The quarrying and mining operation at Richmond is another example of the ULP regime giving away our country’s riches and resources to foreigners to make them richer.
Leader of SVG Green Party, Warrant Officer Ivan Bertie O’Neal BSc (Hons), MSc, MBA, believes that giving the quarrying and mining operation at Richmond to foreigners is a gross insult to our people.
The quarrying and mining operation at Richmond should have been leased to a Vincentian-owned company, so that the financial profit from the operation would go to Vincentians. That way, more wealth would stay within our country and more money would be in circulation.
It makes no sense to lease the quarrying and mining operation at Richmond to a foreign company, so they can take the stone and make large profits.
It would make more sense, financially, to set up a state-owned company to do the quarrying and mining operation at Richmond ourselves. Then, if the stone is exported as cut-stone, it would be a value-added product and would command a higher price on the world’s markets.
At the moment, the ULP Regime is willing to give the operation to foreigners for peanuts. It is just as bad as giving Taiwan our SVG Atlantic Ocean tuna fishing rights for peanuts. And the ULP regime cannot work out why government revenue is down! What a joke.
SVG Green Party strongly objects to the quarrying and mining operation at Richmond being given to foreigners. A Green Government would end the lease and turn the quarrying and mining operation at Richmond into a state-owned company. This would make more money for Vincentians and the SVG Treasury.
The ULP Regime is giving away so much money to foreigners that should be going into the SVG Treasury. Super-rich, white foreigners in Mustique and Canouan are given hundreds of millions of dollars in tax and customs exemptions, but the black, poor and powerless population must pay tax and customs duty.
The backward economic strategy of the ULP Regime is creating and perpetuating poverty and destitution in our country. SVG has become another Haiti under the ULP Regime since 2001 – a country relying on begging and food aid. It is a national disgrace and our country is getting much worse and poorer under the grossly incompetent and useless ULP Regime.
It is time for a change of government in SVG. Neither the poorly functioning ULP Regime nor the useless NDP Regime has the ability to create sustainable sources of revenue and lift our country and people into prosperity.
Only a Green Government has the financial and economic competence needed to create mass employment and sustainable sources of revenue. We would not give our country’s valuable resources to foreigners. We would abolish the tax exemptions given to Taiwan and the super-rich in Mustique and Canouan.
Vincentians’ needs must be the priority for an SVG government, not foreigners’ needs. Vincentians should benefit the most from our country’s resources, not foreigners.