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In December 2001, our new Prime Minister, Dr. Ralph E. Gonsalves, made commitments to the people, as follows:
He said the following in his January 2002 pre-budget speech:
“The people of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines as a whole have lined up, more and more, behind our government in its pursuit of the following TOP TEN policies:
1. “Making job-creation and sustainable economic development our top priorities“
(FAILURE, absolute and total failure.)
2. “Being tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime”
(FAILURE, absolute and total failure.)
3. “Moving resolutely against corruption in government”
(FAILURE, absolute and total failure.)
4. “Building a top-class, quality educational system for living and production in this new century”
(A 50/60 per cent success.
5. “Deepening political democracy, strengthening individual rights and freedoms, and upholding the law and the constitution”
(FAILURE, absolute and total failure.)
6. “Modernizing and reforming government to better and more efficiently deliver all the services provided by government”
(FAILURE, absolute and total failure.)
7. “Launching a war on poverty, illiteracy, inadequate housing, disease, poor health and an unhealthy environment; after all this is a poor people’s government”
(FAILURE, absolute and total failure.)
8. “Developing as never before in our country, sports, culture and the arts”
(FAILURE, absolute and total failure.)
9. “Strengthening and deepening the processes of Caribbean integration, regionally and in the Diaspora and further ennobling our Caribbean civilization”
(FAILURE, absolute and total failure.)
10. “Providing honest, committed, creative responsive and responsible leadership”
(FAILURE, absolute and total failure.)
Only one with a 50 per cent score, with nine out of 10 policy failures, it’s a total failure. It’s the marks of a dunce, and that’s what we got when we elected Gonsalves with his abundance of failures, false promises and lies. We got a dunce, a dud, a malfunctioning disappointing failure.
But then he went on to say, “I have absolutely no doubt that the single most important factor for the success of the Unity Labour Party (ULP) government over the past nine months, has been the unity of the people, around a common, progressive, national program, with an honest, creative, responsive and responsible leadership. In the process, most of our people have become more mature and socially responsible. They and their government, more and more, are in communion with one another“.
Gonsalves was obviously on another planet. I don’t recognise any of that twaddle, at all. There he was claiming success in a nine-month timeframe. Was he delusional?
Now during 2014 he is even more delusional in his outlooks, projections and claimed achievements, because none of his top 10 policies have been a success, even after 14 years. In fact things have got considerably worse since 2001.
DID GONSALVES LOSE HIS COMPASS, OR JUST HIS MARBLES?
Peter Binose
The opinions presented in this content belong to the author and may not necessarily reflect the perspectives or editorial stance of iWitness News. Opinion pieces can be submitted to [email protected].
Anyone who even entertains the notion that Prime Minister Gonsalves has lost his compass, bust be smoking something funny!
The problem with Peter Bignose and his continuous rants, is that no one expects him to say or write anything else ……so his empty, meaningless words continue to fall on intelligently-deaf ears.
Everyone realizes and accepts the fact that BigNose’s real problem may just be his Big Nose!
In the last two weeks, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves has celebrated the construction of 1,000 middle, lower, and no-income housing all across the country. A feat never before completed, or even tackled in this country previously.
One week ago the Vincentian people received 12, 500 MORE laptop computers for our secondary school students. That is in addition to the thousands previously received for our Primary School students.
St Vincent has attained the envious distinction of being THE ONLY COUNTRY IN THE ENTIRE WORLD which has provided FREE laptops for ALL of its students. Imagine that! Little St Vincent is leading the planet in this initiative! We are #1 in this regard!
During the last week, Prime Minister Gonsalves opened the Coast Guard Base on Canouan, which would further greatly assist in protecting our borders.
All of this is only part of which our Comrade Prime Minister has achieved in less than two weeks. Peter Bignose should hang his nose in shame, to be continuously criticizing the Caribbean’s most intelligent Prime Minister like this.
The question on the street is this…everybody is asking: WHAT DOES RALPH GONSALVES HAVE, THAT PETER BIGNOSE DOESN’T?
This is Bryan [PAPER] Alexander,
This note is just to clear up one point; there is only one Bryan [PAPER] Alexander, and I was born in Stubbs. Please don’t mistake this Bryan Alexander any other. This is the first time I have had need to come on here.
PAPER.
Bryan the real Bryan, thanks for coming here to clarify the fraud that the writer using your name is attempting.
