All engines go means that we are in a state of readiness. The elections are upon us. Both parties have announced their slate of candidates. The ULP is hosting Red Limes in various constituencies. The opposition NDP continues its busy electioneering with public meetings across the country. Unfortunately, we don’t know the hour. The country holds its collective breath as it awaits the decision of PM Gonsalves to prorogue the Parliament and announce the date for us to vote.
The 2020 election was held on Nov. 5. Nomination day was Oct. 20, and PM Gonsalves used the Independence Day celebration (Oct. 27), marking our 41st anniversary as a sovereign nation, to promise benefits and developments expected to transform the lives of our people. With the 2020 election timetable as a guide, the next 45 days will be a wild ride.
With the government vying for an unprecedented sixth consecutive victory, the central question facing the electorate is whether their lives have improved over the last five years. Has our country transformed in ways that will make returning Vincentians proud or marvel at foreigners visiting for the first time? We are not talking about natural beauty here.
The answer has to be a resounding “No.” It is true we now have an international airport, and a new port is about to open. The airport reduced hassle for those travelling to or from North America or Europe. However, travel across the Caribbean remains frustrating and expensive. The authorities have also failed to provide projections for what the nation will export in the next five to 15 years.
There has been no significant increase in the export of goods from St. Vincent and the Grenadines since AIA opened in 2017. While the government claimed upwards of $5 million in profits at AIA last year, word is that the airport gets to write off millions in debt owed to the public entity, such as VINLEC and CWSA. Each year, the AIA receives budgetary support from the government. Tourism may have received a boost, but there’s no objective evidence that the opening of Sandal Resort resulted in a significant change in our economic situation.
The government’s promise to facilitate the opening of a 360-room Sandals Beaches at Mt Wynne and a 280-room Marriott hotel at Peter’s Hope. These companies demand economically crippling tax-free and other duty-free concessions. If they come to fruition, they will create at best low-level jobs. Antigua has been a mass tourism destination since the 1970s. Recently, PM Gastan Browne was particularly critical of Sandals’ greedy business model. Our government has thrown caution to the wind and seems willing to embrace whosoever will may come with little or no due diligence. Evidence of this is the empty shells left by the Canadian Developers at Peters Hope and the stalled hotel development at Ratho Mill.
Our experience with the COVID-19 plandemic, our location in the hurricane belt, and the devastation caused by Beryl should give us reason to pause regarding tourism as our central and strategic foundation for economic development. Sadly, the government appears unable to think through and devise alternative ways to move our country forward.
The government, after two false starts, plans to open the new port next month. It’s a $700 million project that has gone into repairs before it is completed. The cost overrun is potentially massive. Last month, the government borrowed an additional $23 million for port development, despite claiming it had saved $20 million by allowing the dredging of sand locally rather than importing it. One of the justifications for snatching the lands from farmers at Richmond was that the stones from the quarry were to be used at the port. Nothing came of that, further exposing Gonsalves as a flim-flam artist.
Some of us have demanded that opposition politicians provide more information about their development plans. They say their focus would be tourism, agriculture, which the Gonsalves regime has all but left for dead, the blue economy and the new economy.
SVG boast a national debt of over $3 billion. With a debt to Taiwan approaching $1 billion, the Labour government is working overtime to ensure that its debt trap hook is lodged deep into the national gill.
In 2024, the national debt was 93.4%of the GDP. Between 2023 and 2024, the debt increased by 17%. We continued to borrow at breakneck speed in 2025, resulting in a debt-to-GDP ratio that exceeds 100%.
The only people excited about this level of borrowing are the lenders who make significant amounts in interest payments alone. Last year, over $120 million went to debt servicing, including interest payments.
What is all this borrowing for? Our lives are not improving, poverty is on the rise, the public infrastructure, including police stations, clinics, roads, schools, community centres, recreational places, hard courts and other public buildings, is falling apart. Kingstown is unattractive; different locations, which we refer to as towns, have not shown signs of development since independence in 1979.
We are basically sleepwalking into the future. With elections upon us, Vincentians have a clear choice. Having entrusted the ULP with the stewardship of our country for five consecutive terms, there is absolutely no reason why we should punish ourselves by allowing Gonsalves and his clansmen to continue to rule over us.
