(Excerpts of Leader of the Opposition, Honourable Dr Godwin Friday’s 2025 Budget presentation)
Cost of Living Crisis
The minister acknowledges the high cost of living when he speaks of the effects of inflation. But he seemed to suggest the worst is over and inflation levels “are trending in the right direction”. P.19
I don’t know who does his grocery shopping because most Vincentians will tell you cost of living is crushing them and that there is no easing of it. It is getting worse. The high and increasing cost of living is crushing people. Families are finding it impossible to make ends meet. At least he agrees with me that this is not a time for new taxes.
In the aftermath of the hurricane, it was expected that relief assistance would be provided to those who lost their income or livelihood. And some of that has been provided. And also, assistance with recovery and rebuilding of home etc. But long before Beryl, people all across the country were catching hell. And were calling on government for relief. The Beryl-related relief measures are short term. He says so himself. So, they can’t deal with the ongoing cost of living crisis.
Relief is needed. Put people at the heart of the budget by increasing direct supports to put more money in people’s pockets long term and tackle the cost of living. We have put forward a plan. What I said at our convention in Petit Bordel last year that there needs to be a concerted plan to bring relief from the crushing cost-of-living crisis which people are feeling. One of the measures that we can do that immediately is to reduce the VAT, as we have recommended from 16% to 13%, and ensure that the reduction in prices is passed on directly to the consumers.
The Other Measures:
Create a VAT free shopping days at key points in the year (August and December), to enable families to buy at a lower price.
Create an annual bonus for all public sector workers to ease cost of living and redress hardship from low wages.
Create a bonus payment for those on public assistance and those at the lower end of the NIS payment scale.
Review import duties on items such as motor vehicles and reduce costs and red tape at the Customs to make things more affordable for persons.
When rising prices are brought under control, we can review the measures.
Rebuilding Our Country’s Economy
We cannot have a country without a growing economy. And going around the world begging for handouts or borrowing because the money is made available is not a substitute for economic development.
Moreover, it is not sustainable: The handouts dry up as our friends get tired of us begging and we have to find new friends of less reputable character to rely on. Borrowing eventually makes the national debt too large and it becomes increasingly burdensome for our people, who bear more and more taxes to repay the loan because you can’t borrow to repay debt. When this government float bonds to repay debt, as this government does, that does not reduce the debt; it merely substitutes one creditor for another, and in fact, increases the debt because invariably bonds cost more than the loans from countries and multilateral agencies they pay for. To put it colloquially: you digging a hole to fill a hole, and in our case a deeper hole.
The problems of the economy now are a product of the ULP government. They have been in power for nearly 25 years. They cannot continue to blame Mitchell and the NDP for the economic problems—low growth, high unemployment; low wages; declining agriculture, etc. They boast about it, so they must take the blame for the mess that it has become. They created the mess. They have made a country that is falling apart.
Tourism
Post pandemic boom, here and all over the Caribbean, maybe all over the world. Cruise tourism clearly is experiencing high growth in numbers. There must be a plan to get a certain percentage of cruise visitors to return as stay over visitors. Give cruise visitors a great experience so that they would want to come back to stay longer. We are not doing that right now. So little effort appears to be made to woo and keep them. Sites like Villa boardwalk, Fort Charlotte, Pirates of the Caribbean at Wallilabou, Fort Hamilton all were allowed to run down, and the road to Montreal Gardens remains poor.
Stay over visitors are up. I agree the numbers would be even better had it not been for hurricane Beryl. But there is a bottleneck, being the shortage of hotel accommodation, especially on the mainland. We must make every effort to overcome this problem. Government can’t build the capacity needed.
Yacht visitors increased also. Though Beryl was a big setback. I was so happy when over the Christmas season port Elizabeth harbor was full of yachts, especially New Year’s Eve. Numbers have declined since but still there appears to be regularly good numbers in the harbor. I expect the same to be true in other yacht ports in the country. The vexing problem of yacht burglary continues and St Vincent and the Grenadines remains on the list of places in the region for yacht crime. More effort is needed to apprehend and prosecute the perpetrators, and to dissuade others.
Let us make hay while the sun shines. With the increase in numbers, we must capitalize on all opportunities to increase the spending of visitors also. This means better services, upgrading existing tourist sites and creating new sites. We have some seriously spectacular landscape and scenery in our country. From the magnificent beaches in the Grenadines, the absolutely gorgeous Tobago Cays, and the thrilling mountainous terrain, especially in Northern part of the country.