A New Year, but not much to look forward to in SVG. For decades, our country has suffered under the ULP regime with a badly run economy that has become dangerously weak. Poor economic management has caused much pain and suffering to the poor. There’s high unemployment, high poverty and no money circulating around the country.
Life is hard in SVG and everywhere you go the talk is the same – people are under pressure and something has to bust for SVG to move forward.
With the New Year, SVG needs a new direction: our economy needs to be modernised and turned into an export-oriented economy. The ULP regime is weary from going around in circles for years, lost in a haze of incompetence. Fresh and energetic new leadership is needed in SVG.
The Leader of SVG Green Party, Mr. Ivan O’Neal – who has a BSc (Hons.) in Accounting and Finance and Economics, an MSc in Budgeting and Macro-economics, and a Master’s in Business Administration – offers himself and SVG Green Party to the people to create the mass employment and strong economy that SVG desperately needs.
The tired ULP policies of begging, borrowing and dependence must be put aside immediately. SVG must convert to an industrial and technology-based economy. We must make better use of our natural resources – on land and at sea – and export more goods, including value-added goods. Education and science and technology should be a significant part of the SVG economy, as this will substantially help to reduce unemployment that creates poverty.
Since independence in 1968, Mauritius has developed from a low-income, agriculturally-based economy, to a middle-income, diversified economy with growing industrial, financial and information technology sectors. Mauritius achieved this by diversifying its economy and investing heavily in education and science and technology. This created tens of thousands of new jobs and now Mauritius has an unemployment rate of about only 7 per cent.
To move forward, SVG must get rid of Taiwan and the super-rich of Mustique and Canouan, whose behaviour holds back the development of SVG and keeps our people in poverty.
SVG Green Party has the expertise and the vision to make the SVG economy strong. We could bring sustainable economic growth, and create thousands of new jobs, revenue and prosperity. We would abolish the apartheid tax and customs duty exemptions given to Taiwan, Mustique and Canouan, and invest heavily in education and science and technology to benefit our people.
A Green government would adopt a strategy of import substitution, provide free Wi-Fi/internet to help encourage innovation and a new breed of entrepreneurs, and quickly phase out electricity generated from oil, replacing it with electricity from renewable energy. Cheaper electricity means households will have more disposable income and businesses lower overheads. Small businesses will become the backbone of a revitalised SVG economy.
There’s too much pressure on our people. With the ULP regime wasting tens of millions of dollars on a new port in Kingstown that is not needed, our people face another difficult year ahead. The new port will not create the economic boost and thousands of new jobs that our country needs.
New Year, new direction needed – Green.