It’s been 20 years that we’ve had the Mustique Act No. 48 of 2002. This Act gives the super-rich of Mustique tax and customs duty exemptions. It seems like as soon as the ULP regime came into office, they were in a rush to give away millions of dollars to the super-rich of Mustique in tax and customs duty exemptions, before doing anything of significance for Vincentians.
The super-rich of Mustique can save millions of dollars each year with these tax and customs duty exemptions. Over the past 20 years, the SVG Treasury has been deprived of tens of millions of dollars that the super-rich could have been paying.
We have had a generation of Vincentian children being born and growing up with the Mustique Act No. 48 of 2002 in existence. Many thousands of these children have grown up in poverty, often gone to bed hungry, often been unable to go to school because their parents cannot afford fees or books, and lived in households that have no mains water or electricity.
All this suffering and hardship our Vincentian children have had to endure over the past 20 years, could have been avoided if the super-rich of Mustique had behaved liked responsible citizens and paid their millions of dollars of tax every year for the past 20 years.
If that money had gone into the SVG Treasury, then poorer households could have been supported better.
Poorer households could have had mains water and electricity and our children could have had less hardship in their lives.
Shame on the super-rich of Mustique and shame on the ULP regime for letting them get away with it.
The recipients of these blanket tax and customs exemptions are using a charitable trust to socially engineer their justification for the multi-million dollar tax and customs duty exemptions. They give handouts to a small number of people, maybe because they think Vincentians are ignorant and can’t see what is really going on.
Bearing in mind that our country is having millions leached from it, these paltry contributions are a joke and an insult. As we said before, these people are ‘urinating’ on our people and expect us to be thankful for the offering. They are simply cultivating a dependency culture to oppress the people of SVG.
It is very greedy and heartless that the super-rich, migrants in Mustique watch Vincentian children suffer and still continue to not pay tax and customs duty. Do these people have souls, do they care?
As long as they can make millions in profit and live an extravagant, wealthy lifestyle, they are happy. Do they have a care for the welfare of Vincentian children?
Leader of SVG Green Party, Warrant Officer Ivan Bertie O’Neal, BSc (Hons), MSc, MBA, who was awarded the British Royal Air Force “MERITORIUS SERVICE MEDAL” in 1985 in recognition of his Exemplary Conduct, High Personal Standards and Professional Expertise, says it will be a great day for our people when we see the back of these super-rich of Mustique. This will help our country move forward.
We must abolish the Mustique Act No. 48 of 2002 and stop the super-rich of Mustique getting tax and customs duty exemptions. 20 years of the Mustique Act No. 48 of 2002 is 20 years too many.