BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – PRIME MINISTER the Rt. Hon. Dr. Denzil L. Douglas said blame for the burdensome national debt under the weight of which the Federation’s back is bent is to be laid at no one’s feet, as everyone has benefitted therefrom.
The question of responsibility for the debt was posed to Dr. Douglas on Tuesday (Jan. 8) by a caller to his ‘Ask the PM’ radio programme.
“I don’t believe that you can blame anyone. There’s no one really to blame. The country has gone through a period of infrastructural development and human resource development and it cost money to do that.”
The Minister of Finance elucidated that the government’s borrowing of money was necessary in order to enhance quality of the life for the people of St. Kitts and Nevis.
“The government borrowed money in order to be able to improve the quality of life of the people of St. Kitts and Nevis. We borrowed money to provide improvement in roads, improvement in our infrastructure generally, airport, seaport, houses. We had to make sure that proper roads were in place. We had to make sure that our health centre and our hospital in particular – which was destroyed by hurricane – that it had to be rebuilt.
“The government took a decision, a deliberate decision at a time after being devastated by hurricane, to rebuild the country’s infrastructure and not allow it to remain in a state of disrepair and tax our people in order just to rebuild over a long period of time.
“In fact, the money that we have borrowed, all of the money that we have borrowed that is part of the national debt was pumped back into the economy of St. Kitts and Nevis. So everybody benefitted.”