You can be sure they are using your name to try and discredit you. For a long time now they have been weaving a web around you in an attempt to destroy you.
Peter Binose,
These people cannot have a proper discussion without trying to take your name through the filthy sewers of Politics, they never would concentrate on the issue at hand, but would try to destroy you, the messenger. These same people are some of the most corrupt and morally decrepit people.
I must applaud you for the good works that you have been doing, be safe, these people don’t fight fair, they stop at nothing to retain/sustain power.
PAPER. The one and only Bryan Alexander from STUBBS>
LET THEM COME AGAIN…BUNCH OF ##$$%ing krooks.
“DID GONSALVES LOSE HIS COMPASS”
The man never had a compass to begin with. He allegedly stood in front of an ambulance in an emergency, to get into power. He would have burned SVG to the ground if it would have gotten him into office quicker. The people wanted change at the end of the James Michelle administration and the ULP was seen as the only alternative, it wasn’t because they ULP was great, it was because they just wanted something other than the James Michelle NDP.
And now after 14 years of the ULP what have the people of SVG to show for it? Any government can spend the treasury and buy things and build building and monuments, that’s the easy part. The hard part is creating a sustainable economy that perpetuates the flow and the creation of wealth for the country, and in that regards the ULP is a total joke, they haven’t done one thing to improve the revenue of the country.
But they have done all in their power to tax people, and cause more corruption. And just like James Michelle, the people are fedup with Ralph Gonsalves ULP. No matter how much they spend are try to bribe, they are gone this time around. OWN THE JAIL.
The false Brian Alexander, has once more shown itself [not himself or herself] to be an idiot.
Laptops for education have been used since their inception, but in 2005 this landscape changed dramatically when Nicolas Negroponte announced the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative to design a $100 laptops that governments could afford for children in developing countries. The announcement of the OLPC device (referred to as the XO laptop) has been credited for prompting the netbook market, with other manufacturers quickly creating low-cost laptops of their own, some of which were especially designed for children and educational purposes. Intel released the Classmate PC, a netbook designed for educational purposes in 2006.
So it all began in 2005/2006 long before Gonsalves even dreamt of laptops for children. I know that at that time even he didn’t even know how to use a computer, himself.
A 2011 report that precedes Gonsalves announcement of giving every school child a computer. In fact he was among the last to take this scheme on.
Remember that it was an announcement by the NDP that if they were elected they would be introducing a one-to-one scheme. Within a few days of that announcement Gonsalves took the idea as his own, it was not his idea, like so many of his supposed ideas they belong to someone else. For original thinking I consider him a dunce.
Handing out 15,000 computers is a comparatively easy thing to do, imagine a country that will give out several million. Remember SVG is like a small town or large village when compared to most countries. As such Gonsalves is little more than a townmare.
http://wiki.immuexa.com/download/attachments/8048/IDBDOCS-%2335989594-v2-One-to-One_Laptop_Programs_in_Latin_America_and_the_Caribbean_.PDF
One to one is a Latin American scheme that gives every child a lap top computer.
One-to-One models have been implemented in many Latin American and Caribbean countries including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, Trinidad & Tobago, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
This was not just happening in the Latin American countries, it was happening all over the world.
As for low income houses, I doubt that he has built a single one. The houses that have been built, are for middle income citizens. Because at $45,000 even middle income find it almost impossible to pay the mortgage. And remember this project once more is not his idea. And it was not funded by him, the ULP or his government.
The coast guard base is a US government project, their idea, their design and their equipment. Not Gonsalves idea, he only happens to be the regime leader at the time the Americans made the offer, he accepted and they built.
You need to look at the failed 10 points that Gonsalves elected to complete and he has failed abysmally to do. Forget about everything else, because there is nothing that he has done that is his idea, or that he can get the glory for. Except perhaps the airport, which I believe was a Cuban idea.
” THE ONLY COUNTRY IN THE ENTIRE WORLD which has provided FREE laptops for ALL of its students ” ………REALLY, always talking nonsense. – Uruguay, The first country in the world to provide all primary school students with free laptops ( http://blogs.worldbank.org/edutech/big-educational-laptop-and-tablet-projects-ten-countries )
The laptop idea is a good thing but implemented incorrectly.
1. Why not give out the devices in September when students can be thought to correctly use them.
2. Why give them out in June with no pre-installed tutorial programs based on actual course work by Grade.
3. Why not install smartboards or projectors in the classroom for the teachers to use along with the laptops, instead we give the teachers smartphones to teach our children how to use laptops…..brilliant.
