There is widespread poverty throughout SVG, nonetheless the super-rich of Mustique and Canouan still get customs duty and tax exemptions. This is disrespectful to the people of St. Vincent and the Grenadines(SVG), and an outrage that it is allowed to happen. Yet, the NDP regime is deafeningly silent on taxing the super-rich of Mustique and Canouan.
We all know that tax exemptions for the super-rich came in under an earlier incarnation of the NDP regime. One would have thought, though, that under a new leadership, there would be a new direction. Sadly not. The NDP regime has not called for the abolition of customs duty and tax exemptions for the super-rich of Mustique and Canouan. There is no change.
The NDP regime vocalised support for a Citizenship by Investment Program in SVG. This means selling-off our valuable Vincentian citizenship to more rich foreigners. Is this just a plan to bring in the friends of the super-rich and let them not pay tax too?
Once there are children in poverty in SVG living in households without mains electricity and water, missing out on education and going to bed hungry, and there are, it can never be right that the super-rich foreigners of Mustique and Canouan do not pay tax and customs duty.
People have asked Warrant Officer Ivan Bertie O’Neal, BSc (Hons), MSc, MBA, Leader of SVG Green Party, ‘How can we ever trust a party that is a puppet of the super-rich of Mustique and Canouan?’ The answer is: You can’t!
We all know ‘He who pays the piper calls the tune’. Is this why the tax and customs duty exemptions are given to the super-rich, and the obscene greed of the super-rich is put before the needs of Vincentians?
We have seen that as more super-rich foreigners come to SVG, the rights of our people are eroded: Vincentians were moved and pushed aside in Canouan to make way for the super-rich; fisherman have restrictions placed on their ability to fish near Mustique, and access to beaches has been denied in various places in SVG. These are just a few examples of the loss of rights for Vincentians.
Hundreds of millions of dollars have been lost in tax exemptions given to foreigners. Why have we not heard the NDP regime calling for an end to these unfair tax exemptions?
Scholars have argued that foreign funding of political parties undermines democracy and is an attempt by actors external to a political system to influence the outcome of national processes, such as elections. This type of influence distorts a fundamental democratic principle: that the election of representatives should express the political preferences of the politically enfranchised citizens.
If rich individuals are able to buy greater influence through large donations, then citizens can be marginalised in the political process, and this threatens political equality. This undermines good governance and the rule of law, and has negative consequences for economic development and the alleviation of poverty.
We must see the end of the tax exemptions for the super-rich brought in under the NDP regime, and regimes wean themselves off the ‘teat’ of the super-rich foreigners.
A Green Government, under the leadership of Warrant Officer Ivan Bertie O’Neal, BSc (Hons), MSc, MBA, will abolish the customs duty and tax exemptions given to the super-rich of Mustique and Canouan. It is only right that this happens and the needs of Vincentians are put before the greed of the super-rich foreigners.