Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves has held talks with President of Ecuador Rafael Vincente Correa Delgado and senior government officials with responsibility for construction, trade, and education in Quito as part of an official visit to that South American nation.
Gonsalves is leading a five-member delegation his wife, Eloise Gonsavles, his private secretary Angie Williams Jackson, Minister of Foreign Affairs Sen. Camillo Gonsalves, Kingstown’s ambassador to Venezuela Andreas Wickham, and Gareth Bynoe of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Elson Crick, communications consultant in the Office of the Prime Minister, said on Wednesday that among other things, the talks have finalised plans for engineers from Ecuador to construct four “two-lane” Bailey bridges, to replace the bridges in North Leeward, which were damaged during the 2013 Christmas Eve trough system.
The government of SVG has undertaken to provide training in the use of English language, for teachers from Ecuador, and work will commence to design a student exchange programme between both countries.
Gonsalves has been awarded the highest civilian honour of Ecuador, the National Order of Merit, for his outstanding work in building solidarity between Latin America and the Caribbean.
Gonsalves and his delegation were slated to tour the Galapagos Islands, including stops at the National Park and the Biological Marine Reserve on Wednesday.
The delegation is scheduled to return to St. Vincent on Sunday.
That’s right comrade, your wife, your son and your private secretary. Enjoy it and take your entourage too at the expense of tax payers. I imagine how you LOL at SVG.
Sounds, like a vacation to me…This man travels more than all the G8 nations, head of state combined. Poor tax payers of svg.
More money down the drain, another trip abroad that has to be paid for by the Vincentian public.
A Bailey bridge 180 foot long takes about a week to install. Small bridges 3 to 4 days.
Had Gonsalves of asked both the Canadian and/or the Bristich military would have come and installed them in an emergency, free of charge.
Had he of asked they would of been in place probably 2 months ago.
I suspect this is just another election ploy, and they will be installed just before the election.
But the cost of going abroad to get help from a third world country is an unbelievable waste. When the same thing could of been achieved by a simple telephone call.
The article states that “The government of SVG has undertaken to provide training in the use of English language, for teachers from Ecuador”. What kind of joke is that. If they learn English in SVG they will hardly be understood in any other English speaking country.
“Gonsalves has been awarded the highest civilian honour of Ecuador, the National Order of Merit, for his outstanding work in building solidarity between Latin America and the Caribbean”. WOW! That’s unbelievable, he trots all over the place spending our money, a bankrupt state, and he gets an award.
“Gonsalves and his delegation were slated to tour the Galapagos Islands, including stops at the National Park and the Biological Marine Reserve on Wednesday”.
Now there is the jolly up part of the trip, a sight seeing tour, I hope its not at our expense.
Gonsalves boyo! you have got to stop these trips abroad where you take the family. If it was necessary either you could of gone, or Camillo could of gone, but the whole tribe is out of order.
Perhaps the Gonsalves family trip has something to do with Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa, who recently backed a constitutional change to allow politicians to run indefinitely.
SPENDddddddddddddddddddddd it while you can.
Ecuador has nothing to offer SVG except bananas which we don’t need.
Offering technical support? These poor, Third World countries are masters of building structures that collapse after a few years killing many of their citizens during and after construction. Looks like the halt helping the lame.
My poor people, this is not a Democratic environment . This man should not governed this country. He is a diplomatic columnist . People wake up and smell the coffee. He needs to go .