————-
“Construction of 1,000 middle, lower, and no-income housing all across the country”……again, really ?
Peter, you have to be joking when you rate the Gonsalves government with 50/60 percent on educational reform.
The so-called Education Revolution has been a charade since it has consisted and been measured only by how many more backsides have been fitted into how many more seats at how many more schools.
A good education can only be judged by learning outcomes, and on this measure the result is that more students numbers have been achieved at the expense of lowering academic standards and expectations. In the process, bright, hard-working students have been short-changed by lower demands being placed on them while their dull classmates have been given a false sense of achievement or have wasted several years in high school learning little or nothing.
Dumbing down is no way to achieve quality learning. But dumbing down is now all the rage with the replacement of the demanding Common Entrance Exam (CEE) with the dunce-friendly Caribbean Primary Exit Assessment (CPEA). How else do you explain the huge boast (i.e., exaggeration) in outcomes, especially at second-rate rural schools, in just one year? I contend that much of the boast is based on the introduction of subjective teacher assessments: which educators and which schools wish to fail lots of students when this will adversely affect their reputations and rewards?
As for all the computers that have been part of the “Education Revolution,” remember that laptops are tools that by themselves can do nothing to enhance knowledge and understanding: these can only come from effective teaching, a strong curriculum, and engaged and bright students. On the other hand, perhaps you believe that spending hours every day on Facebook and other social media sites or accessing porn sites night and day or even posting naked images of yourself on the Internet constitutes creative intellectual engagement.
@ Brian Alexander. If people are buying homes with their own money, defending their own mortgage so to speak, why are you giving ralph credit? the so-called no income houses are for votes only ULPites , Ralph make it more easily for persons to be dependent on the state I don’t what is so gleeful about that. The laptop story you gave must be a joke. check the region and you will see how much other countries got free laptops. The little toytops he gave away the first time do u know over 80% of them is not working destroyed or need maintenance? You may not like Peter Bynose rantings but on this one he is correct. Ralph is a dismal failure of monumental proportions.
Brian, Nothing you’ve listed has created jobs for Vincentians, especially the youths who have graduated recently. The laptop issue has gone platinum in a constituency where Camillo seeks to run. The distribution process will be a complete failure, because its too political.
Try to deal with thing that matters to people, such as a reduction in the crime rate, ways to help farmers increase their crop and animal output, a better health system for the poor; who cant afford to fly out of SVG for simple treatment.
I could go on and on, but I am sure you get the picture. Stop trying to make Ralph out to be somebody or something that hes not. He has failed and a large number of Vincentians are finally coming to that conclusion. He has created a parliament with only 3 ministers; the other elected members are just lay preachers. Are those guys going to ask the people in their constituencies to vote for them? They havent done anything in their constituencies and should be ashamed to show their faces.
PV PALMER…..I AGREE that jobs are exceptionally important, but is jobs the only issue we have to deal with and be concerned about?
Obviously there is a limit to how many jobs any one country or government could create. Or, don’t you agree with that notion?
How about self-employment? Have people from ALL OVER THE WORLD, stopped migrating?
Aren’t we in SVG now exporting qualified nurses, rather that importing them, under the NDP?
Is any government responsible for creating ALL the jobs, in this, or any other country?
The purpose of education is to place one a position to create their career, or own self-employment.
Are you saying, that because enough jobs are not available, that the people should NOT BE EUCATED?
Isn’t it better to be educated and not have a job………than to be NOT EDUCATED, AND NOT HAVE A JOB?
Where did this paralyzing DEPENDENCY SYNDROME come from?
That is like a parent who earnestly sent their child to primary and secondary school, then on to university. THEN THE CHILD sits down at home, asking the parents to help him or her find a job !!!
What ever happened to ……do for self? How about some form of self-reliance?
PV PALMER, the laptops were distributed island-wide. WHY ARE YOU LYING, wen we all know better?
PV PAALMER, are you saying that the increase in crime is Ralph Gonsalves fault?
PV PALMER, are you saying that Ralph Gonsalves caused the floods which struck us on Dec 24th. (And also affected St Lucia and Dominica, as well?).
Don’t we as a people have a responsibility to help ourselves. Don’t the local businesses have a social responsibility as well?
Don’t our churches and other organizations and institutions have a role in the development of out country as well?
