A glaring shadow of hypocrisy has fallen over the current administration as a new mining operation at the Wallilabou river quietly moves forward, cloaked in the exact type of secrecy the government once fiercely condemned.
Just a few years ago, when the current government sat in the Opposition, they were the loudest voices in the room denouncing the Rayneau Construction quarry project in Richmond as a “shady arrangement”.
Led by Godwin Friday, they demanded a halt to the project, insisting on “full disclosure and transparency” and attacking the former administration for secretly beginning works without consulting the local community.
Today, the tables have turned, and the champions of transparency have fallen completely silent.
Currently, large tons of material are being excavated from the beachfront at the mouth of the Wallilabou river in the Roseau valley in North Leeward. The material is being loaded onto the M.V Jefferson a ship operated by Chinese nationals, allegedly bound for a billionaire’s golf course in Canouan.
When questioned about the operation, the silence from the government has been “deafening”. Calls to the statutory body BRAGSA and various planning office have yielded no answers.
This lack of accountability stands in stark contrast to the party’s previous outrage, where they explicitly stated that “it is simply unacceptable to sell/lease Vincentian patrimony for ‘pennies’ and then secretly begin work”. The administration that once deemed the Rayneau operations “a problem for the environment and a grave disrespect to the people of North Leeward” is now facilitating a similarly opaque extraction.
During the Richmond Quarry dispute, the former Opposition and organizations like the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Conservation Fund (SVGCF) heavily criticized the lack of independent Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) and public consultations. They painted a dire picture of destroyed wildlife habitats, ruined ecotourism, and devastated marine life at Cavali Reef.
Yet, the current Wallilabou mining operation is bypassing these exact same environmental safeguards.
According to a local environmentalist, the planning department provided absolutely no public notices that the mining would take place, “setting a worrying precedent”. Furthermore, proper public consultations required for an EIA have been entirely ignored. Instead, locals were subjected to what the environmentalist described as a hollow interaction with a “Dr. Murray,” who merely informed a small group of residents about the operation rather than actually consulting them. “The community needs to know what is happening and that transparency is essential,” the environmentalist warned.
Perhaps the most striking reversal is the government’s stance on the export of Vincentian natural resources. During the Richmond dispute, the Opposition expressed outrage that the Rayneau operation was “99% exportable and 1% for St. Vincent”. They vehemently questioned if taking away land for a foreign-operated quarry was “the best for SVG”.
Now in power, the government is singing a vastly different tune. With no official statement from the central government regarding the Wallilabou operation, Minister of Education Phillip Jackson took to Facebook to defend the extraction of volcanic material as a lucrative opportunity.
“The recent eruption has blessed us with millions and millions of tons of various material for construction,” Jackson stated, urging that the country must “be smart and strategic to take advantage of this blessing for revenue generation, including through exports.
The current government came to power on a strict promise of establishing transparency within the halls of government.
However, their handling of the ongoing Wallilabou river mining dispute suggests that their previous environmental and ethical concerns may have been mere political theater.
As tons of Vincentian soil are quietly shipped away without public scrutiny or proper environmental assessments, the public is left to wonder what happened to the party that once urged Vincentians to vehemently say “NO” to secretive extractive industries.