BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – IN response to comments made by Cedric Liburd about his political opponent’s failure to cater to the needs of his constituents, the Hon. Eugene Hamilton - Parliamentary Representative for Constituency Number Eight – has defended his performance and strongly suggested that Liburd should count and enjoy his blessings and simply “shut up”.
In an interview with this publication – from which an article was published on February 5, 2013 - Liburd, who had represented the people of that constituency for 15 years until January 2010, suggested that over the past three years Hamilton has failed at serving his constituents well and even classified him “a failure”.
Hamilton’s retort outlines the measures and initiatives he has taken to improve the lives of his constituents. These – he explained – include advocacy for improved infrastructure in specific villages of his constituency.
“I have advocated for roads in St. Peter’s to be repaired even after being damaged by bad weather, heavy rain, and my call to the government and demand of the ministry has resulted in roadwork being done in Upper Monkey Hill. I am still calling on the government to respond to the people of Stapleton who want the road leading up to Stapleton to be repaired.
“I have had difficulty with the government that has caused the people of Upper Cayon – for five straight days including Christmas Day – where no water was running…so that people could not even cook for their Christmas dinner and it came as a result of broken-down old equipment. I understand it was a generator that had been malfunctioning for months. Thankfully through, my initiative, the problem was solved and people eventually got water.”
Another area of focus that Hamilton outlined – one in which he claimed to have seen success – is liaising with the Commissioner of Police to arrest the problem of break-ins which were occurring frequently in specific areas of Conaree.
The Parliamentary Representative said he would not relent in agitating for road repair and or construction to take place, especially in Gillard’s Housing Project and Douglas Estate Yard, St. Peter’s. He even promised that that would be his first order of business should he be part of a new dispensation.
“I will not stop. In fact, my intention is to ensure that when the next election is called, the people who support me and put me back in office to help change the government, they would have their roads in Gillard’s and the Douglas Estate area as top priority in the first phase of my involvement in government. That is what I would be called upon to do.”
Hamilton charges that while sitting on the Opposition Benches, he has been advocating for the government to implement programmes that would improve the lives of his constituents and the people of the country on a whole.
He opined that the fact some of those programmes have not yet been initiated is tantamount to the government failing the people rather than him failing his constituents.
“When anyone - I don’t care who it is - stands up and says that I have failed the people, they must really look to the government that is supposed to provide those services and say the government has failed the people. And it is the same government that they support and which they are advocating that they would continue to support and for which I think they are going to run to support.
“So if they are going to run to support a government that has been in power for 18 years and has delivered health insurance to the people and roads in Gillard and Douglas Estate and has not fixed the roads in St. Peter’s and has not fixed the playground in St. Peter’s and has not fixed the road in Cayon Project and improve the water supply in Cayon, then if that is the government they are going to run to support, the people should reject whoever it is running to support that government, because that government has failed!”
Hamilton alleges that Liburd is currently the recipient of an attractive pension package and also receives a salary for a job which requires him to do nothing. For these, Hamilton advised that Liburd be grateful and engage in quiet reflection.
“Ceric Liburd should shut up! The less he says the better it is for him. He can’t string two words together properly without making a fool of himself. He has been defeated in an election and he is taking home a pension as we speak of $6 300-plus a month. And while his government in power is sending home people from the Port to sit down, he has taken up a job at the same port which gives him an opportunity to be walking up and down town doing nothing. A job which puts him in a position to be sitting down in Parliament listening to me enlighten the whole country and enlighten he himself, and getting another $7 000 a month for it…for doing nothing.
“He should be happy with that and sit down and shut up! Let people who know what governance and developing a country mean...continue on the road.”
In issuing a challenge to Liburd whom he defeated at the polls in January, 2010, Hamilton told him to “Put on his gloves and come in the ring again and let the people send him back from whence he came...”