PV PALMER, are you serious about that “helping farmers” comment? Have you forgotten we had an NDP Prime Minister who was an Agronomist, but who also killed the agriculture industry here?
Under him, (NDP) the Sugar Industry Died.
Under him, (NDP) the Diamond Dairy died.
Under him, (NDP), the banana industry, as we know it, died.
HE EVEN COMMENTED, “when we have fish in the Grenadines, you will NOT HAVE bananas I St Vincent!”
Here was an Agronomist who DID NTHING to aid the agriculture industry, and you have to balls to talk to em about “helping farmers?”
Ah waiting for you PV PALMER……..JUS’ WHEEL AN COME AGEN!
I believe that the Brian Alexslander comment was written by Ralph Gonslaves.
Remember the first laptops they gave out were short in numbers by 7,000 and what they distributed, they all broke down within 12 months.
We all keep refering to these machines as laptops, they are not, they are notebooks. Tiny little machines, but currently very nice kit.
c-ben, when it come to education anything short of 90% success is a failure.
IT is shocking and absolutely amazing that the FRAUDULENT ‘simon says’ little willie, a drooling ACOLYTE and parochial HENCHMAN of the COPY-CAT COMMUNIST of this tiny region is CONDEMNING the inimical Peter for JUST reminding us all of Castroite ‘call-me-comrade-too’ RALPH GONSALVES’ ACTUAL WORDS OF RECORD. Or, is Little willie who malevolently uses other people’s names as his moniker seeing he has already woefully discredited his on another site [‘CNN’] merely corrected his WHITE idol MASSA’s WORDS?
Is the creature SAYING that he ‘maasa’ didn’t use those words or MAKE THOSE PROMISES?
Or, is he TOTALLY ASHAMED TO BE SO CLEARLY REMINDED OF his maasa’s words or BROKEN PROMISES some thirteen years now?
DOES IT GIVE the false moniker ‘useful idiot’ [in the Communists’ parlance, according to the Catholic Thinker], AN UPSET STOMACH and NERVOUS TWITCHES to SEE RALPH GONSALVES recorded WORDS all these years since we were GIVEN THOSE DECEPTIVE, LYING POLITICAL PROMISES?
What low level of followership mi dear, dear ‘comrade’ has these days!
WHO narh politically rape the country, ah thief. Who narh tief ah narh tief ah New York, ah tief ah yard. WHO narh tief ah Finance ministry, ah tief ah Agriculture ministry, ah tief ah Airport, ah tief ah Housing ministry, ah tief ah Public works, ah tief ah registry . . . AD NAUSEUM.
The putrid stench of this hopelessly corrupt administration reaches to the high heavens.
WHO ‘bun down the section at THE MINISTRY OF FINANCE? DO we YET have the full Police REPORT “as yet”? Did we even bother to do a FORENSIC Report?
WASN’T it very, very COINCIDENTAL that we had that MINISTRY OF FINANCE/Financial Complex FIRE and DESTRUCTION of critical RECORDS?
VERY convenient.
Were PASSPORTS involved? Were national ID cards involved? Were NATIONAL CITIZENSHIP matters of State involved? Were there ANY direct or indirect MONEY interests or motivations ultimately involved? WHY WOULD ANY ONE, with likely nefarious political motives, SEEK TO DESTROY OUR SVG NATIONAL CENSUS RECORDS?
What OTHER RECORDS were destroyed in that fire? Has the NATION been informed?
WHO WILL GUARD THE CORRUPT GUARDIANS?
Do YOU remember the IMMIGRATION OFFICE FIRE that totally destroyed the POLICE WELFARE ASSOCIATION SCHOLARSHIP FUND and the old passport and immigration RECORDS?
Did the POLICE investigate ITSELF? WHERE are the Police REPORTS on that CONVENIENT, COINCIDENTAL fire?
Was this still recent FIRE AT THE FINANCIAL COMPLEX also a VERY CONVENIENT, COINCIDENTAL felonious CRIME committed in a futile effort to HIDE THE EVIDENCE OF SOME MAJOR CRIMES? Is the RSVGPF on permanent vacation, or are they THOROUGHLY IN THE POLITICIANS’ HIP-POCKETS, as usual?
Communist Ralphie’s fawning political worshippers are so THOROUGHLY DISGUSTED, REVULSED and FRIGHTENED of their much-vaunted own words/promises?
What a time!
MOON DOES RUN ‘TILL DAY KETCH ‘UM.