KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, May 29, IWN – Opposition lawmaker St. Clair Leacock on Monday called on the Dr. Ralph Gonsalves government to “come clean” and tell the nation the extent of the debt so far to build the Argyle international airport.
Leacock, who is parliamentary representative for Central Kingstown, said that the country should be “washing with money” as a result of the EC$652 million project.
But he told lawmakers that he had concluded that more money leaves the country for Cuba than remains in St. Vincent and the Grenadines as a result of the project.
He also called on the Government to disclose the commercial sources of loans, as it does with the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) bank.
Gonsalves told Parliament on Monday that the ALBA Bank has made available to this country a loan of US$40 million. The soft loan is for 22 years.
“It is sufficient to refer to the [commercial] banks in passing and feel that it is beyond the rights of this Honourable House to have that kind of information. And I think it should be corrected, Mr. Speaker,” Leacock said.
“Every one should know where we are in relation to the cost so the nation can find appropriate means to see the financing through. …
“And Mr. Speaker, the Honourable Prime Minister must stop what is clearly nonsense to suggest that the financing of the airport, with source funds from ALBA and other third parties, has no consequences on the taxpayers of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Once you use the word loan, you say taxpayers,” Leacock further said.
He further criticised the Government’s arrangement of diverting money to the airport without the fund first going through the Consolidated Fund.
This “convenient disaggregation … is utter rubbish,” Leacock said.
“It is nonsense, Mr. Speaker, because, to the extent that we are speaking loans, we are speaking taxpayers. And no one must attempt to pull wool over our eyes that it is coming from Cuba and ALBA and X and Y and Z.”
(Read also: Gov’t spent EC$141 million on Argyle airport)
Leacock said the nation’s roads, schools, and hospital and other services are worse off because of the construction of the airport and asked how many Vincentians are employed as a result of the project.
“This country should be washing with money,” he said, adding that the positive effects of the project are not being felt across the country.
“It should be more pervasive across this country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.”
Leacock said the nation is drowning in debt and future generations would ask about the context in which decisions about the airport were made.
“And it is time that the Government comes clean with this Parliament and the people of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and let us have a clear understanding at the end of the day what will be the extent of the debt, and how we are going to get out of it,” he said.
As always, MORE NONSENSE TALK by St. Clair Leacock.
Leacock is talking about DEBT, PULLING WOOL OVER OUR EYES and TAXPAYERS. I wonder if he was REFERRING to the NDP and the OTTLEY HALL and UNION MARINA PROJECTS that COST the TAXPAYERS of this BLESSED NATION some 230 MILLION DOLLARS?
Moreover, it was the then NDP government that the British government refused to give DEBT FORGIVENESS because of their corrupt practices while in government.
When this ULP government came to office, it is its VISIONARY LEADER, Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, who got the DEBT FORGIVENESS from the British. Moreover, it is Dr. Gonsalves who STOPPED the paying of 180 million dollars for the Ottley Hall PROJECT that was only VALUED at some 10 MILLION DOLLARS.
So when we are talking about DEBT, PULLING the WOOL over our EYES and TAXPAYERS, the then NDP GOVERNMENT was the party who TOOK US and this BLESSED NATION for a BAD RIDE with those projects and more. This is the same NDP who is now looking to get back into office with NO ALTERNATIVE VISION, PLANS, PROGRAMMES and POLICIES that will lead to the DEVELOPMENT of our BLESSED NATION.
Their LEADER, Arnhim Eustace, can only MAKE UP STORIES about CHICKEN NECK JUICE SQUEEZED in a MUSLIM CLOTH and other PHANTOM STORIES about MEETING a POOR woman from WALVAROO in a supermarket, etc., as to why SENSIBLE VINCENTIANS should give him and his party the OPPORTUNITY to govern again.
Eustace and the rest of the NDP Parliamentarians are just COMMESS POLITICIANS, and you can see by the COMMESS INDUCED RESPONSES by their SUPPORTERS on this blog for EVIDENCE of this, because all they do is mimic the behavior of the party that they support.
