JAL 9 August 2014 Nice Radio’s Callaloo presents, Just Another Look. Just Another Look is an innovative, exciting, albeit decidedly provocative and controversial, socio-political analysis of issues of a local, regional and international nature. Just Another Look is heard only on Nice Radio on Saturdays at 6.00pm, with repeat broadcasts at 9.00pm on Sundays. Remember too that you can also catch us on the worldwide web, niceradio.info. You can check our JAL blog - vincyview I am, of course, Keith Joseph Introduction Today is Saturday 9 August 2014. Welcome, welcome, welcome to another edition of Just Another Look. The sheep is alive… it never died and the incident never existed… Bring me the dead sheep!!! Ring the Bell! Elections are more than likely to take place later this year, probably in early December. The superstitious leadership seems to believe that December is most favourable as is the number, 7. Whatever about superstition and national politics in St Vincent and the Grenadines under the current dispensation, now significantly dulled by crass incompetence, inefficiency and the blight of one-manism, the Vincentian political reality cries out for change. Vincentians are today hurting, economically, more than they have ever been in the last 30 years, with no end in sight any time soon. The Captain seems caught up in the literary classic of speaking to the mirror on the wall even as the ship of state is being punctured ever so consistently with the holes of debilitating incompetence. It all seems a massive pantomime in self-delusion; an expensive proposition. What hurts Vincentians most is that they once thought that sheer academic achievement translated into competent leadership and that charisma still mattered. Now they are finding out the truth and it is a painful pill to swallow. Even as some laud the current administration for placing emphasis on education the end result has really been on greater achievement rather than on genuine education. The reality around us is that we have failed to acknowledge that our young people are being commended for getting passing grades in more subjects while displaying less knowledge and the ability to apply what they should have learnt to daily living. We are producing a nation where the certificate is less evidence of education and we seem satisfied with that. There is an urgent need for change in St Vincent and the Grenadines to stem the downward slide of our once-treasured society. Every aspect of governance in this country has been stricken by the blight of ULP’s declining competence. The seeming eagerness of the current administration to pat itself on the back has blinded them to the changing reality around them. The Vincentian public service knows the truth about our economic situation and the numerous challenges each month to make ends meet. No one in government ought to feel proud of the ULP’s performance. From the very beginning the administration has shown itself seemingly disposed to make promises without any evident analysis of the realities that surrounded them. A penchant for looking back and blaming the former government still seems pervasive amongst the current leadership despite holding office for more than 13 years. It is evidence of a lack of political maturation and a failure to take on the responsibility for their own actions over the period that they have been in office. No one, not even the wily political leader seems capable of finding the location of those investors who were supposed to be lining up waiting on a change of leadership of this country back in 2001. Indeed, if the maximum leader knows of their whereabouts he is either not telling us or he has been unable to convince them to come here. Either way we have not had the benefit of the influx of the promised investors and investment following the change of government in 2001. The blight that is now the Vincentian economy is the nation’s single biggest concern. The ULP has failed to positively impact the performance of the economy and to this day continues to lay blame at the feet of the former government and the combined consequences of global issues. No blame is taken for being unable to engage the creativity we once heard being proffered as a viable option in the elections campaign of 2000 – 2001. Unfortunately there are too many Vincentians who hold the view that too much emphasis is being placed on the state of the economy as a factor in analysing the conduct of the current administration. They do not yet seem to understand that the strength and stability of the Vincentian economy is the most important foundation for the future of the nation. Currently, every major sector of the Vincentian economy is down. To say that the Vincentian economy is in shambles is to grossly understate the reality. The real problem is the administration’s seeming unwillingness to reveal the naked truth about the Vincentian economy. Perhaps this stems from their fear of an elections backlash. That fear could easily be realised this time around. The promise to address crime and the causes of crime, especially white colour crime, has proven to be a straw in the wind. Nothing has happened. Indeed, the crime rate has remained essentially in a developmental mode with two national murder records having been set very early on. The Police Service has become something of an anomaly where leadership is concerned. The decision-making process relative to that institution befuddles the intelligent. There is perhaps as much consternation in the Police Service regarding promotion as there is within the ruling ULP. In both cases there remains an ominous silence characterising the general membership. In 2010 the Vincentian electorate made a clear statement just as it had done in 2009 when the referendum was held on the proposed draft constitution. There is an annoying refusal to acknowledge failure in the development of the economy. In the clutter of fanciful erudition on one forum after another the truth seems ever more difficult to find even as the people suffer in silence. The mirror on the wall may well itself be dulled or by this time deluded. It too may well have fallen prey to the economic malaise. The tourism sector has been touted as the salvation of the Vincentian economy yet, from the very beginning there was always a failure to match the chatter with appropriate allocation of resources, especially finance, for this sector to benefit from sustained growth. Instead of developing the tourism sector has gone into significant retreat to such an extent that we crafted a 100th anniversary of Nine Mornings without any historical or heritage-based evidence thus leaving the celebrations without any impact on the international tourism market. We deluded ourselves into believing the storyline we crafted. Few have taken time to engage their critical thinking skills in an analysis of what we have done with tourism. While minister of tourism Rene Baptiste engaged the media in full. She was almost as popular in the media as the maximum leader. Baptiste became very popular in the national political scheme of things yet did not seem to understand the dynamics of the international tourist market enough to insist on the allocation of more resources by the local administration in order for us to lay a strong foundation for economic take off and sustainability in this all-important sector. We unfortunately saw Rene Baptiste’s growing political popularity as somehow related to the fortunes of the tourism sector. The