(Excerpts from president of the NDP, Dr Godwin Friday’s presentation on his weekly radio programme)
“It is a terrible thing to happen where you have a cruise ship making a single call to St Vincent and the Grenadines this year. It shows up and then told that we are closed for business because someone else is using the berth you are supposed to dock.
Just think of the impression that makes. They will give all kind of excuses an explanations but the people will be ‘pissed’ because they made this a call. They have organised their schedule and their cost to all of these things to the expectation of their guests. Then you come to port Kingstown and you can’t dock because you have somebody else using the berth that was built as a cruise ship berth. Don’t give excuses, get solutions to these problems.
This is what our country relies on. Our country relies on tourism especially at this time of the year. We have to maximize our benefit from it. And every cruise ship that you lose is money that the country is losing. I cannot think of any rational explanation as to why that ship should be there, at the cruise ship terminal. If you use it when the cruise ship season is done as they were doing earlier, the cruise season has started; so why are you having the ‘car boat’ still docking at that facility when it is supposed to be available for the cruise ship. That’s inexcusable!
The cruise ship is what brings the money in at this time of the year. You can’t have it where you are losing business simply because the authorities have not planned properly for something as simple as that. That photograph of the cruise ship, Aurora, leaving Kingstown and headed off somewhere else that is such a terrible image to be sending to the rest of the industry and to the world. Everybody else is trying to get business and we are saying don’t come. Or, we will tell you when to come. That’s not the right message to be sending.
The Minister of Tourism and the people at the port should be held accountable for this. It is not acceptable. It makes us looks disorganised and backward quite frankly in St Vincent and the Grenadines. There are other countries like St Kitts which has three and four cruise ships at a time, at their port. And, here in St Vincent and the Grenadines they never try to expand the cruise ship berth. In fact, they just leave it to deteriorate.
The cruise ship berth was built by the former NDP administration. You know how much they malign that facility. Do you remember when ‘left hand Lenny’ came and mashed it up? Some of them rejoiced and I reminded them of that recently. Because NDP built, it doesn’t have any value? We see now that it has tremendous value. We see now the foresight of James Mitchell and the NDP that this has actually becomes one of the principal economic infrastructures to St Vincent and the Grenadines and now it’s being used for other things.
The point of the matter is this, when we have something that we have invested in we have to try and build it up and make sure that it works.”
ULP Not Providing Opportunities for Young People
Last week, it was report by an online publication that the population of St Vincent and the Grenadines has seen a decline of 11.4% in the past twenty-four (24) years. This period is during the governance of Unity Labour Party (ULP).
While we agree that there is a declining birth rate, which contributes to the declining population. The other contributing factor is migration. Research has shown that St. Vincent and the Grenadines has the highest migration rate of young people in the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States. This is a shocking indictment where people are leaving and not returning and birth rates are falling.
Most young people leave St Vincent and the Grenadines because opportunities are not provided for them. Too many of our young people do not have work or the prospect of a well-paid or meaningful job. There are those who are also underemployed. Young people have been promised jobs by the ULP but they have not delivered those jobs. The government’s answer to unemployment is to ignore it until general elections.
Approximately 36% of the population of St. Vincent and the Grenadines are under the age of 30. Youth unemployment is at 41%. This is higher than when the ULP came into office. By every metric, the ULP government is failing our young people. Our youth unemployment is abysmal and poverty remains a fact of life for too many young people.
The ULP has let down young people by failing to build a country that they can thrive in. The ULP is tired and out of touch and is unable to deliver the many promises that it made to Vincentians. As a result, our best and brightest are leaving the country in search for work because there are no opportunities in St Vincent and the Grenadines.
We cannot build a society of the future unless we give our young people hope and belief that better times are ahead. The NDP is the party for young people. The ULP government is simply not delivering for young people. They continue to deliver the same old messages, and making vague promises which they cannot deliver. We have already established our Youth Guarantee Pledge to ensure every young person can have a job, training course or internship. Join with us to create a brighter future. The NDP has a plan to deliver for young people across St Vincent and the Grenadines.