MP for Central Kingstown, St. Clair Leacock says that St. Vincent and the Grenadines has “played the ass” for too long with Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves and his agriculture minister, Saboto Caesar.
Leacock said that since becoming agriculture minister over a decade ago, Caesar has been allocated over a half billion dollars to develop the sector.
“And there is nothing to show for the $500 million that was put at his disposal…” he told the New Democratic Party (NDP’s) “Village Stop” campaign meeting in Chapmans on Saturday.
“But you know, this St. Vincent and the Grenadines has played the ass with Sabato and Ralph for a long time. They shoulda gone long time ago, you know. Long, long time ago;we shoulda done geh rid ah them,” Leacock said.
“We have played the fool with them. And a man who tells you that we can’t ship a 20-foot container out of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, who has every Monday morning he has a new crop … everything that he google he bring to St. Vincent. Ah never see a man with more water boots than Saboto,” Leacock said.
Leacock pointed out that in 2014, the government budgeted EC$520 million for recurrent spending in the country, compared to EC$810 million in 2024.
“And Chapmans can’t show a damn improvement for any of those 300 million more in 10 years under Sabato Caesar. Nothing, as the calypsonian said, to show for their five inna row,” the Central Kingstown MP said.
“All you can know is that the government has forced its hand deeper and deeper into your pockets and has provided you … less and less services, less and less opportunities in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.”
Leacock, who is a vice president of the NDP, said that in the 2014 budget, the minister of agriculture spoke about SVG producing 240,000 units of bananas; 1,000 units of orchids; 40,000 units each of dasheen, pineapples, tannia and sweet potatoes; 50,000 units of cassava; 50,000 units of cassava and 1,000 units of ornamentals.
“In 2024. No thousand. 2024, ten years after, you see nothing in the budget for anything to be produced in St. Vincent and the Grenadines,” Leacock said.
“Interestingly enough … you see him, as per usual, with a lot of big words that he intends for St. Vincent to be an export-led economy. And the first thing he has on the list to drive the export for St. Vincent and the Grenadines is dasheen. The same dasheen that you hear they talking about where the dance can’t pay for the light.”
At the meeting, NDP senator Israel Bruce, the shadow minister of agriculture, said that farmers were making EC$80 for a sack of dasheen, much less than they invested in the crop.
Leacock said that in this year’s Budget Debate, Caesar made “one of the most important statements ever made in Parliament when he said SVG has no product that it can fill a 20-foot container on a weekly basis.
“He rightly said the last time we did that was when we did bananas and we joined with St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Grenada and Dominica…” Leacock said.
“But after 14, 15 years in government and in Parliament, a minister doesn’t have the decency to apologise to the nation as to what he has done with your taxpayers’ money. I am hard on Sabato; very hard. I don’t have enough time to deal with him tonight…” Leacock said.
It is the NDP — New Dunce Party — that’s been “playing the ass” since losing the first election to Ralph Gonsalves’ ULP in 2001.
They lost the next four elections because they keep “playing the ass” over and over like a record player needle stuck in the same groove.
They will score six-in-a-row losses in the next election for the same reason.
What a bunch of losers!
It’s not the ndp who are stupid, it’s vincentians who feel their birthday and xmas have come at once when they are presented with a red. T-shirt.