By Caribbean News Global contributor
CASTRIES, St Lucia – As the government of Saint Lucia continues its attempt to commit and provide safety-nets to the public, opposition-aligned UWP’s (United Workers Party) threatens the majority of Saint Lucians from rescuing the country from the perils of their mal-administration.
“That much is clear from the UWP’s misrepresentation in parliament, relations with Russians, the confluence of a press conference and media appearances, and other undisclosed impediments,” said a source familiar with the matter.
Moreover, in an era of fierce global polarization, inflation, the unavoidable increases in gasoline and diesel prices, tightening of revenue flows and government spending, the Russian – Ukraine war, and many problems with security, opposition-aligned UWP’s are focused on distractions, from the challenges brought about by their previous insults to the people of Saint Lucia.
Recently a UWP six-point plan in the context of flashing mirrors and the obfuscation of panhandle philosophy: ‘Five for Five’ bears the same underpinned isolationism and imperialism doctrine is jarring to the average person.
Last week, the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) called on the opposition leader and his party to “stop its divisive and disingenuous behaviour for the country to begin its rebuilding process, continue the prudently manage of the finances of the country and provide socio-economic interventions, remain one of its priorities designed to assist citizens in their daily challenges.”
“Let us focus on stabilising and growing the country to a place that is safe and prosperous,” said a press release from the office of the prime minister, Philip Pierre. “The COVID-19 pandemic and now the Ukraine-Russia war has brought into focus the heavy cost we are currently paying for wastage, corruption and misplaced priorities of the previous administration.”
Meanwhile, the OPM has outlined a reprioritisation of expenditure with a focus on educational assistance, housing repair, diversification of agricultural produce, income support for bus drivers, training and financing for businesses, and the creation of a relatively safe environment for citizens during COVID-19.
The odds that the majority of Saint Lucians are still struggling with financial disadvantages, viewed with contempt from isolationist-leaning and “poor decisions of the previous administration that led to a 24 percent contraction in the economy, placing Saint Lucia in the unenviable position as the sixth-worst performing economy in the world.”
“This burdensome reality is now being reflected by a 60 percent increase in public debt between the period 2016-2020 and a debt-to-GDP ratio of 90 percent,” the OPM quantified. “Having issued over $185 million in Direct Finance Contracts for roads, payable in five years, and $154 million in payables due to local vendors, the recent recommendations by the leader of the opposition Allen Chastanet are disingenuous and fiscally irresponsible.”
The OPM prefaced that the opposition-aligned UWP’s ideas have struck a chord with “poor economic decisions” visible to the approach with Value Added Tax (VAT) “when he [Chastanet ] reduced it to benefit big landlords while reducing the government’s coffers and government’s ability to look after the most vulnerable.”
The OPM advised those interested, and who gets to define then and now, referenced, the previous mal-administration “ increase in gas taxes from $1.50 to $4.00 and legislation to place a tax on charcoal.”
According to the government press release dated May 31, 2016: “The project, the first of its kind in the Caribbean, will involve the replacement of 21,587 high-pressure-sodium and mercury-vapour street lights with high-efficiency light-emitting diode (LED) street lights.”
However, “infamously associated with the Pajoah Letter, the long-term strategies to lessen Saint Lucia’s dependence on fossil fuels, were frustrated by the previous administration,” noted the press release from the OPM.
It is now especially clear in practice, without being challenged and in the best interest of Saint Lucians for the usefulness of opposition-aligned UWP’s that threatens the majority of St Lucians “to seek the counsel of honest economic advisors, who should remind him [Chastanet] of his disregard for fiscal discipline and his active part in the decline of the Saint Lucian economy,” the OPM advised.
However, to define the concept and the standpoint of the culture that threatens, Saint Lucia today, the peculiar sense of affinity through the prism to embrace a strain of isolationism and imperialism doctrine, unambiguously exposes the menace to national security.
