13th
September 2012
Secrecy
and obscurity! Who pays for that?
 For
decades, the governments of both the UWP and
SLP have withheld critical information from
the people of Saint Lucia.
In
fact, when it comes to assistance from donor
agencies and corporations who have to date contributed
funding or have entered into agreements with
any elected government in Saint Lucia, don’t
ever expect to be told the whole truth about
these “transparent” arrangements
or contracts.
A
number of prime examples are as follows: the
rebuilding of St. Jude’s Hospital, the
Dennery flooding, HIA redevelopment that is
now on hold, Blue Coral, Hurricane Tomas Recovery,
sole source contracts, capital projects, NIC
investments and holdings, Rochamel, NCA, Daher
Mall, the Black Bay Lands fiasco, Marigot Development
and now the best held state secret, Grynberg.
The
troubling thing about most of these arrangements
or contractual agreements is that they all represent
a larger problem or an accepted norm of what
passes for good governance in our country.
Both
current and past administrations (SLP &
UWP) have kept Saint Lucians in the dark, with
a closed door, hush-mouth model of accountability
and transparency, except for those who fit tightly
into their narrow circle of patronage and outdated
ideology.
As
always, the majority of the people of Saint
Lucia are at the bottom of the pack to receive
the crumbs left over, after the inner circle
of that government have ravaged through the
choicest part of any international funding or
investment received in the name of the people.
How
can we even begin to talk about accountability
and transparency, when no such thing has ever
existed in our country?
Right
now, in this technological sphere and fragile
economy the government of Saint Lucia should
very well consider making information about
public expenditure; non classified communication
and data publicly available in a downloaded
format.
Currently,
it is a closely guarded secret and a nightmare
sourcing, or researching information that should
have been accessible and unrestricted in the
first place.
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