It is with great pleasure that I extend heartiest congratulation to all citizens and residents of St. Kitts and Nevis as we celebrate the milestone of our thirtieth (30th) anniversary of Independence. By any measure this is a significant accomplishment for the smallest nation state in the Western Hemisphere and it is a tribute to the vision of our leaders and the fortitude of our people.
In the life of a country thirty years is a tiny snapshot but it is sufficient to test the mettle of those who have been given the honour of service within national leadership as well as the confidence of the people in our collective ability to chart a successful course. When we look back from this vantage point there is much for which we must be thankful. Despite our small size St. Kitts and Nevis has accomplished much in terms of national development.
We are a middle income country, women have attained full political and social equality, our children have full access to early childhood, primary and secondary education and indigence has declined from 11% to 1.4% on Saint Kitts and from 17% to 0% on Nevis as at 2007.
Additionally, we were able to implement a successful school feeding program, provide text books free of charge to children, field world class athletes including a World Champion in Kim Collins and host regional and international sport and cultural events from CARIFESTA to CARIFTA Games and Cricket World Cup 2007.
The seeds of this development were planted and nurtured by our first Prime Minister Dr. the Rt. Hon. Sir Kennedy Simmonds who carefully steered our ship of state through the turbulent end of the cold war during the 1980s. The prudent and disciplined policies of the PAM/NRP Administration have left a legacy from which we continue to benefit from our continued solidarity with the People’s Republic of China on Taiwan to the development of the southeast peninsula highway to the very unity of the two islands of our beloved Federation.
Yet, all is not well. According to a survey published by the Pan American Health Organization in 2012, in 2007 the estimated poverty line on Saint Kitts was EC$ 7,329.20 per year and that of Nevis was EC$ 9,788 (US$ 3,625) which put 21.8% of our fellow citizens below the poverty line.
In that same report the ‘‘vulnerability line’’—which measures the number of persons who, while above the poverty line, are at risk of becoming poor if some adverse situation affects them—is 125% of the poverty line (i.e., 25% above it). The vulnerability line for Saint Kitts was estimated at EC$ 9,161 (US$ 3,393) and for Nevis at EC$ 12,235 (US$ 4,531).
These figures represent the ability of one adult to pay for basic food and non-food items over the course of an entire year and were the standard before the onslaught of the Value Added Tax. Ask yourselves whether you can live on $9000 worth of food for a year today and you get a glimpse of the precarious position of far too many of our fellow citizens.
Unsurprisingly the report showed children and female-headed households were more vulnerable to poverty than other groups. These are precisely the groups hit hardest by the destruction of the social safety net left in place by the PAM, including the SELF program and free CXC exams. On the other end of the spectrum, our elders have been assaulted by the imposition of fees for access to public health care when they are on fixed incomes that have lost value to the VAT. Add to this the deplorable state of too many government schools and the degradation of facilities and services at our hospitals and we get a sad picture of decay that is the direct result of the shocking national debt carelessly accumulated by the Douglas regime.
This debt burden on our economy has had serious social costs, including the youth unemployment crisis exploited each election cycle by a short-term work program. This time it’s called the PEP which according to the prime minister himself “employed” 2,500 young people. Other costs include a murder epidemic which has seen over one hundred and seventy – three (173) homicides in just the last seven years.
At this anniversary we stand poised on the brink as we enter into another election cycle. Our institutions of government and our democratic traditions hang in the balance along with a motion of no confidence that continues to languish for nine long months. Such a deplorable state of affairs is unprecedented in a parliamentary democracy. Our electoral system is imperiled by a push for unconstitutional gerrymandering of boundaries while citizens who exercise our democratic right to peaceful protest are treated like criminals as the full force of state is brought to bear against them.
It is clear that our beloved country has a long and hard road ahead to undo the damage inflicted over the last decade. According to preliminary census data nearly 30% of our population is 19 years old and under and a further 35% is under 35 years old, therefore our challenge is to harness the energy and innovation of youth to propel our country back onto the path of positive development.
As we celebrate our 30th anniversary of Independence we must recall the fierce pride and patriotism that animated us in 1983 as we embraced nationhood to energize our efforts to preserve the integrity of our constitutional parliamentary democracy. In just a few days the partners of National Unity will formally launch our campaign to do just this and it is my pleasure to invite all citizens and residents to join in.
A government of national unity is the personification of the creed of country above self that our new nation adopted and I am confident that Kittitians and Nevisians will once again rise to the occasion.
With God in all our struggles, I wish all citizens and residents of these our beautiful twin islands a Happy and Safe Independence.
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