Poverty has become rife throughout our country as a result of the ULP regime’s foolish approach running the SVG economy. For over 20 years, they have been begging and borrowing and trying to run the economy with a focus on tourism. This has not worked. Our economy is very weak and there are high levels of unemployment and poverty in our country.
On top of their incompetent methods of trying to run the economy, the ULP regime have starved the SVG Treasury of revenue by giving away hundreds of millions of dollars in tax and customs duty exemption to the super rich migrants of Mustique and Canouan and allowing Taiwan to avoid paying Fish Tax.
The ULP regime’s approach to managing the economy has not worked for over 20 years. The definition of madness is doing the same thing repetitively and expecting different results. Our country cannot carry on as usual and expect better results. We need change and we need a new approach to running the SVG economy.
We must urgently accept and adopt the Singapore economic development model and build a knowledge-based economy, with high-quality education as the main engine of the SVG economy. Education from preschool to our own university must be free to all our children, regardless of their economic background.
The focus on high-quality, free education for every child played a crucial role in Singapore’s development of a knowledge-based economy and journey to becoming a World Bank economic success with one of the highest standards of living in the world.
Warrant Officer Ivan Bertie O’Neal BSc (Hons), MSc, MBA lived in Singapore with his wife and three children from 1963 to 1965 and witnessed the way free, high-quality education for every child played a central role in the successful economic development of Singapore.
Conversely, it is quite apparent that SVG has a much worse education system and standard of living – parallel to that of Haiti and totally unacceptable in this day and age. We have no other option but to change direction and build a very strong economic model, based upon the foundation of free, high-quality education for every child from pre-school to our Science University.
SVG needs a highly educated workforce, just like Singapore.
We need surplus revenue to drive such a high-quality education system. We need to take back our deep sea tuna fishing licence for the Atlantic Ocean from Taiwan and set up our own tuna fishing and canning industry. This would bring in billions of dollars of revenue.
Leader of SVG Green Party, Warrant Officer Ivan Bertie O’Neal BS (Hons), MSc, MBA, who spent three years full time reading for his BSc (Hons) in Accounting and Finance and Economics at Oxford Brookes University, England, very strongly contends that we must change our leadership to create a strong economy and significantly reduce poverty and unemployment in SVG.
We must adopt the Singapore Economic Development Model and build a knowledge-based economy with high-quality education as the main engine of the SVG economy. Education from preschool to our own university must be free to all our children and should be our path for development, so we can create a university-educated workforce.