02nd
March 2013
St. Lucia
- Local economic outlook is grim - time now
for action
 We
have all seen the publicity, the speeches, the
announcements and we all know that our current
economic outlook is very grim indeed. But what
are our elected guardians of our tax Dollars
doing to get us out of the mire? To me there
seems to be very little being done of a pro-active
nature and all that we read is that the current
deficits and poor ratios of debt to GDP are
not of their making, but a legacy from past
profligacy, but without any suggested means
of digging ourselves out of this hole! Not very
helpful and not very productive, yet our public
representatives continue to allow the spiraling
debt to accumulate unfettered, or at least that
is how the electorate are seeing the current
situation.. It would be completely cynical to
imagine that they are doing nothing about this,
but why do they not publicize the measures being
considered?
How is it possible
that in such a small economy as ours that nobody
has the time or inclination to sit up and speak
and suggest a “New Way” for us to
deal with our problems? Our members of parliament
seem to be lacking in imagination on the subject
of the local economy. Does anyone in power actually
examine the alternative to our current course?
Is anyone looking at a different approach to
our problems and if so, who is this free thinking
individual or individuals and what idea’s
are being looked at that may assist the deserving
people of St. Lucia in at least having some
hope that someone is trying to do something
to solve this crisis. Come on now, somebody
must have been commissioned to do this job,
and if so, let’s have some transparency
to make us at least feel comfortable that our
financial position is being addressed.
There is a Minister,
The Rt. Hon Philip J. Pierre who is very capable
and qualified to handle the finance of this
country and I believe that he also has the enthusiasm
and vision to do this. We need to open a door
for our P.M. to walk out of and allow an expert
to come in and sit at the “decisions desk”
in order to get our economy back on course.
The Captain of a football team knows when his
level of competence and energy and leadership
has been exhausted, and if he is a man who regards
the future of the team as the main priority,
he then hands over the Captains armband to a
better qualified capable person.
What we need
is a system of “Business Forums”
whereby we can bring together our own local
bankers, our Members of Parliament and local
business leaders to just brainstorm some ideas
in an open forum atmosphere. Who knows what
ideas may spill out? We should dare to be different
and involve the ECCB in our strategies, after
all they are the controllers of the EC$ and
the distribution within the CARICOM/OECS Nations.
Where is the harmonisation of activity that
one would expect within the OECS members? Imagine
in all the member states some of the brilliant
minds that are available to us to help us in
our own local plight and our regional economic
affairs.
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