upheaval of 2012 should never ever be allowed to happen in our country again. I believe that we, all of us, should hold ourselves and each other accountable. Change is constant. Without it, we will become extinct. Our people will be called upon in 2013 to make some major decisions about the future direction of St. Kitts and Nevis. Whatever those decisions, the voice of the people must remain the voice of God.
What then is left for us as we emerge into the glorious dawn of 2013? I believe that what is left is our deep reservoir of hope. I am comforted in the truism that no journey to the achievement of anything worthwhile has ever been easy. Rosa Parks sat on a bus. Dr. Martin Luther King marched. Both did so in the sweltering heat of racial oppression in America. Today America celebrates its first 2 term black President. Our Nation now needs our Rosa Parks, our Martin Luther Kings, our Nelson Mandelas to rise up and be counted. Courage and hope must spring from every village and hamlet in our country, from every organization, in our homes and our schools, in our pulpits and our pews. No matter the difficulty, no matter the hardship, we as a people must hold fast to hope and our desire for a better Nation.
Whether we live on the lowlands of Basseterre or the mountains of Rawlins, my message to our people in this tumultuous time is one of the elixir of hope, hope in the face of adversity, hope in the presence of change, hope in the underlying courage of our people.
And as we embrace hope let us also embrace prayer. Let us never forget the ever present grace of Almighty God who continues to be with us at all times. Hope without faith is dead. Faith without hope is meaningless. Together, faith and hope are an unstoppable force for good and a compelling prescription for change.
Let us therefore brothers and sisters vow never to repeat the mistakes of 2012 while being ever grateful for the Grace of God which has brought us thus far. Let us try harder in this New Year to be the best that we can be as a people. Let us rekindle that love for each other and that love for our country. Let us put our hands to the plough and our shoulders to the wheel as we work together to restore our Nation to its former glory.
My brothers and sisters I wish you Gods grace and his abiding mercy as I extend New Year greetings to all of you from my family and me. May God bless you and may God continue to bless the Nation of St. Kitts and Nevis.
