Prime Minister Philip J Pierre remains tight lipped on the housing minister’s pie in the sky Cul de Sac project. The crazy idea has been aired in an effort to defuse the lackluster approach of the current administration after ten months in office.
Pierre, who has not been able to move forward with St Jude’s nor the Police Head Quarters has no appetite for any unplanned hair brain schemes at this time. It is so sad that the current administration found three well planned housing projects in motion and for no valid reasons, curtailed these developments which would have provided six hundred homes.
Unfortunately, some of us adhered to our past errors and remain on the path of destruction. Have we not learnt that apartment style housing is not the first and most practical choice of our people. St Lucians are more apt to have a small home on a parcel of land they can call their own. The housing minister went into all sorts of details which were totally impractical, not taking into account his list of failures as housing minister within the United Workers Party administration.
Cul de Sac has been earmarked as an industrial and commercial centre by Sir John Compton and all successive administrations, yet our current housing minister attempts to pull the wool over our eyes as his party enters twelve months in office with nothing substantial to review. It is now very clear that the current administration lacks foresight, imagination and any form of planning.
The international news most recently shared some stunning information with the world which left many of us aghast. During Mr. Yeltsin’s Presidency in Russia he found himself in an embarrassing situation and Mr. Putin who was then a KGB officer fabricated a story against the prosecutor who laid charges against Mr. Yeltsin with loads of disinformation.
The Russian public bought into this narrative and saved Yeltsin the embarrassment of impeachment. In compensation, Mr. Putin was handpicked by Yeltsin as a successor and today we now witness the embarrassment which Mr. Putin has brought over Russia and by extension the world. There are similarities in St Lucia today with that kind of behaviour where certain characters within the political arena adopted that pattern.
St Lucians must now remain astute as to the consequences of individuals who follow that path. Individuals with similar characteristics are likely to remain as ruthless as Mr. Putin and can only bring grief to their country. The SLP’s slogan for the 2021 General Elections was “PUTTING PEOPLE FIRST”, but we have unfortunately noticed that sixteen city council security employees were cast aside within hours and replaced by a private security firm. These actions are certainly in contravention to putting people first. Hopefully, the PM may wish to confirm the reasons.