Young people are an asset and not a problem to be solved, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves told the Youth Arm convention of the ruling Unity Labour Party on Sunday.
“Never will Labour let down the children and the young people of this country. Never! And the young people appreciate that,” said Gonsalves.
The convention comes ahead of general elections, which Gonsalves says will be held this year, ahead of the March 2016 constitutional deadline.
He accused the main opposition New Democratic Party of seeing young people as “a problem to be solved”.
“When you hear them talk, they talk about young people these days, they get involved in so much wutlissness (worthlessness). They say young people involved in so much crime, they say young people more disrespectful than at any other time in our history. And they see all those as the results of the behaviour of young people and young people is a problem to solve,” Gonsalves said.
“Young people is not a problem to solve; Young people is the heart of the solution for St. Vincent and the Grenadines,” he said.
“When you draw up the balance sheet, young people are not a deficit, they are an asset. When you draw up the balance sheet, the young people are not about weaknesses, it is about strengths. The young people are not about limitations; they are about possibilities. And unless a leadership puts trust and faith in the young people, they cannot put trust and faith in the nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines,” Gonsalves said.
He said that the NDP has criticised several ULP initiatives intended to benefit young people.
Among these, he mentioned 100 per cent mortgages for public servants provided by the then state-owned National Commercial Bank.
Gonsalves said other financial institutions have copied the initiative.
He also mentioned the government’s acting as guarantor for student loans for poor persons, adding that to date the ULP government has guaranteed EC$90 million in such student loans.
Young people have been failed under Gonsalves and his government. The thing young people want is employment, the real failure of Gonsalves and the ULP government. All the long talk contained in this article is just that long talk.
The youth have been failed, no work, no prospects, no future.
NDP will put them all to work, there will be jobs for every school leaver, and those already on the ULP scrap heap will be recovered and rehabilitated.
The ULP have had 15 years to do the same thing and failed; now the ULP want the youth to believe that now they will put them to work, its just more rubbish and trickery.
Peter,
I seriously believe that your mouth is to close to your ASS.
What foolishness you are selling to Vincentians, come on get real brother, What does the ULP know about anything, other than lying, and lying, to Vincentians.
For money you are selling your soul, and now you are trying to destroy Vincentians.
NO WAY MY MAN !
That LAZY Eustace is exactly what he is – LAZY.
You, are a hopeless case, now your case has gone south and it’s so good to know you’ll be soon gone.
Luther Bonaire,
Please that reference to the ULP lying should read ” the NDP ” lying.
Thanks
No one wants the Gonsalves dynasty anymore, anyone with half a brain can see that they want to go on with Maurice Bishops work, just like Gonsalves said he was here for. I believe the rot comes to the family through the Francis side. Remember Ralph is a Francis, because his mother who is a Francis never married his father, and in life we can never be sure who our real fathers are.
Mr Prime Minister, the youth are not the problem you are. We want to rid ourselves of you, the youth will benefit from that.
You need votes now to ensure that you retain power for you and Camillo so the youths suddenly become important to you.What the youths really need now more than ever is jobs so that they can enjoy the good life like you and your family.So why not start to find jobs for them and you can begin this by sending home Vincent Beache and the many other old men and women who you have living off the tax payers of this country to be on your radio stations promoting your party and doing nothing for the development of svg.Why don,t you pay them from your party,s war chest and let the youths have a chance to be employed by tax payers money.Come on Mr PM action speak louder than words .They can,t survive on your big speech.
Lutha Bonadie, you got it right the first time when you rightly put the ULP in the frame.
Your rudeness and crudeness does little to further your cause, if anything it drives decent folk further away from Gonsalves and the party. You and people like you are helpful to the NDP because you help make people realize what riff raff and scum you all really are.
The last thing that Eustace is, is lazy. One thing that we and the world know is that unlike Ralph Gonsalves, Arnhim Eustace has never been charged with rape or any other sex crime against a woman.
It’s useless attacking me I am only the bearer of the truth. I know the truth is damaging to Gonsalves and the ULP. In fact the truth is something that Gonsalves knows very little about.
And further more you only come here and embroider the lies in an attempt to stifle the truth, in an attempt to pretend wrong is right.
What I know is that the Unity Labour Party is not a Labour party, its a Marxist-Leninist party that hijacked the name labour. Its unfortunate that the followers fail to realize the truth. We all know that if some one started a New Labour or a Real Labour and excluded all the Marxist scum from it, the ULP would deflate to what the MNU used to be, because that is who the ULP really is, the MNU.
You are both wrong and right at the same time. Neither party has the answers; neither party can solve our problems.
Why? Because they are intractable.
All we can do is keep sending our surplus people overseas, hoping they will be kind to their families back him.
All we can do is keep begging and borrowing from overseas donors and lenders, hoping to keep one step ahead of a financial meltdown.
All we can do is pray to God, hoping that he will turn our tiny, resource-poor, and low productivity country into a land of milk and honey.
Look, here’s the deal, all to have is mouth, all you can do is talk, why don’t you try and lead, writer something let me and others what you will do for St. Vincent, besides pigging.
You sit on your hand and mouth, talking from both ends, Tell us what you will do better.
If the British government could not turn our economy around during the age of colonial rule following the demise of sugar (which had enriched the country but impoverished the masses) and if generations of local politicians, civil servants, and business people could not turn the economy around, then how can you expect anyone on this site to be expected to offer workeable solutions to our countless economic and social problems?
Smell the coffee, please. There are many countries around the world, especially mini-states like ours, destined to barely tread water from now till Kingdom come simply because the prospects for their development is so limited.
Still, treading water is different from drowning which is what this Argyle airport fiasco will soon accomplish.
Luther Bonadie do you really think it is a coincidence that you wrote ULP instead of NDP?God nah sleep my friend.He is asking you to search your conscience.
My Friend,
Here’s the deal, there is no mistake, I intend to write NDP not ULP.
Please don’t bring God into this mix, God has nothing to do with those Donkey Cart Mentallity Vincentian people, like this Peter whoever.
For you information I am a supporter of Ralph Gonsalves, no hold bars. Like him or hate him the man can think, and he is not Lazy like the joker Eustase.
My problem is for to long people called Vincentian backward,and stupid,and for me to sit here in the year 2015 and still see that backwardness in some Vincentian makes me angry and resent being Vincentian.
The future of SVG is in the youth of today. Education is the key my friends. You all know this and have heard it said many times. Sadly though, and this is the conundrum faced in SVG…. When the youths are educated why would they stay in SVG. Its too small a nation to pay the educated youth what they can earn anywhere else in the world. So the prospects for SVG mainly leave possibly never to return. You may have heard of “Golden Handcuffs” but after that duration has been served they still go ! When you look at the statistics I bet you will see a spike in the very young and the very old. The bit in the middle will be incredibly thin as they are gone.
I know there are very clever Vincentions out there – but thats the point, they are in the main elsewhere in the world with no benefit to SVG. How can that little nation grow with the best prospects for the future jumping ship… Look at your national statistics and you will see.
There are already subsidised houses for the “Professionals” in SVG and we have seen them recently FALLING DOWN.
Well said!