Tell Leacock and the rest of the NDP that the days of FOOLING Vincentians with their COMMESS POLITICS are over.
That said; Dr. Gonsalves stated in Parliament that I am delivering a quality airport for the people of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. And I am going to have some debt but the debt is soft loans. We have had concessionary funding and, Mr. Speaker, when we finish the airport, when we build the city at E.T. Joshua [Airport], when we move the Port; geothermal those are the large strategic ticket items. I am not majoring in minor.”
So while Leacock and the NDP continue PRATTLING AWAY with MINOR talks and their usual scaremongering tactics, this country’s LEADER and his GOVERNMENT are THINKING BIG and VISIONARY.
This INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT that the NDP called a PHANTOM PROJECT, and which they LAMBASTED for over 7 YEARS, is now becoming a REALITY.
I remember when when their CLUELESS SUPPORTERS used to say that the INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT at ARGYLE will be COMPLETED in 2020 the earliest. Many others said that it will NEVER BE COMPLETED. While others said it was just a CAMPAIGN GIMMICK to FOOL Vincentians. As you are now seeing, it was the NDP SUPPORTERS who were just FOOLING themselves…WISHFUL THINKING on their PART.
I guess they were having FLASHBACKS of when the NDP used to say that they’re going to build international airport, every time election was near, but NEVER DELIVERED on their PROMISES. In fact, James Mitchell even said he had over HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS in his BACK POCKET to BUILD the INTERNATIONAL Airport. And like the GULLIBLE and NAIVE PEOPLE that we were back then, we believed and voted, again, for the NDP to govern this country of ours. Of course, they never delivered on those promises.
Moreover, no one knows where the over HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS went to, because none was deposited in the treasury.
This is the same NDP who now wants to talk down at the airport that the VAST MAJORITY of Vincentians can now see will be BUILT despite the OPPOSITION from Eustace and and the rest of the jokers in that commess political party of theirs.
The overwhelming MAJORITY of Vincentians want this airport and that is what has Leacock and the NDP running scared. As James Mitchell told the NDP, if the ULP COMPLETES the BUILDING of the INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, CRAPPO SMOKE THEY PIPE.
Well, the CRAPPO has his PIPE in his MOUTH, with the BOX of MATCHES in his HAND READY to STRIKE a MATCH, because he is READY to SMOKE the NDP.
In other words, the PEOPLE of St. Vincent and the Grenadines will make another WISE DECISION, as they have done in the past 3 general elections, by RETURN the ULP and its VISIONARY LEADER back to OFFICE to CONTINUE their GOOD WORKS.
In closing, Mr. Eustace and the NDP can CONTINUE talking about CHICKEN NECK JUICE SQUEEZED in MUSLIM CLOTH, candlelight marches and MOCK PARLIAMENT in DEMOCRAT HOUSE and the ULP will CONTINUE to MOVE this NATION FORWARD under the LEADERSHIP of the INTELLIGENT, SEASONED and CHARISMATIC Dr. Ralph Gonsalves.
Yes Mr Leacock i was there recently my mom was in the hospital for a few months and the cato hospital really need a lot of work.I went there for 1 month visiting my mom and it feels like death.The roads especially in new montrose where i am from is really bad,i was very embarrassed the way we had to be dodging huge pot holes,its a shame.good for the airport,but the rest of my country is going to the dumps.I love you St Vincent my home sweet home.
VINCYPOWA, you have excelled yourself in embroidering the string of lies put forward by this Marxist regime.
Forget about Leacock as you call pulling wool over our eyes. This regime with the help of people like you are guilty of trying to pull whole bales of muslin over the publics eyes. He is quite right the Vincention tax payer has been conned, and is caught in a procession of trick loaded actions to deceive them.
Ottley Hall has got absolutely nothing to do with the current matter, that is just a smoke screen on your part. What we are interested in is the current crap, the current deceptions, the current lies and dirty tricks and rubbish perpetrated by the regime, its leaders and collaborators like yourself.
