I am going to leave that question for you to answer while I comment on some current issues affecting and afflicting many Vincentians.
Earlier this year, officials from Kuwait visited this country to see how their money was being spent on a road project in the Montreal Gardens area. A local newspaper stated that the Prime Minister noted that a contractor had not delivered on the contract, so it was not completed. However, that newspaper failed to name who that contractor was.
Earlier this year too, the government boasted that this country had exported its first batch of medical marijuana. However, we have learned from reliable sources that that batch of herb was rejected due to the presence of substances which, in attempting to spell I might get dirt thrown at me for misspelling. Still, men are being jailed for ganja in sweet SVG, while we exporting weed legally. What a contradiction!
In an online news medium, I read that the Parliament had amended an act (Aliens Land-holding Regulations Act) to make it more difficult for foreigners to own land in SVG. If the reporting was correct, all one has to do is ‘adopt’ a foreigner, regional or international, and they can own land. So just now our lawyers can legally produce adoption papers … a lucrative business in the making. Who selling out? Similarly, you can also marry a foreigner and he/she can buy land. I stop right here.
It ‘wood’ appear that Vincentians will now be branded as gay whenever we travel out, as Vincentians were caught in other soldier’s foxhole against their wishes, while some Vincentians trained in Cuba are returning gay. What a shame! But there is still hope; with the help of the Almighty you can change.
Let me here again warn my people about the excess of alcohol. When you drink too much you will get drunk and pass out. When you pass out there is nothing you can do; it is like your spirit is out of your body and anyone with evil intentions can do you ANYTHING, and you ‘wood’ not know anything until you regain consciousness which, by then, is too late. This applies to both women and men. So, limit your alcohol consumption or don’t drink alcohol, period.
The quarry project at Richmond, despite so many anomalies is still going ahead. Recently, a jogger in the area had to make a report to the Chateaubelair police because stones being for the Kingstown port expansion project were rolling into the road from the destruction of agricultural land. No scientific studies for that quarry have been conducted by independent consultants, but yet we are asked to ‘follow the science’. Acting on the report from the jogger, caution tape was placed in the area and a temporary berm (embankment) built to contain and prevent more stones from going into the main road. That project MUST stop immediately until both environmental and social impact studies are conducted.
The Ministry of Tourism has announced that it is dropping COVID19 protocols for the 2022/23 ‘tourist season’. While many Vincentians have no issue with that, why are we still required to wear face masks at some government offices, banks and some businesses? While I have no problem with anyone wearing a face mask, we are not the issue. Covid-19 NEVER started in SVG; it came from overseas, but we are the victims.
This leads me on to the final matter that is of grave concern to me and many others.
It is high time that government presents in the House a resolution to repeal the Public Health Act as amended. That law is ethically and morally wrong and is unlawful. Just like the apartheid law, it divides people and has put hundreds out of jobs. Among international organisations like the UN that is supposed to enforce our basic human rights, there is the World Medical Association (WMA) declaration of Helsinki titled – “Ethical Principles for medical research involving human subjects”. In that document, which is constantly being revised by doctors, Sections 25 to 32 focus on ‘Informed Consent’ and clearly points out that no one, even if they are disabled, should be forced to be part of an experiment against their wishes. But more than that, it also states that if research data confirms that the negative outcomes outweigh the supposed benefits, that research should stop immediately.
Do we need more evidence, as per studies done in Israel and the UK, that the vaccines are killing 7 out of every 10 persons in a particular age group who took the second dose and are injuring several more? So, while millions suffer from vaccine injuries and death, pharmaceutical companies are raking in trillion$. Are we really following the science? Is this the direction we are treading after 43 years of independence or is it ‘Dependence’?
Donald De Riggs
