Leasing national treasures like our ports to foreign entities for long durations demands nothing less than the highest governance standards. To protect sovereignty, ensure public trust, and maximize national benefit, governments must follow best practices with ironclad rigor. This means conducting governance standards on potential partners to verify financial integrity and capability. Negotiations must be transparent, inclusive of key stakeholders, and uphold democratic accountability.
Contracts should guarantee fair market compensation—not symbolic rents—for assets central to economic life. Crucially, the government must retain oversight power, safeguard local jobs, protect affected communities, and embed environmental and social protections.
Unfortunately, the Philip J Pierre administration’s current agreement with Global Ports Holding (GPH) dramatically fails on all these counts, selling St. Lucia’s future short with a 30-year lease—extendable by 10 years—for an astonishing $1 annually. This deal cedes control of our main cruise ports to an opaque corporate entity, exacerbating economic and social vulnerabilities while leaving crucial details buried from public view.
The financial implications are staggering. Through it’s takeover, GPH immediately cleared SLASPA debts of exceeding $40 million but threatens to drain nearly a billion dollars from St. Lucia’s coffers over the term of the lease. These lost revenues would have transformed our economy—invested in roads, schools, healthcare, job programs, and environmental conservation—but instead flow straight offshore, leaving St. Lucians to bear the cost.
Communities like Bananes Bay suffer profound social disruption, facing displacement with inadequate compensation and no clear resettlement plans, shattering families’ lives and undermining trust in government promises of fairness. With only paltry sums offered for relocation, many displaced families cannot afford decent housing elsewhere and may be forced to squat on unplanned Crown lands lacking basic infrastructure and services. This chaotic, unregulated relocation threatens to deepen social ills such as overcrowding, poor sanitation, insecurity, and poverty, further fracturing the social fabric and stability of the southern region.
Vieux-Fort, once ripe for economic development as a cruise port hub, with youth unemployment surpassing 50 percent. Condemned to decades of lost economic opportunity and stagnant development. They have been denied the chance to benefit from the vibrant port activities, job creation, and business growth that should have come to their community. This side-lining fractures social cohesion and deepens regional inequalities at a time when unity and inclusion are essential for progress.
With Global Ports Holding projected to earn close to a billion dollars from its control of St. Lucia’s ports, a critical and pressing question arises: Why has our government failed to ensure that communities like Soufrière—where the jetties remain damaged and structurally compromised thirteen months after the passage of Hurricane Beryl —receive the urgent repairs and investment they desperately need?
Worse yet, why have the displaced families of Bananes Bay not been offered adequate and fair compensation that allows for sustainable relocation and rebuilding of their lives? Similarly, because of this disastrous deal, the people of Vieux-Fort and the entire South are condemned to decades of lost economic opportunity and stagnant development. They have been denied the chance to benefit from the vibrant port activities, job creation, and business growth that should have come to their community. The government’s failure to secure meaningful support or strong safeguards means generations will endure high unemployment, limited prospects, and broken promises—while profits are handed to foreign interests and local dreams are sacrificed.
This glaring neglect raises serious concerns about the government’s priorities and commitment to its citizens. How can it justify allowing foreign investors to reap enormous profits while leaving affected communities to suffer economic marginalization, social instability, and ongoing hardship with little to no redress? The time demands urgent accountability, transparency, and a fair distribution of benefits that includes those most impacted.
Transparency, the cornerstone of sound governance, is sorely lacking. St. Lucians have had to rely on leaks rather than official disclosures to learn of the shocking $1 lease. The Parliamentary Representative for Soufrière’s admission of secret negotiations reveals a process conducted behind closed doors, excluding public scrutiny and oversight. Compounding this, in 2024, Global Ports Holding went private, shedding its obligation to regularly disclose financial and operational information. This shift severely limits the transparency and oversight available to St. Lucia, making it much harder to hold the company accountable for managing our vital ports. Without this essential scrutiny, the risks of mismanagement and harm to our national interests increase, exposing a dangerous flaw in the agreement.
This deal exposes severe failures in governance and accountability that St. Lucia must confront. It demands full transparency, independent review, and urgent action to safeguard national sovereignty and protect the rights of affected communities. Every citizen deserves clear knowledge and input on such pivotal agreements that shape the foundation of our country’s economic future and social well-being.