truth is that the media did a good job of helping to promote Rene Baptiste perhaps a little more than they did promote tourism. Rene’s growth in popularity may well have been her undoing in the current political administration. She was removed from Tourism and left hanging out to dry in the political wilderness. That is governance ULP style. Rene never commented publicly about her rather unceremonious removal but the Vincentian public understood what had happened. It was a classic example of governance ULP style. Many seem convinced that Rene’s removal related to an increasingly popular view at the time that she was growing in popularity comparable to that of the Prime Minister. In reality however the tourism sector did not get the support it needed and deserved and Rene may well have to take some of the blame for that. When Arnhim Eustace, as leader of the Opposition, chided the Minister of Finance for the obvious contradiction between the location of tourism at the centre of our country’s development and the limited resources allocated to it in the annual budget, Rene stayed quiet, seemingly accepting the allocation. Rene Baptiste therefore ought not to be surprised where tourism is today, at the burial grounds around the country. Glen Beache suffered a similar fate. He did not even know when he was moved from the sport portfolio. He may have heard it on the streets before he knew what had happened That is governance ULP style. Here was a young many on whom politics was thrust and included among his portfolios was that of tourism. Like Rene Baptiste before him Glen Beache found little support by way of financial resources available to him to make a serious effort at developing tourism. Having been declared the head of our first Tourism Authority Glen Beache has watched as the sector hit the very hard economic times that the rest of the economy has suffered under his party. The last tourism season, while the Minister of Tourism was celebrating the seemingly fictitious 100th anniversary of Nine Mornings, Beache watched as the number of ships making calls here registered significant decline reflecting the sad state into which the sector had fallen. The much-vaunted Buccament Bay Resort has not yet live dup to expectations and the owners seem to be mired in controversy. Perhaps it was some form of uncertainty that caused the Prime Minister to be very quiet when attending the so-called soft opening of the institution. Did he have his suspicions? When will we have the official hard opening of the Buccament Bay Resort? Can the Prime Minister tell us? Vincentians would really wish to see a major resort established here but one that is not mired in controversy that is not of our making. In the midst of everything that the Buccament Bay Resort has been through the ruling regime here has been particularly silent. They must know that is the case. There was a time we had talk about the establishment of an eco tourism hotel across the Dry River. At the time it was raised it was clear that it was another pipe dream, like the Cross Country Road that no one in the ULP speaks about today. We cannot allow the ULP administration to forget what it promised to deliver to the people of this country. We are still hearing the rubbish about Arnos Vale being the country’s newest town with hotels galore and a shopping mall. That pipe dream of an Arnos Vale City has been making the rounds even as the mall that was created adjacent to Aunt Jobe and KFC at Arnos Vale lost all of its businesses and stands as an empty shell. There is no shame in those minions who repeat the garbage of the Arnos Vale City and the nonsense of indicating that there are willing investors. One is not certain whether any of the investors lining up to be part of the Arnos Vale City were amongst those who were waiting in 2001 for a change of government. The Arnos Vale City is supposed to be another grandiose idea of the leadership of the ULP, another pipe dream, a figment of someone’s imagination. What are the primary advances undertaken by this country since 2001 that were intended to boost our tourism thrust? How many such measures have we put in place and what has been the outcome in each case? There has been more talk of tourism but little evidence that we have done anything to change what obtained before. Indeed we may well have regressed in tourism since 2001. Ask our hoteliers of their struggle. No hotelier seems exempt from the decline in the industry here at home. It is certainly not enough to tell us about the global economic decline when we are aware that some others are showing signs of recovery. It seems that the government is prepared to identify someone or something to blame rather that apply the much-touted creative genius that we have heard about on one platform after another. Vincentians contemplating the future of this country must engage in the analysis we are addressing here. We all have to take the time to address the significant decline into which our economy has sunk and note the ineptitude of the leadership in redressing it. The situation in tourism is but one example of the way we must examine the performance of the ULP. It is not about what they continue to say in their programmes and on the platforms. It is about the evidence of what they have done or failed to do. That is what’s important in the pending elections. Vincentians must painstakingly examine the performance report card of the ULP since 2001 and determine whether they deserve another term or they should be put out to pasture. Change is necessary. Change is urgently needed. Vincentians cannot take much more. They are at the end of their tether and must let the ruling regime understand that. J8 VAX Today the 9th day of August 2014, marks 2,847 days since the disappearance of SVG Air J8 VAX, if we are actually checking the day the plane disappeared on Sunday 19 November 2006 with pilot Dominic Gonsalves and one passenger, Rasheed Ibrahim. J8 SXY Today the 9th day of August 2014, marks 1,531 days since the disappearance of another SVG Air aircraft, J8 SXY, a Cessna 402. Just so you would remember, this aircraft left St Vincent in the evening of Thursday 5 August 2010 bound for Canouan. Like J8 VAX, the aircraft never reached its destination. It never completed its mercy mission. The plane disappeared and as yet no word has been received in respect of the lone occupant, the pilot, Suresh Lakram. The sad case of Patricia Bowman Just Another Look wishes to leave our listeners with the sad reminder that on 19 September 2008 Patricia Bowman was crushed to death as she drove her car on the way to work in Rathomill. The wall of someone’s property collapsed as her carwas passing by. Her husband, Alban Bowman, has been waiting on justice ever since. Who cares? Where is justice in this matter? Nuff said!!! You have been listening to another edition of Nice Radio’s Callaloo presentation, Just Another Look. Just Another Look is an innovative, exciting, albeit decidedly provocative and controversial, socio-political analysis of issues of a local, regional and international nature. Just Another Look is heard only on Nice Radio on Saturdays at 6.00pm, with repeat broadcasts at 9.00pm on Sundays. Remember too that you can also catch us on the worldwide web, niceradio.info. You can check our JAL blog - vincyview I am, of course, Keith Joseph
Posted on: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 03:13:59 +0000
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