By Jolly Green. December 05, 2020
When we all remember that the Argyle airport was a three-year project that took nine years to complete, nine years was part of the stretch-it-out plan to keep the ULP in power during that time and to keep Ralph Gonsalves as the leader during that period.
Then we should expect building a five-year city project will take twenty years, an excuse for the Gonsalves dynasty to remain as dictators during that whole period of those twenty years. A reason for a hand down of father to son within the dynasty, within the ULP, and the Government.
Most intelligent Vincentians knew this would be the outcome of re-electing Ralph Gonsalves., the writing was on the wall.
A proper city in a lovely style can be built in five years, all it requires is money, proper planning and adequate architects, and the will to do it and stand by quality. Plus the intention to do it without politics being used to extend the Gonsalves dynasty for the next 20 years.
What the intelligencia, the people with more than half a brain in SVG should consider, is, do we need a new city? What affect will a new city have in the old city? If we double the number of shops and stores will there be double the number of shoppers and double the number of citizens available to shop and use a new city? Or will a new city kill the old city as traders move to the new city and abandon their old city locations?
I am quite sure that a new city will bring closure to many parts of the old city and will bring a crash in Kingstown property values.
There is not enough trade or shoppers to support two city locations. Opening a new city will almost certainly bring bankruptcies in the old city if new traders open in the new city.
None of this is for the good of the Vincentian people. This is about one family, one dynasty, called Gonsalves/Francis. This is about fooling the people to keep them in the clutches of dictatorial power forever.
After all, what the people want is a world-class hospital, not a new city, they also wish to have a world-class education. Both of which are so poor in SVG that the countries rulers do not use them, they send their children abroad for University and hospital treatment. In comparison, Vincentians suffer the indignities of medical shortages. Most of all, they want jobs, not promises of jobs, real jobs right now.
We want instant jobs for our citizens, not in twenty years, we want them now, this year, or by the end of next year. The ULP has been in power for twenty years and other than normal expansion and improvement which one would expect year on year, peoples lives remain in the same or mainly in a worse state of shambles than before the ULP took power. Roads and infrastructure are falling apart, a little, a tiny jump in action before each election to fool the ignorant who cannot remember what they did yesterday.
Of course, it is not the ULP who are in power at all; it is the Gonsalves family, the Gonsalves/Francis dynasty.
We must have transparency in Government; we must be made aware of how people are becoming obscenely rich in Government and from where that money is coming. You cannot get obscenely wealthy on being a Member of Parliament, unless!? So, let us have transparency legislation, not later, right now.
We are building hotels at the expense of SVGs citizenship, from taxpayers’ money. Taking massive loans that we will never be able to repay. Because many hotels and hotel chains will go out of business in 2021. The trade themselves estimate 30% of hotels will file for bankruptcy. Post-COVID it will take tourism at least ten years to fully recover.
We are paying foreign international airlines millions of dollars to fly into SVG with empty seats. We have a white elephant airport costing millions upon millions of dollars annually, all losses, no profits. The airport probably has debts of a billion dollars already. And Gonsalves and the ULP want credit for that.
Foreign industry does not want to come to SVG because they are frightened of losing their investment like those before them did in Venezuela. People will remain unemployed for the foreseeable future. There is no future for our youth. No future for that babe in arms either.
The responsibility of having this ULP government and its leadership is that of those members of the public who elected them in return for the peanut bribe system that is launched before every election during the last fifteen years. There is a section of Vincentian citizens at home and abroad who can be bought for peanuts, some for false promises for the future.
In the case of those bought supporters in SVG they already have nothing, so every peanut is a bonus. For those in the diaspora, they are little more than corrupted by greed and disregard for how people in SVG must suffer due to their despicable actions.
Had they put back the horse racetrack on the Arnos Vale airport site which had been there before, it would have brought in tourists, regional travellers. It is a proven system of bringing in big spenders. Among the Caribbean islands with race tracks are Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago heading the list in the English-speaking Caribbean; Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic are the main Spanish- speaking centres with race tracks, while Martinique is the one French territory which has racing on an established basis. Saint Lucia, their racetrack with facilities for 1,000 horses on Saint Lucia built under the banner of DSH Caribbean Star Ltd., an affiliate of Desert Star Holdings based in Hong and built to perfection in two and a half years, no politics, no dynasty.
Building a racetrack would have made sense, brought thousands of spenders to the island. Brought thousands of jobs and revived trade and industry throughout the island. Thriving hotels and restaurants and jobs galore.
Instead, we have chosen bankruptcy
