The callous and willful under-educating of the masses of this country will be recorded in history as one of the great crimes committed by Dr. Douglas.
And by “under-educating” I mean that the masses have been deliberately deprived of the level of social and political consciousness and civic vigilance that is required in a self-respecting society.
In his Budget Address delivered a couple of weeks ago, he at last admitted that the National Bank would take a’ haircut’ as a result of the Government’s inability to pay its creditors (see page 39, Paragraph 91).
He said that interest payments (he did not say that they were to be paid to the Bank because he wanted, as usual, to hide behind language and vagueness, but that is what he meant) “will be reduced from an average of 8.6% per annum to 3.5% per annum”.
The Government’s debt to the Bank, before the debt restructuring, was about $1 billion. Its debt today, even after all of the ‘land for debt swap’ talk, and after all of the ‘poof’ talk, is the same $1 billion. In fact, it may be higher.
And if interest piles up, it is added to the principal which means that both the principal and the interest due, increase. Put simply, the debt burden increases.
Now, with a debt of $1 billion, the interest payable at 8.6% would have been $86 million a year. But at 3.5% that interest reduces to $35 million, which means a loss in income for the Bank, in interest only, of $51 million a year.
That would be the best case scenario for the Bank in relation to the Government’s $1 billion debt to it. A $51 million a year haircut. Not good.
But there is more. I am told that, preparing for rougher times, the Bank took the following step.
Effective April 1, 2013, the interest payable by the Bank to the Social Security Board (SSB) on the latter’s deposits with the Bank was reduced from 7 ½ % to 3%. That will add up to millions upon millions of dollars in losses to SSB. (And while you think of losses to SSB, do not forget Beacon Heights and the persons who continue to get fat off it while SSB languishes in over $80 million in expenses thus far).
Also, the Government gave SSB two haircuts. The first was to reduce the interest payable on its $200 million debt to SSB, giving SSB an $8 million annual loss. And the second was that SSB’s $59 million invested in Government Bonds, have been converted them from 10-year bonds at 8% to 45-year bonds at 1 ½ %. Many more millions of dollars in losses to SSB.
And remember that when SSB takes a hit, so too does the Bank, especially considering that maybe as much as $700 million of its money is deposited in the Bank. And, clearly also, when the Bank takes a hit, it passes it on to SSB, as you saw two paragraphs above.
How much of this information is known by the general public in this country? And why does the Prime Minister choose to squeeze the information on the haircut to the Bank into one little obscure sentence on page 39 of his Budget Address?
He knew, the Bank knew, and SSB knew that these two most critical institutions in our nation would have to take a hit. And, yes, the Banking Sector Reserve Fund that was set up under the guidance of the IMF was a sign that some ‘insurance’ was needed for these (and perhaps other) institutions.
However, when the Prime Minister was informing the nation about the Government’s debt restructuring, he swore that no local institution would be made to take a haircut, citing, among other things, the land that was available to back up the debt to local creditors.
Local institutions were to be treated specially. But we have since heard that churches, the Brimstone Hill Fortress Society and other precious institutions have taken serious hits.
This type of deception and opaqueness which has characterized the Prime Minister for his 18 years in power has not only hurt the people of St. Kitts & Nevis, but it could only have been successfully perpetrated against them because Dr. Douglas has willfully and deliberately sought to keep our people under-educated and under-informed in terms of social and political consciousness and civic vigilance.
And this is one of the reasons he is also not giving you details as to the land-for-debt swap.
His intention was to vest the lands in this Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) that he and others have been talking about, but which is just another waste of money and an another opening for more corruption.
The SPV was to sell the land and pay accordingly to the Bank in the process of reducing the Government’s debt to the Bank.
Not a grain of dirt has been sold yet, and not a penny of debt paid down. So the Bank is still in a tight spot with regard to recovering the debt.
But he is playing with another idea right now. You will realize how fond he has become of the British in recent times.
Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL) a mind-bending group operating out of England, were engaged to twist and turn people’s minds here during the last election (they were paid US$2 million by friends); he paid debt restructuring experts and lawyers in England handsomely when the debt was being negotiated; and he has recently engaged in former UK Attorney General, at great cost to already oppressed tax payers, to waste time and to frustrate democracy in our Federation.
Now we are hearing that a British entity wants to buy the land that is subject to the land-for-debt swap and in turn to sell it off under the Economic Citizenship Program.
Bear in mind that the Bank is holding 4,700 acres of the people’s land under mortgage.
Who are the people behind this UK entity? As I ask this question, and without casting any aspersions on anybody, I cannot but think of the criminal prosecution that former Turks & Caicos Premier, Michael Misick is presently facing, as well as other members of his former Cabinet. And what they are facing has its genesis, at least in part, in land.
Nor can I take my mind off the outrage being expressed by the people of Ethiopia in relation to, again, land.
While Ethiopians are speaking out and standing up against what they see as injustice regarding their land, Kittitians and Nevisians seem oblivious to the fact that their land is being pulled from under them, and their Prime Minister, having deeply compromised their economic and social wellbeing, keeps deceiving and misleading them.
Remember when he introduced VAT? Remember he said that the VAT was not intended to increase the tax burden, but that it was instead intended to improve the efficiency of the Government’s revenue system? Did he not say that he intended to simply replace those 10 or 11 taxes with 1 tax, to make it easier on everybody?
Well, what do you think he said at page 37, paragraph 83 of his Budget Address?
“VAT yielded $115 million during its first full year of implementation, representing an increase of approximately 58% (my emphasis) over the various taxes that it replaced. The success of VAT contributed to an expansion (increase) of 95.5% in Taxes on Domestic Goods and Consumption and a 4% increase in Taxes on International Trade and Transactions over the previous year”.
Now, how many of us are paying attention to these things? Not many.
Indeed, Dr. Douglas may not want many of us to read the Budget right now. It is so bad-so much obfuscation, so much deception- that some parliamentarians are still to receive their copies.
What it says is simply that Dr. Douglas again lied to the people and many of us who heard or have seen the Budget Address swallowed his lie. It says that it had always been his intention to raise the taxes on the people of this nation. He needed the money desperately in his bid to bring down the ‘gynormous’ national debt that he had incurred.
In a different society, he would have already paid the ultimate political price for that lie, not to mention the hardship through which he has put the people. And not to mention 15 previous years of lies.
But what has also happened is that the 95.5% increase in taxes of which he boasts in his Budget Address has robbed businesses and consumers of much needed money to be used in spending and development, in economic activity and economic growth.
And all of that extra money has been dedicated essentially to paying down debt. No wonder the economy continues to suffer. The people have been choked out by increased taxes. That is as unproductive a scenario as anybody can paint.
And the people need to educate themselves on these things, lest the fooling and the suffering continue. The people really need to stand up in their own cause.
Jamaican-born poet Claude McKay (1890-1948) wrote a famous poem entitled ’If We Must Die’.
“If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die
So that precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us, though dead.
Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack
Pressed to the wall, dying but fighting back.
I reference this poem, not to encourage violence, because I do not want violence, but to say that we need to wake up (he is not interested in us being awake) and to stand up (he wants us on our knees before him). All peacefully, within the law, and with steely determination.
As if this fellow’s other self descriptions and conduct over the years have not been troubling and embarrassing enough, and as if he has not done enough damage to the people of this land, he is now publicly describing himself as “the maximum Leader in the entire Caribbean”.
Delusions of grandeur by leaders have caused great suffering and shame to humankind throughout history. And we are experiencing that today here in St. Kitts & Nevis.
Dear Heavenly Father, please help us to help ourselves. That man needs to go.
