I remember the night at Warner Park. I was there.
Two thoughts were swirling around in my mind. The first was exhilaration and the second, apprehension.
Exhilaration because there I was, witnessing the moment, down to the very last second, when St. Kitts & Nevis would become an independent nation. And apprehension because of the immense challenges which we’d have to face, and the responsibilities that we’d have to bear, going forward.
Over the last 30 years, under two different Federal Administrations, one holding office for the first 12 years, and the other for the remaining 18, St. Kitts & Nevis has advanced in a number of ways. But we’ve also retrogressed in a number of ways.
And it’s my opinion that, in the balance, we’ve fallen short of the mark. Badly too.
For example, except for the past five years or so, we’ve seen significant growth in the economy, yet we have a temporary work program, following another that was in effect just over three years ago.
This program employs nearly 3,000 people and there’s a wait list of another 1,000-2,000 people looking to get in. It gives you a sobering sense of the unemployment realities in our Federation.
And, bear in mind, a number of people in, or looking to get into, the program are high school, CFB and even university graduates, none of whom are able to get permanent employment.
Bear also in mind that fewer jobs mean less productivity, less economic activity, less revenue for the Social Security Board which provides vital benefits to the people of this Federation, and less revenue for the Government.
Fewer jobs also mean more dependency on others, more dependency on the Government, and more likelihood of antisocial and criminal activity (which automatically drives up Government’s and citizens’ costs).
This leads me to my next point. I can’t say how many people were in prison in our Federation 30 years ago, but I’d guess that it was less than half of what it is today.
We may now have the highest prison population in the world per capita.
And most of the prisoners are under 30 years of age, as are the vast majority of those who’re serving long sentences.
So yes, we have many more university graduates than before, but most of them have remained overseas, because of the lack of job and career opportunities back home, and also because they feel that they would be stifled politically and socially if they were to return home.
This represents a massive loss on the investment which the tax payers made in these graduates, and a gain for the economies and communities in which these sons and daughters of our Federation now reside and work.
It’s nauseating to think that the tax payers of St. Kitts & Nevis are contributing more to the economic and social development of the USA, Canada, and elsewhere, through the loss of so much of our brainpower and skills, than we are contributing to our own economy.
This tragedy also exposes the failure of leadership to develop the elements and environment that would lure more of our graduates back.
In colonial times, and even more recently, we produced sugar and molasses which were sent to England to be ‘refined’ and sold back to us and to other people, in the form many different products, making England and its business people richer and stronger.
Today, it’s not sugar and molasses and their byproducts. Instead, it’s our people’s intellectual capital.
These talented, trained young Kittitians and Nevisians are locked out, while nearly 400 of their brothers and sisters, facing, and not quite measuring up to, life’s challenges back here in our Federation, are locked in at 1840 Cayon Street.
How can a nation which loses so many of its youth by either or both of these routes sit smugly and regard itself as having made real progress?
And how can a nation in which two temporary mass job programs are introduced within three years of each other feel that it’s better off.
Now, in addition to our youths who are locked out and those who’re locked in, there are thousands of citizens who are simply unable to cope on their own. They have to depend on somebody to help them through, to give them a top up of one kind or another. Just to get by.
This makes them incomplete. It puts them too much at the mercy of others, and exposed to being used and abused. In a deep and troubling way, it also imprisons them.
What kind of progress is that after 30 years of independence? A nation in jail?
30 years ago, there was, in my opinion, not a lot of transparency in public life.
Today, there’s even less.
There was also corruption, but today there’s plenty more.
Where’s the progress there?
Back then, and even before, we saw a discomfiting merging of the Executive and Legislative branches of Government. Discomfiting because the separation of powers is fundamental to the survival and health of our democracy.
Today it’s much worse. And we’ve seen incursions into the third branch of Government, the Judiciary.
Just two days ago, the Registrar of the Supreme Court, Mrs. Janine Harris-Lake, who happens to be the sister of Dr. Timothy Harris, was suddenly and without notice handed a letter instructing her to proceed on Friday, September 20, 2013, to take her 62 days’ leave. That’s tomorrow.
It so happens that there’s a case before the Court tomorrow dealing with the Constituency Boundaries matter.
Now while the Registrar is paid by the Government and is part of the public service, the post is also a vital one in the judicial system, and its holder has critical responsibilities to the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court and to the Chief Justice.
Is this the way the holder of this post, is this the way the judiciary, is treated? Is it an attempt to embarrass the lady or to discipline her? If the latter, did someone forget to read Section 83 of our Constitution? Might the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court be also embarrassed and troubled by this action by the Government?
Is this evidence of an all out attack on the judicial arm of Government? We saw what happened to Angela Inniss some years ago. And now this.
So to hell with the doctrine of the separation of powers then? This is nothing short of brutishness and banditry, exacerbated a million times because it’s being perpetrated against a Registrar of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court.
Where’s the progress here?
Finally, 30 years ago, the public debt was about $300 million. Today it’s $3 billion. Never mind the talk that the Government’s debt to the National Bank disappeared ‘poof’ into thin air. The Bank has not collected a cent on that debt, so the essential issue (the Bank being repaid) is still not resolved. So it remains exposed to a $900 million risk.
Further, the Bank had taken, since as long ago as 2006, nearly 8 square miles of Government land as collateral to cover this debt. And now they all want to sell off the people’s land to rich foreigners who will come in here and return this nation, which today marks 30 years of independence, back to colonial dependence and its indignities.
Where’s the progress in that?
