Kingstown, St Vincent May 06, 2026- Senator and Minister of State in the Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Innovation, Digital Transformation and Information Lavern King says the government inherited an economic situation “worse than what we anticipated” after taking office, warning that financial challenges are limiting how quickly reforms and campaign promises can be implemented.
Speaking on NBC Radio’s Face to Face programme, King said the administration entered office expecting economic difficulties but later discovered the country’s fiscal position was more severe than initially understood.
“It is genuinely a situation where we inherited a financial crisis that is worse than what we were anticipating,” she said
King compared the situation to a contractor renovating a house, only to discover deeper structural problems after work has already begun.
“You know that there was a plumbing issue, but when you go, you realise that the entire plumbing thing needs changing,” she said. “That’s the same thing that we’re facing now.”
She said the government had hoped to move more quickly on a number of initiatives but had instead been forced to address underlying financial issues first.
“It means now that I have to take a little more time than initially anticipated,” she said, extending the analogy to the country’s economic recovery efforts.
King said the administration remained committed to delivering on its promises but stressed that rebuilding the economy would require a phased approach.
“My encouragement to anybody who’s listening is not to lose that hope,” she said. “Those things are still very much important. They are going to happen, but maybe not within the timeline that we would have hoped.”
The minister said the country’s debt burden had become a major concern for the administration.
“When we were here, we had heard St Vincent had $3.6 billion in debt. I used to think it was bad, but I didn’t know that it was actually that bad,” she said.
She also referenced concerns over the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio, saying it was higher than previously understood and was placing pressure on government finances.
King defended the government’s handling of recent recommendations from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), saying Prime Minister Dr. Godwin Friday had made clear that the administration did not intend to impose harsher austerity measures on citizens already facing high living costs.
“My position is not to create no austerity measures of greater severity in the face of the cost-of-living crisis,” she quoted the prime minister as saying.
She added that the government intended to focus instead on enforcing existing systems and building a stronger economic foundation before introducing broader reforms.