We are interested in the current debt which is more than ever recorded in SVG, ever, yes ever before. All cloaked in lies about being on the cusp of a financial take off, our bank is safe and secure, all sorts of untrue crap in fact a carpet of deception on a grand scale. Just a barrage of lies untruths and filthy and vile behaviour.
I am not NDP, but even if they did all the things that you list, that does not mean that ULP are allowed to do worse. To put the thing in perspective its what is happening right now that is important, the bankruptcy of the country at the hands of the ULP government.
You see here is the difference, I know that like myself several of the people that write here are not NDP supporters, they are just anti-wrong regardless of the party that it comes from. Unlike you they are true patriots, country before a party, you are party before country, or perhaps even self before anything.
Gonsalves said, “And I am going to have some debt but the debt is soft loans” no he is not going to have some debt, we the citizens, we the people will have lots of debt. He is generating debts that our grandchildren will never be able to repay.
Being soft loans doesn’t help, the fact that what you borrow you must pay back. As the airport will never generate any cash surplus in its operation, where will the money come from to pay back these loans.
I doubt very much that the new $40 million will go very far, the 3 mile of security fencing and sewage treatment and polluted water treatment plant will take most of that. Unless of course we will have to crap in buckets and take it on the flight with us. The land owners numbering 60 of them haven’t been paid for their land, will that come out of the $40 mil, will they ever be paid?
One thing that we know about the Gonsalves regime is that they have been borrowing money by the sale of treasury bonds, for years now on a monthly basis. That is where the expensive money comes in at recently as much as 20% per annum, he doesn’t tell us about that, just a little slight of hand.
I am interested in you showing me exactly where someone said the airport is a phantom project, prove to us that is true.
Yes people are saying the airport will not be finished until 2020, I have seen those comments. How you come to the conclusion that they are NDP I must assume you got the via your Obeah connections.
What I personally believe is that the airport will not be finished in 2014, I look at it every week and discuss it with a world expert against land and aerial photographs which I take.
Sir James Mitchel has nothing whatsoever to do with the current deception on the Vincentian people. If he had money for an airport I will never know, if he had it wasn’t his, no one has claimed its return, and it has never been found missing at the treasury. So lets put that aside as another smoke screen on your part.
Even if Gonsalves stays or goes, even if the ULP stays or goes, the airport will be finished. I suspect if he went and took the ULP with him it would be finished sooner.
Everyone wants an airport. I want a new executive jet, can I afford one, do I have the full use for one, can I afford to maintain it and put fuel in the tank. I have no income and have no money in the bank, but more than a billion in debts and loans.
Most everything else that you wrote is stuff you have made up, it did not happen, it was not said, all lies.
Your quite right Gonsalves has a certain kind of intelligence, he also has a certain kind of ignorant stupidity, after all any one that tells us he sometimes tells lies, and that he only works Obeah for the Lord, cannot be the full ticket.
I warn you for the fifth time about your racist and anti Muslim use of the word Muslim instead of muslin, you know its wrong and you fully well know why, please stop this nasty play on words. I know your doing it on purpose, because of my previous comments, and warnings to you. Your stupidity could get you into more trouble than you can handle.
God bless you all, from my very nice hotel room in Caracas, at 26 degrees outside today, its a little cold for the rooftop bar, but that’s where this message is sent from.
In closing, Mr. Eustace and the NDP can CONTINUE talking about CHICKEN NECK JUICE SQUEEZED in MUSLIM CLOTH, candlelight marches and MOCK PARLIAMENT in DEMOCRAT HOUSE and the ULP will CONTINUE to MOVE this NATION FORWARD under the LEADERSHIP of the INTELLIGENT, SEASONED and CHARISMATIC Dr. Ralph Gonsalves.
Peter seems like your mother breast fed you chicken juice lmao
SPARX, will fly unless you use KY.