According to the Leader of SVG Green Party, Warrant Officer Ivan Bertie O’Neal BSc (Hons), MSc, MBA, the ULP regime’s ‘dart board’ economics has devastated the SVG economy. The ULP regime’s lack of coherent economic planning has sucked the life out of the SVG. It seems like the ULP regime choose their economic initiatives by throwing darts at a dart board, and doing whatever random thing that leads to.
There is virtually no money circulating in the country. A number of people have told Warrant Officer Ivan Bertie O’Neal BSc (hons), MSc, MBA that they cannot get their goods sold. A number of farmers have said that they often cannot sell their goods at the market, because many people just don’t have money. Some fisherman, too, have said they cannot sell all their fish, because some people do not have money.
The situation is worse in more rural areas and areas far from Kingstown. Small businesses of all kinds often struggle to get sales, or enough sales, to make a living and so many of them have closed down. The rural economy is much worse than it was before the ULP came to power.
Aside from begging and borrowing, the ULP regime’s strategy has been to focus on dead projects. The ULP regime has wasted taxpayers’ money on projects that do not produce any foreign revenue for the country. This approach lacks common sense and shows the ULP regime’s ignorance of economics and poor understanding of the SVG economy.
Money has been wastefully spent building the Belle Isle jail, several new police stations, fifteen useless resource centres, and a Centre of Excellence – none of which is a priority and none has created revenue for the country. These projects can be described as dead projects, because they produce no return on the money that has been spent. The ULP regime has been throwing hundreds of millions of dollars into the wind.
The coconut plant in Congo Valley and the dasheen plant in Lauders are more examples of the ULP regime wasting taxpayers’ money. They spent millions on these two plants which are idle and become homes for cockroaches. They are dead projects that have never brought any money into the country nor created long-term jobs. They do not produce a return on the money spent.
Warrant Officer Ivan Bertie O’Neal BSc (Hons), MSc, MBA, who gained a BSc (hons) in Accounting and Finance and Economics, says that the ULP regime does not have any solution to move the SVG economy forward.
SVG Green Party strongly believes that we have no choice but to change direction. We must stop the focus on dead projects and instead invest money in projects that bring in revenue from abroad. We need productive sectors that create mass employment, put money into our people’s pockets and get money circulating in the country.
A Green government would stimulate growth in revenue and create jobs. We would sensibly invest in projects that produce income for the country and have a high yield.
